Refresh rate change only possible at initial settings popup

[QuantumGravity]

Hi,
if at initial settings popup i tick the box to do video settings and in Xrandr choose 1920x1080 50 instead of the initial 1920x1080 60, change is performed correctly (except i loose all mount icons at bottom left of the screen).

if i try again later, i do not get the popup that asks to select "permanent" or "session". Instead, the screen goes black again and reverts spontaneously to 60 after 1 or 2 seconds with no control over it.

Strangely, if i do a simple remastering with those steps:
- select "fr" keyboard in initial settings popup
- tick the box for video settings
- successfully select 1920x 1080 50 in xrandr
- install Seamonkey browser from Quickpet
- set default browser to Seamonkey
- remove palemoon browser
- remaster

Then i can now change back and forth between 1920x1080 50/60 at any time.

Unfortunately, since remastering is a bit broken in Fossa, there are some side effects like default browser setting lost, call to paint each time i use "up" arrow,.. Conky also disappears but i consider that a bonus. Also i confirm pkeys=fr does not work as it did in Bionic.Anyway these are beside the point (by the way i am not using 95fix.sh, just native remastering as proposed by Fossa).

In Bionic64 there is no such refresh rate problem, it works flawlessly. In all 3 cases (Native Fossa, remastered Fossa, Bionic) "nouveau" driver is used. All 3 are booted on exactly the same Hw from the same USB stick. vmlinuz, initrd and all SFS files are copied to a folder on the USB and a grub2 entry added for each, like:

menuentry 'Fossapup64 9.5 RAM mode'{
search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid 031fd1b8-98ed-4578-a4a6-fdg89c290fc4
linux /FossaPup64_9.5/vmlinuz pkeys=fr pdrv=031fd1b8-98ed-4578-a4a6-fdg89c290fc4 psubdir=/FossaPup64_9.5 pfix=ram
initrd /FossaPup64_9.5/initrd.gz
}

No save file is used.

Video card is an Asus GT520 "Silent", Nvidia-based.

I often need to switch refresh rates on the fly as i dislike jerky videos, so a video must always be played back with refresh rate equal to its native framerate (for local as well as streaming). Hence it is a significant problem to me.

[mikewalsh]

@QuantumGravity :- Hello......and to the "kennels"..!

There IS an official Nvidia driver available through the Quickpet app - Menu->Setup->Quickpet->Drivers tab. I run a GT710 fanless myself; I found this was needed, 'cos trying to move windows around the desktop was unbelievably "lazy" with the nouveau driver. PhilB, Fossapup's developer, was having no end of issues trying to get the nouveau driver and the compositor to 'play nice' together. In the end he caved in and compiled the official driver; it was just the easier option.

I'm not sure if you can alter the refresh rate with the Nvidia X-Server Settings utility, but I know you can make a lot of alterations with it.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

I know nothing about changing video driver settings. However, there's another, simpler way of capturing them other than remastering [although Fossapup64 complicates this a little].

The Save2SFS module of the nicOS-Utility-Suite, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 983#p12983 will capture your current setting and write them to either a ydrv.sfs or adrv.sfs. Locate that file next to your other system files (e.g. puppy_fossapup64_9.5.sfs) and on next boot-up those 'captured' settings will be used*.

You don't have to have a SaveFile/folder to use the nicOS-Utility-Suite.pet. Just install it and Menu>Exit>Restart Graphical Server. That causes Puppys to re-catalog what makes up their 'merged-system-in-RAM'.

The complicating factor with Fossapup64 is that Fossapup64 already has an adrv.sfs: adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. In the merge-file-system, adrvs have priority over ydrvs. So before doing the above, Right-Click adrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs, select Rename, and rename it ydrv_fossapup64_9.5.sfs. You can do that from a running Fossapup64 as the contents of the adrv were copied into RAM on bootup. Then use the Save2SFS module to create a new adrv.sfs.

