Higher framebuffer resolutions not available during bootup/console - nvidia properietary driver

ash25 · June 26, 2011, 8:33pm

Hi

I’m using the 270.41.19 nvidia properietary driver for my Geforce GTX460 graphics card. I have a Sony TV connected to my HDMI and I know it supports the 1920x1080 resolution. Yes it works after gnome or other DE loads up.

But during the GRUB screen and the bootup console - It defaulted to a 640x480 resolution (as it always does with the nvidia prop driver). I usually used to check the output of hwinfo --framebuffer and choose the resolution by appending the right vga=0xabc parameter.

But now I have a problem since hwinfo says the best widescreen 16:10 framebuffer resolution that my card supports is 1280x800. Here is the output from hwinfo --vbe which should give the info about both my gfx card and my TV.

The initial nouveau driver was able to output native 1920x1080 during the bootup on the console without issues, so I guess even the properietary driver should be able to output (If my understanding is right the nvidia module loads later during the bootup and only is required for the X but not for the console itself).

Thanks.

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer
  [Created at bios.459]
  Unique ID: rdCR.BfO5bYYtG87
  Hardware Class: framebuffer
  Model: "NVIDIA GF104 Board - 10410001"
  Vendor: "NVIDIA Corporation"
  Device: "GF104 Board - 10410001"
  SubVendor: "NVIDIA"
  SubDevice: 
  Revision: "Chip Rev"
  Memory Size: 14 MB
  Memory Range: 0xf1000000-0xf1dfffff (rw)
  Mode 0x0300: 640x400 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+800), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0307: 1280x1024 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x030e: 320x200 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x030f: 320x200 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
  Mode 0x031a: 1280x1024 (+2560), 16 bits
  Mode 0x031b: 1280x1024 (+5120), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0330: 320x200 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0331: 320x400 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0332: 320x400 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0333: 320x400 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0334: 320x240 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0335: 320x240 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0336: 320x240 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x033d: 640x400 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x033e: 640x400 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0360: 1280x800 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0361: 1280x800 (+5120), 24 bits
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

03: None 00.0: 10002 LCD Monitor
  [Created at monitor.95]
  Unique ID: rdCR.fKgMkxmECl1
  Hardware Class: monitor
  Model: "SONY TV"
  Vendor: SNY "SONY"
  Device: eisa 0xf301 "SONY TV"
  Resolution: 640x480@60Hz
  Resolution: 800x600@60Hz
  Resolution: 1024x768@60Hz
  Resolution: 1280x1024@60Hz
  Resolution: 1280x720@60Hz
  Resolution: 1920x1080@60Hz
  Size: 1600x900 mm
  Detailed Timings #0:
     Resolution: 1920x1080
     Horizontal: 1920 2008 2052 2200 (+88 +132 +280) +hsync
       Vertical: 1080 1084 1089 1125 (+4 +9 +45) +vsync
    Frequencies: 148.50 MHz, 67.50 kHz, 60.00 Hz
  Detailed Timings #1:
     Resolution: 1280x720
     Horizontal: 1280 1390 1430 1650 (+110 +150 +370) +hsync
       Vertical:  720  725  730  750 (+5 +10 +30) +vsync
    Frequencies: 74.25 MHz, 45.00 kHz, 60.00 Hz
  Driver Info #0:
    Max. Resolution: 1920x1080
    Vert. Sync Range: 58-62 Hz
    Hor. Sync Range: 15-70 kHz
    Bandwidth: 148 MHz
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

martin_helm · June 26, 2011, 8:54pm

To be sure about that can you add “vga=ask” as parameter to the grub boot,
this will list the modes which can be detected. I am not absolutely sure if
hwinfo will detect everything which is possible at boot.

bsilvereagle · June 27, 2011, 12:39am

Install uvesafb. It will handle your graphics when in a console then hand things over to Nvidia when the GUI hits. It will also allow you to have Virtual Terminals with a Nvidia driver. I believe it will get you the resolution you want. I installed using the instruction set for Arch Linux because I didn’t find one for openSuse. Good luck.

ash25 · July 1, 2011, 1:34am

Sorry for the late reply, I could not power off my machine for the past 4 days since I had some huge download/transfer running and didn’t wanna interrupt that.

Today I got a chance to try vga=ask and unfortunately it shows almost the same set of resolutions that hwinfo detected.

@bsilvereagle - I’ll take a look at uvesafb - thanks

On a related note there seems to be no standard linux or vesa mode number for 1920x1080 resolution - otherwise I could have given that a shot. Any ideas how nouveau is able to do it (has it got something to do with KMS) ?