This FAQ allows you to navigate through the answers by category, or individually, or to view the entire FAQ at once. The full view is also suitable for printing.

This FAQ is modelled on the Linux HOWTO documents for consistency and ease of navigation.

The maintainers of the FAQ can be reached by e-mailing faqs@lokigames.com. Please send all correspondance directly related to the FAQlist tool to that address.

We are in the process of adding documentation for all supported chipset under DRI, and fleshing out the details on the nVidia-based cards.

There are some troubleshooting tips to be added.

[2001/03/14]:

• 3dfx, supported on Intel x86, AMD and Alpha:
  • Voodoo5 5500
  • Voodoo4 4500
  • Voodoo3 3500 TV
  • Voodoo3 3000 AGP
  • Voodoo3 3000 PCI
  • Voodoo3 2000 AGP
  • Voodoo3 2000 PCI
  • Voodoo Banshee
  • Velocity 100/200
  There are many configurations of 3dfx cards on the market. Not all have been tested.
• Matrox, supported on Intel x86 and AMD:
  • Matrox G200
  • Matrox G400
• Intel i810 (motherboard chipset)
  • i810
  • i810-dc100
  • i810e
• ATI Rage 128, supported on Intel x86 and AMD:
  • Rage Fury
  • Rage Magnum
  • XPERT 2000
  • XPERT 128
  • XPERT 99
  • All-in-Wonder 128
  Note that both PCI and AGP versions of Rage 128 based cards are supported at this time.
• ATI Radeon, supported on Intel x86 and AMD:
  • Radeon SDR AGP
  • Radeon DDR AGP
• 3Dlabs, supported on Intel x86 and AMD:
  • 3DLabs Oxygen GMX 2000 (Dual MX/Gamma based).
  • Elsa Gloria-XXL (MX/Gamma based).

The most recent version of this list can be found in the DRI User's Guide (http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIuserguide.html).

As a general rule, you are probably better off building it from source (if you are comfortable doing so). You need to build it from source if you are using an ATI Radeon card or a Matrox G400/G450 card. These cards have known issues in the versions which shipped with XFree86 4.0.2.

If your current 3D setup is performing well, you should only upgrade if there is a specific feature or bugfix that you need.

Note: If you are using a version of XFree86 prior to the current release (as of this writing, 4.0.2), you should upgrade to that before determining if you need to build DRI from the source. Versions of XFree86 prior to 4.0.2 do not provide support for the Rage 128 and Radeon cards.

If you are uncomfortable with CVS, note that the DRI project has begun supplying packages to ease the installation. You should be able to update an existing XFree86 4.0.x install with these packages easily. As of this writing, the package files are linked from the DRI download page (http://dri.sourceforge.net/download.phtml).

Before checking out the rest of the 3Dfx-specific section, please read the general notes on DRI.

The supported cards are the Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo 3, Voodoo 4, and Voodoo 5 cards. Voodoo 1, Voodoo Rush, and Voodoo 2 cards are not supported by DRI.

You will need a working Glide3 installation (configured specifically for your video card) and an installation of XFree86 4.0.x or later, with a matching version of DRI. Newer is usually better.

Glide3 is typically available in distributions (if available at all) as glide3_V3 (Banshee and Voodoo 3) or glide3-V5 (Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5). You will need to get it from http://glide.sourceforge.net if your distribution does not include it.

Some distributions are known to configure these cards correctly on initial installation, but you may still want to update to XFree86 4.1.0 for improvements in the 3D support.

Multitexturing is handled in software for the Voodoo Banshee and (empirically) on a subset of the Voodoo 3 cards. Most games offer a way to disable this (e.g. descent3 --nomultitexture or heretic2 +set gl_extmultitexture 0), but you can completely disable the extension with an environment variable. Set FX_DONT_FAKE_MULTITEX to 1, and then run the game. For any game which uses multitexturing, this will likely have a noticable speed-up.

An example:

    export FX_DONT_FAKE_MULTITEX=1
    heretic2

In addition to the base install, you will need to install these packages from the 2nd CD (in the preview/RPMS directory):

    Glide3-20000823-1.i386.rpm
    Glide3-devel-20000823-1.i386.rpm
    tdfx_dri-4.0.1-1.i386.rpm

You will also need to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 and add the line Mode 0666 to the Section "DRI" segment at the end of the file, e.g.:

    Section "DRI"
        Mode 0666
    EndSection

More details about this particular section, and what additional security options are available, can be found in the DRI User's Guide (http://dri.sourceforge.net/doc/DRIuserguide.html) on the DRI web page (http://dri.sourceforge.net/).

It is also possible to use XFree86 3.3.6 with RH 7. To do this, configure the X server with XConfigurator --preferxf3 and edit the X symlink in /usr/X11R6/bin/ to point to the preferred server.

