nvidia on FreeBSD 5.3

[Csaba Molnár]

I'm not on the list, that's why I mail directly...

I noticed some strange behaviour on FreeBSD 5.3. I had these settings
in my /etc/sysctl.conf
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableVia4x=1
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPSBA=1
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPFW=1

However, EnableAGPSBA/AGPFW was still not set after boot up for some
strange reason. glxgears with this setting reported ~250-300 fps. Card
is: GeForce FX 5200/128 (64 bit).

After changing registry values manually, (sysctl
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableVia4x=1 ...) fps is now:
mcsaba at mcsaba$ glxgears 
3319 frames in 5.0 seconds = 663.800 FPS
4537 frames in 5.0 seconds = 907.400 FPS
4528 frames in 5.0 seconds = 905.600 FPS
4506 frames in 5.0 seconds = 901.200 FPS
4544 frames in 5.0 seconds = 908.800 FPS
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
mcsaba at mcsaba$ 

I put 
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPSBA=1
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPFW=1
in /boot/loader.conf, and now they seem to be set at boot up, however,
sysctl -a | grep nvidia still reports status as disabled. I know it
isn't because there is a substantial difference, but here is my output
anyway:
root at mcsaba# sysctl -a | grep nvidia
       nvidia   348   738K    791K     6419  16,32,64,128,256,512,1024,2048,4096
hw.nvidia.agp.card.rates: 4x 2x 1x 
hw.nvidia.agp.card.fw: supported
hw.nvidia.agp.card.sba: supported
hw.nvidia.agp.card.registers: 0x1f000217:0x1f000104
hw.nvidia.agp.status.status: enabled
hw.nvidia.agp.status.driver: freebsd (agp.ko)
hw.nvidia.agp.status.rate: 4x
hw.nvidia.agp.status.fw: disabled
hw.nvidia.agp.status.sba: disabled
hw.nvidia.version: NVIDIA FreeBSD x86 NVIDIA Kernel Module  1.0-6113 
Mon Aug  2 16:08:32 PDT 2004
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableVia4x: 1
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableALiAGP: 0
hw.nvidia.registry.NvAGP: 3
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPSBA: 1
hw.nvidia.registry.EnableAGPFW: 1
hw.nvidia.registry.SoftEDIDs: 1
hw.nvidia.registry.Mobile: 4294967295
hw.nvidia.registry.ResmanDebugLevel: 4294967295
hw.nvidia.registry.FlatPanelMode: 0
hw.nvidia.cards.0.model: GeForce FX 5200
hw.nvidia.cards.0.irq: 16
hw.nvidia.cards.0.vbios: 04.34.20.27.06
hw.nvidia.cards.0.type: AGP
dev.nvidia.0.%desc: GeForce FX 5200
dev.nvidia.0.%driver: nvidia
dev.nvidia.0.%location: slot=0 function=0
dev.nvidia.0.%pnpinfo: vendor=0x10de device=0x0322 subvendor=0x0000
subdevice=0x0000 class=0x030000
dev.nvidia.0.%parent: pci1

I compiled the nvidia-driver port WITH_ACPI=yes WITH_FREEBSD_AGP=yes
WITH_LINUX=yes

I don't know what might be the problem in your setting. I just thought
that it might help if you compare it with my system. Where did you
measure those fps? If it was with your own prog, than it must be
something with your own prog. (you might try glxgears on both linux
and freebsd as well). Unfortunately, I'm not a programmer, so I can't
help much with that. Maybe if you post more details someone else might
be more helpful :)