nvidia tv-out broken after upgrade to xfree 4.3.0

jay · l33t Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 980

Until recently I had my GeForce 420MX working properly with the TwinView option for watching mplayer videos on my connected TV. After migrating to Xfree 4.3.0 I'm just getting a black screen instead of a duplicate image from my monitor.

The documentation under /usr/doc/nvidia-glx-4xxx/readme don't specify anything where to troubleshoot when the tv stays black.

Here are my relevant XFree configuration parts:

RangerDude · Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Posts: 301

That's maybe why I never managed to make the CRT *and* the TV work at the same time. XFree 4.3 is broke...?

jay · l33t Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 980

I really don't know. Maybe its a problem with the nvidia drivers AND xfree 4.3 ? What driver do you currently use? I tried 1.0.4349 and 4363 with no luck.

There are no error messages in /var/log/xfree.log and I made sure that the cable or S-VIDEO on TV are not faulty (it works when conneting to my dvd-player).

Anybody has an idea or a working configuration?
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searcher · Apprentice Joined: 13 Mar 2003 Posts: 175 Location: NL

I have a GeForce 2 mx 200 with tv-out, and it works fine in TwinView using XFree 4.3.0 and nvidia drivers 1.0.4349. The only thing that doesn't work and rather puzzles me is that i get a black bar on the top of the screen on the tv. This happened after i upgraded the drivers to the latest version, so i'm experimenting with modelines now to get the picture up. Any nice programs on that subject would be greatly appreciated

Here's my XF86Config (The bit that matters)

RangerDude · Guru Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Posts: 301

I just get a blank screen and nothing on the TV when i startx.
My XF86config

hygge · n00b Joined: 07 Jan 2003 Posts: 66 Location: Sweden

i've also noticed that the resulting tv-out screen using nvidias driver and xfree 4 wont go out in the corners (as the vcr does for example), the picture is centred and some blacklines is shown around it...

(i know there is a solution for ms windows using the app 'tvtool' where you can set the picture to be in 100% fullscreen mode. as the telivision cuts some parts of the picture (standard margins, to make sure no black bars are shown), and does that for every media, you miss some of the picture anyways. the solution is to go look for how big a window should be to perfectly fit on your television, and insert these values into tvtool. then you can use tvtools windowresize-function on the window you want to show.)

however, this solution is a bit clumsy and it would offcourse be smarter to have options set somewhere to make the screen perfect from the begining. do you boys know a solution to this?

theJPster · Posted: Sun May 11, 2003 4:40 pm Post subject:

jay · l33t Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 980

Still no luck.
I tried to set up the TV as a second screen like you described above, but the TV remains black. But I know there mus be a signal somewhere, because when I switch into the console with CRTL-ALT-F1 something is flimmering on the TV screen.
I tried it also with an non-framebuffer kernel, COMPOSITE instead of SVIDEO, Twinview set to "true"...nothing. I really don't understand this since, it was working with exatly the same configuration before the upgrade....

I also tried setting up the TV as a single monitor, doesn't work either....
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theJPster · Posted: Mon May 12, 2003 10:29 am Post subject: multi screen mode

In multi-screen mode, can you lose the mouse cursor off the left hand side of your monitor? That would suggest that X has setup the screen. Also, I'd set NoLogo to false so you can see if X is initialising the screen.

The only other things I can think of are make sure the cable is connected to the graphics card and the TV before you turn your PC on. On my GF4MX440SE (what a mouthfull...) this means I get a black and white copy of my bootup sequence (I guess it's feeding my PAL TV some NTSC, which I don't know how to change before I get to X). Does yours do that? If so it's an X problem.

As for SVIDEO and Composite, set what is appropriate for your lead. I've got a proper 4-pin mini-DIN lead running to a 4-pin SVIDEO socket on the TV. Sometimes scart adaptors let you plug an SVideo lead into a scart socket, but the TV doesn't accept SVideo from that socket and so it'll be black and white. The composite leads are the regular RCA/Phono leads (and often require an adaptor at the Graphics card end). That, I'm sure, everyone already knew. Oh and make sure you've got the output signal format correct. It's PAL-I for the UK, NTSC for America and all the others'll be listed in the nvidia-glx Readme.gz file.

/me clutches at more straws

I hate to say it, but have you tried booting Windows and re-checking the TwinView capabilities in that? Oh, and have you tried re-emerging the nvidia drivers (just in case something important got overwritten). Presumably the logs mention that the nVidia driver is loading and everything?

jay · l33t Joined: 08 May 2002 Posts: 980

Yahoo, I solved it! The nvidia drivers above 1.0.3123-r2 are buggy and can't display TV-Out correctly. I tried the 4191-r2, 4349 drivers, but they seem to have the same problem. As a matter of curiosity I took my nvidia card to a friend to check if the same problem exists - indeed, all XP drivers above version 6.0.3082 also have a broken TV-Out.

Since other people have TV out working with the 4xxx drivers it seems to be card-specific issue. Mine is using the (NV17) chipset which comes with a built-in tv decoder, it's one of those cards wich wont work unter nvtv (linux) or tvtool (xp) since nVidia won't release the chipset specifications. The older GeForce 2 cars use a Brooktree chipset.

The idea to this solution came into my mind when JPster (Thanks!) mentioned the losing of the mouse-cursor to the second screen. So X must have set up the screen corretly.
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hygge · n00b Joined: 07 Jan 2003 Posts: 66 Location: Sweden

thanks theJPster!
that was just the option i looked for. i will try it as soon as i get home

have a nice day!

bushwakko · Guru Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 495

I wonder about something when I hear you guys use two screens and twinview and such. I've tried them both and what I saw is that I get horizontal tearinsg in the image on the TV, as if it's running at the same "fps" as the CRT-monitor but still running at it's own hz(60 or something). It's just like running quake at 100+fps and using 60hz, you'll get tearings all over the place. I can't be the only one who gets this?! or am I the only one who sees it?
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