Video Card for FreeBSD 9.0 (RC2) AMD64

[Matt Dawson]

On Monday 12 Dec 2011 05:56:31 you wrote:
> These are two different requirements. A "fully supported video
> card" would mean that you can access all the features of the video
> chip set. On 64bit FreeBSD, that pretty much lets out NVidia and
> ATI - neither release full docs or 64bit proprietary drivers for
> FreeBSD (though NVidia has been working on theirs). You'll need to
> try some other manufacturers chip sets.

Um, no. nVidia and the x11/nvidia-driver port supports >6xxx series 
cards with full acceleration and VDPAU for >8xxx cards on amd64 and 
has done for quite some time. nVidia is currently the *only* way to go 
for fully supported graphics past basic DDX. Radeons can be coerced 
into some semblance of 3D support but there's no xvmc or stream decode 
support at all for us. fglrx has it, but that's Linux only and isn't 
as well supported as VDPAU on things like MythTV and mplayer.

I have an HTPC running FreeBSD into a generic "full HD" 32" LCD and 
the el-cheapo GeForce 210 in that box with the ports nvidia-driver 
binary blob works fine with full 1920x1080 resolution over HDMI on 
amd64. It even supports the on-board Azalia (snd_hda(4)) capabilities 
of that connection so I don't have to faff about with speakers.

F the OP's I:
xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"                                                                                                                                           
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"                                                                                                                            
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0                                                                                                                                 
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "AIGLX" "True"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    ModulePath      "/usr/local/lib/xorg/modules"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/OTF"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
    FontPath        "/usr/local/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "record"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/sysmouse"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    Option         "DPMS" "False"
    Option         "DPI" "80x80" # Some Chinese imports don't supply 
					     # the correct EDID information.
    DisplaySize    695 390       # See above, same reason.
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Option         "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "True"
    Option         "DamageEvents" "True"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "True"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "metamodes" "1920x1080 at 60 +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

$ ls /var/db/pkg | grep nvidia
nvidia-driver-285.05.09
nvidia-settings-285.05.09

$ pciconf -lv
[...]
vgapci0 at pci0:3:0:0:     class=0x030000 card=0x00000000 chip=0x0a6510de 
rev=0xa2 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'NVIDIA Corporation'
    device     = 'Nvidia 200 Series (GeForce 210)'
    class      = display
    subclass   = VGA
hdac0 at pci0:3:0:1:       class=0x040300 card=0x00000000 chip=0x0be310de 
rev=0xa1 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'NVIDIA Corporation'
    class      = multimedia
    subclass   = HDA

In /boot/loader.conf (to get HDMI audio running):
dev.hdac.0.polling="1"
hw.snd.default_unit="1"

$ uname -m
amd64
-- 
Matt Dawson
MTD15-RIPE
matt at chronos.org.uk