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

[Jim Abernathy]

On 5/10/20 11:04 AM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> 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.

It was actually easier going from internal Intel GFX to Nvidia GT1030.

Since my motherboard is old, I could not see the BIOS or grub display on 
the 4K monitor prior to this. I added the card and moved the HDMI from 
internal to the GT1030 and booted up to a 4K desktop which is too small 
for me.

I used the additional drivers app and found it was using the Nouveau 
open source driver. I selected the nvidia-440 and rebooted.  Then I used 
the Nvidia X server settings app to set the display to 1920x1080 at 60hz.

Works great. I had the changed audio and video settings on mythfrontend 
and I had to change the default sound for the system to the HDMI port on 
the GT1030 card.

So no hassle at all.

Jim A