--=-=-=---
* This true of all settings in /root, including those hidden settings in /root/.config and /root/.local: hidden in that you have to Left-Click rox's "Eye", or 'Show hidden files' if some other file-manager is used.

[williams2]

Usually it is good to set the video mode (resolution) to the native resolution of the video monitor.

The X wizard should write the configuration in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

If it seems to work properly, it would be a good idea to backup xorg.conf.
Puppy sometimes writes over files like xorg.conf.
You could copy the backup file every time Puppy boots by putting a line in /etc/rc.d/rc.local something like:

cp /etc/X11/xorg.confBAK /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You can also set what driver X tries to use in xorg.conf.
Xorg is very automatic, and may not honour your desired mode.

Every time you restart X, any changes you made using xrandr are lost.

If for some reason X falls back to the vesa driver, you would not be able to set the refresh rate, and there will be limited choice of resolution modes.

You can try lxrandr, it put a .desktop file in /root/.config/autostart/

The bottom lines in the file /var/log/Xorg.0.log should tell you what video driver is being used.

If you use the Rox pinboard (the desktop) and If you change the resolution using xrandr then you should then do something like this:

Code: Select all

fixPuppyPin
rox -p /root/Choices/ROX-Filer/PuppyPin

[QuantumGravity]

Thanks for the wealth of advice !
Regarding Save2SFS, will it also save the Nvidia driver? Actually i was wondering why it was not provided as an SFS to begin with...

Anyway since first message, i was busy trying the Nvidia driver, and for the first time for puppy and my video card, it worked!
However it was only possible on Fossa because someone went to the trouble of compiling the 340.108 on it. I cannot use the same in Bionic, for example. I once tried to compile the driver by myself, but had to give up, if only for memory available on my old machine. Hence i do not consider this Nvidia option to be very future-proof, assuming i still hang on to the same Hw. But indeed, it allows for selection of 24/50/60 fps at will.

Nevertheless, the hard work done by PhilB on integration of "nouveau" has seemingly paid off, as it actually gives me a better result: solid video image while nvidia with vdpau-copy hw acceleration has some tearing and jerkyness. Went through many of the tips and tricks but did not hit the magic combination yet.

Anyway, regardless of driver, if i look closely to Glxgears, every few seconds i see a slight hesitation from the cogs. Stopped conky as a prime suspect, but to no avail. Some background process seems to be interfering with video.

In case someone new to this wants to try, i'll just outline the steps i used:

- first and foremost, put module_blacklist=nouveau in kernel boot options
- FussaPup will boot under Vesa
- pick the driver from quickpet (two versions to try)
- after the download, when the popup asks for installation, before clicking on "Ok", save the .pet from /root to some non volatile storage, in anticipation of many retries
- then accept installation. After it is done, wait further for "intializing driver...wait" and "..reboot computer..." messages. The latter makes no sense on a RAM-based frugal install, but can fortunately be ignored.
- in a terminal, type "nvidia-xconfig"
- use "restart graphical server" from exit menu.
- it is now working and you can access the Nvidia settings from "system" menu
- then indeed repair all the damage done by the wizard to the xorg.conf, by merging appropriate parts of created backup file (or perhaps just change the driver to "nvidia" in the backup).

Bug found on the way: if you exit X while under Vesa with ctrl alt backspace, what you type on keyboard in text mode is invisible. but blindly typing xwin[enter] puts you back under X. A case of black characters on a black background ?

[QuantumGravity]

I should add that the good performance i saw with nouveau were only for a 720p50 , 5 Mbps average local storage video.
My system will not decode 1080p50 very well in Sw. For that i use Hw decoding, which, i have to mention, works perfectly smoothly under windows XP.

On the other end i have no tearing using Brave Web Browser over Nvidia driver with Hw acceleration set in browser in FossaPup.
Motion smoothness is reasonably correct, but you never know how a youtube video really is to begin with.
Here also, using 720p full screen as a reasonable compromise.