[mythtv-users] Nvida card choice for mythtv and gaming

[Stephen Worthington]

On Sun, 10 May 2020 10:08:58 -0400, you wrote:

>
>On 5/8/20 3:11 PM, James Abernathy wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 9:33 AM Erik Merkle <mythtv at emerkle.net 
>> <mailto:mythtv at emerkle.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     I would second the NVidia GT1030. I've had mine for a few years
>>     now and it has worked well for me. It is the "lowest" card in the
>>     NVidia lineup that supports NVidia's newer NVDEC api, and handles
>>     all the HEVC/H.265 content I've been able to throw at it. Brand
>>     new, they are available for around $85-100 US on Amazon.
>>
>>     -Erik
>>
>>     On Fri, May 8, 2020 at 7:10 AM Stephen Worthington
>>     <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz <mailto:stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz>> wrote:
>>
>>         On Fri, 8 May 2020 07:02:35 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>         >Being stuck at home gives me time to come up with computer
>>         projects. So
>>         >I thinking about taking an old Core i7 2600 and moving it to
>>         a closet
>>         >near my 4K UHD TV in the family room. I would need to add a
>>         GFX card,
>>         >even for mythtv as the internal graphics are unacceptable to
>>         me.  And
>>         >lower end gaming would require a better card than mythtv.
>>         >
>>         >So I looking for what works for y'all at an acceptable price.
>>         My current
>>         >card in another desktop that seems fine for mythtv is a
>>         GeForce GT 710,
>>         >but that's old. That would be my bottom end choice. Fanless
>>         would be
>>         >great, but since it's in a closet, not required.
>>         >
>>         >Jim A
>>
>>         For MythTV, a fanless Nvidia GT1030 card is fine.  You do need two
>>         slots for the fanless versions.  If you get a fan version GT1030,
>>         there are single slot cards.  I do not do gaming, so I can not
>>         tell
>>         you about that.  But if you want long life, you really do want the
>>         fanless cards.  All of mine are still working 8-9 years on after
>>         mostly 24/7 operation for that time.
>>
>>
>> I think I'll go with GT 1030. I've had good look with the GT710, so I 
>> have my fingers crossed,
>>
>> Thanks, all
>> Jim A
>
>I forgot to ask about the proper upgrade process for adding a new GT1030 
>into a system using internal Intel GFX. Part of me thinks it would be 
>best to install the nvidia drivers and utilities prior to popping in the 
>new card.
>
>Any advice??

I have never done that, but I have recently done an upgrade where I
went from a GT220 to a GT1030.  The Nvidia drivers needed for the
GT220 will not run a GT1030 and the drivers needed for a GT1030 will
not run a GT220.  So what I did was to change the video card, then
when I rebooted, I used the grub menu to select recovery mode (text
mode only boot) and from the recovery menu I selected going to a root
prompt.  From there, I ran the "ubuntu-drivers devices" command to get
a list of devices and the drivers the system thought were needed.  The
suggested driver package was Nvidia 440, which is right for a GT1030,
so then I just ran "ubuntu-drivers install" and it downloaded and
installed the 440 drivers.  Then I did a "reboot" command and the
system came up on the new drivers just fine.  I have yet to look at
the options I have in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file - there may be
something to adjust there.  But I have not got much spare time at the
moment, so since it was working, I have not tried any adjustments yet.

I am not sure if it is possible to pre-load a driver set when you do
not have any hardware installed that it can run on.  I suspect that
the install would fail.

If you want to be paranoid, then I would suggest using a clonezilla
boot to do a full backup of your system partition before upgrading.
That way if anything goes badly wrong, you can just restore the backup
(and go back to the Intel video).

Since you will still have the Intel video hardware installed after you
add the GT1030, you should be able to boot using the Intel drivers
once you have the GT1030 installed, and then just install the Nvidia
440 drivers.  Then reboot into the BIOS and switch its settings to
booting using the PCIe video rather than the motherboard video.  Shut
down, move the video cable to the GT1030 card and reboot and it should
all work.  And after that, it should also work to use the Intel video
for a second monitor if you want.  Or have two monitors on the GT1030
and a third on the Intel.