Certain versions of DRI have a known palette-blanking issue when run on 3Dfx hardware, triggered by calling the X-server's gamma functions. This was fixed in January, 2001, but was not included in the XFree86 4.0.2 and 4.0.3 releases. XFree86 4.1.0 does include this fix, as does the current DRI CVS. You should either upgrade to XFree86 4.1.0, or fetch a new version of DRI and build and install it.

Some games (MindRover, Descent 3) have workarounds for this particular driver issue. See the individual product FAQs for details.

Before checking out the rest of the 3Dfx-specific section, please read the general notes on DRI.

The various Rage 128-based cards (including the Rage 128 Pro cards, e.g. the Rage Fury Pro) are supported with DRI. The original Rage Pro chipset, however, is not well-supported under DRI, and we recommend using Utah-GLX instead.

XFree86 4.0.2 or later includes Rage 128 support. There were a number of texturing issues fixed later (included in XFree86 4.1.0 and in the current DRI CVS), so you may need to update if you are seeing minor texturing glitches.

Some distributions are known to configure these cards correctly on initial installation, but you may still want to update to XFree86 4.1.0 for improvements in the 3D support (e.g. texturing issues).

You will probably need to install XFree86 4.1.0 and DRI from CVS, as XFree86 (through 4.0.3) does not seem to configure good Radeon support. As this driver is under continual development, it is a good idea to monitor the dri-devel list and periodically update to the current development snapshot.

We have not found any distributions which get this configured well and correctly on initial installation.

The necessary drivers for XFree86 4.0.x are located at http://www.nvidia.com, in the Linux Drivers section. There are instructions on the site for installation.

The general outline is:

1. Download the latest drivers
2. Compile and install the nVidia kernel driver
3. Install the libraries
4. Restart your X server, and check the startup text to make certain the driver was initialized
5. Test with an OpenGL application

Most of our games require that your X server has the 640x480 mode as a valid resolution (and defining 800x600 and 1024x768 if you haven't already is probably a good idea). Please refer to your distribution's documentation (or perhaps the Linux Documentation Project (http://www.linuxdoc.org/)) for information on configuring the correct timings for your monitor.

You are likely hitting one of two issues: either the drivers are not completely installed (in particular, the if the kernel module is not correctly built, you will not be able to attain 3D hardware acceleration without running as root), or you still have copies of the Mesa library still lying around on your system. nVidia offers advice in their FAQ (http://www.nvidia.com/; support | drivers | Linux drivers | FAQ) on resolving the latter situation.

You may also want to try the nv_check.sh script to verify that the driver was installed correctly. See the answer to the next question for more information.

The initial release of RedHat 7.0 has some conflicts with the nVidia drivers. In particular, it is impossible to compile the kernel module with the default gcc, as it appears that the shipped kernel headers do not match the kernel version.

nVidia has a fix, which is available via DCC on Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Visit the channel #nvidia on the IRC server irc.openprojects.net, and /msg ice-dcc xdcc list. That will return download instructions and file names.

If you cannot or will not join IRC, there are two work-arounds:

1. use kgcc, which is linked to the correct kernel headers
2. or build your own kernel, run the newly-built kernel, and then re-build the nVidia kernel module.

LinuxGames posted a guide, sent in by a reader, at http://www.linuxgames.com/articles/nvidia-mandrake7.txt

There is a script (nv_check.sh) which can be used to validate the installation and see where any errors may be lurking in the driver setup. We have mirrored a copy of this handy script at http://www.lokigames.com/~heimdall/nvidia/nv_check.sh.

Prior to assuming that your 3D application or game is broken, we suggest that you check your nVidia driver install with this script.

Make sure that glxinfo runs without crashing. If it doesn't (and it probably will crash), this may be a permissions issue. Some versions of xdm (and derivatives) incorrectly reset permissions on the various /dev/nv* device nodes, which prevent users from being able to access the card for 3D applications. Similarly, some distributions use automatic permission-changers during login, which has the same effect.

The fix for this particular problem is to (as root) change the permissions with: chmod 666 /dev/nv* which will give read-write permissions to all users.

Yes. The following sites also have information about installing the nVidia drivers:

• http://www.evil3d.net/articles.shtml (several distribution-specific HOWTOs)
• http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/3dlinux/4.shtml

If the answer is not in this FAQ or in the FAQ available through nVidia's site (http://www.nvidia.com), you may want to visit the IRC channel #nvidia on the IRC server irc.openprojects.net.

If you have found a definite bug, please use the bug-reporting mechanisms outlined on nVidia's web pages (http://www.nvidia.com).

This varies by driver group. The general answer would be to visit the specific site and follow the links for the bug report avenues.

For nVidia, see http://www.nvidia.com/.

For the DRI cards (Matrox, ATI, 3Dfx), see http://dri.sourceforge.net.

If there is an error in the FAQList, or you feel that there is additional information which could help the FAQ, you may email faqs@lokigames.com.

Technical support for 3D drivers is not available from that e-mail address.

Please refer to the technical support listed under your video card type. Loki Software does not offer general support for the 3D drivers.

If you are using a commercial X server, you will need to contact the company that is developing your X server.