The hardware manufacturers have clearly taken notice and a leaked slide from nVidia shows that the company is prepping a 3D version of it’s Tegra 2 graphics processor for later this spring.

The leaked slide was obtained by TechEye and shows a 1.2GHz Dual cortex A9 processor and this is aexactly the type of technology that can bring 3D direct to tablets and smartphones long before it hits a critical mass on PCs and Macs.

Small tablets, aimed specifically at gaming would benefit greatly from 3D, essentially making them more saleable, and we could also expect companies such as Nintendo and Sony to be very interested in such technology for their next generation handheld consoles.

It’s clear that by the end of 2011 this will be the subject we’ll all be talking about in the way we were all talking about tablets at the end of 2010.  It’s going to be very exciting seeing the different way that 3D is implemented.

I did not have any troubles adding the video card to my PC but noticed right away that the fan speed in 2D mode was everything but silent. The noise was there and it was irritating from minute one on. Maybe it is because I’m very noise sensitive, or because my PC has been designed with less-noise in mind. Still, the noise of the Geforce 470 video card was a problem that I had to cope with.

I first tried running Rivatuner to set the fan speed but that was not working as it did not change a thing. Next up was Nvidia’s own NTune which has a switch to change the 3D GPU speed only. Changing the slider did seem to have an effect on the fan speed but it was not quiet enough to satisfy me.

Then I remembered the MSI Afterburner software which I had reviewed some time ago here at Ghacks. Lo and behold, the tool worked extremely well and I was able to change the fan speed according to my needs.

I have created a custom fan profile that automatically adjusts the fan speed to the gpu temperature. If the temps rise the fans will run faster, if it drops they run lower. This ensured that the fan speeds did not create to much noise in 2D mode but enough to keep the video card cool in 3D mode. NVIDIA users with the same problem can download MSI Afterburner from the MSI website. The tool works with many NVIDIA video cards, not just those from MSI.

AMD acquired ATI four years ago and pledged to preserve the brand at the time.  Now though, market research for the company has suggested its own brand is well known enough to take over.

The move will see the Radeon and Firepro names continuing but all new graphics cards released from the end of this year will carry the AMD branding instead.

ATI was founded in 1985 and began its life making integrated graphics chipsets for IBM and Commodore.  It was bought by AMD in 2006 for $5.4bn.  This is a deal which hit AMDs finances heavily and is only now beginning to bear fruit.

ATI has done well in the last couple of years as rival nVidia have struggled with their new Fermi technology to make cards that rival the latest Radeons.  Only recently have nVidia begun to ship cards that truly compete with with ATI’s best.

Source : PC Pro

With the advent of Fedora 10 xorg.conf does not, by default, install an xorg.conf configuration file. In fact, I had Fedora 10 up and running with an NVidia GeForce 6600 card, with no xorg.conf file. Problem was, I couldn’t get the installation to run in 1200×1024 resolution. Not until I jumped through a few hoops.

One of the first things you should do, when you finish an installation of Fedora 10 is check in /etc/X11 to see if there is an xorg.conf file. If there is not you need to issue the command Xorg -configure :1. What this will do is generate a default xorg.conf file based on your hardware.

Your next step can be tackled in a couple of ways. You can edit the xorg.conf file by hand (for advanced users) or you can install the system-config-display application with the command yum install system-config-display. Once you get that installed you can run the application (as root) with the command system-config-display. From that point the GUI tool should be pretty straight foward to use.

Of course, if you are using an NVidia card, you might have to install some proprietary drivers. Open up the Add/Remove Software tool and do a search for nvidia. Select the applicable drivers for your system if you need them. Once you install the drivers you should have the nvidia-settings tool. This will offer you some help in configuring your NVidia card with Fedora 10.

You will notice the default xorg.conf file generated is very bare-bones. And I understand that Xorg is going in a direction that doesn’t require an xorg.conf file. But there are chipsests out there, such as NVidia, who’s drivers still require an xorg.conf file. This, to me, seems as if Xorg is getting a bit ahead of itself.

UPDATE: I can’t confirm this but the above statement about Xorg going in an xorg.conf’less direction seems to only be applying to Fedora. If anyone has any information that would indicate other distributions are following suite, let us know. Thanks all!

Now I can’t complain too much…X Windows does work out of the box and does a fairly admiriable job. But when you want higher resolutions than the default, you might find yourself jumping through some hoops. I have to admit Linux will find itself in much greener pastures once Xorg no longer requires a configuration file. But I do hope the developers of the various chipsets can get on the same page as the Xorg developer team. If they can’t Linux is going to find itself with a limited selection of video cards it can work with.

The guide will walk you through creating a 2D and 3D video card profile that will automatically switch the fan speed and the clock speeds of the video card depending on the application that is running on the computer. This generally means low clock and fan speeds in 2D mode and normal (or even faster) clock and fan speeds in 3D mode.

The program that can do all of that is called Rivatuner. It is compatible with both ATI and NVIDIA video cards. The advantage of using Rivatuner is that the software can do everything that we need and works both in 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Please note that the clock and fan speeds are valid for the Geforce 8800 GTS video card that was used in the test and that the values for other video cards might differ. There is however a general pattern to it which will be explained.

1. We are going to create the following two profiles:

2D Mode: Low Fan Speed, Low Core Clock, Low Memory Clock
3D Mode: Fan Speed that cools the video card sufficiently, Default Core Clock and Memory Clock speeds. Advanced users could overclock if they like.

2. Configuring Settings:

Before we can start to apply the profiles we need to make sure that we can set the clock speeds and fan speeds to lower values in 2D modes. This is done by clicking on the Power User tab and locating the following entries:

RivaTuner \Overclocking \Global

• MaxClockLimit: 200
• MinClockLimit: 15

RivaTuner \Fan

• MinFanSpeedlimit: 10

The first two values in Overclocking \Global enable a wider range of clock speeds that can be configured in Rivatuner while the second sets the minimum fan speed of the video card fan to 10%. The default without that setting would be 25%. Restart Rivatuner afterwards so that the changes can take effect.

3. Configuring core and memory clock profiles for 2D and 3D modes

Open the System Settings menu of Rivatuner by clicking on the icon next to customize next to Driver Settings in the lower half of the main window and selecting the leftmost icon in the appearing icon pane.

The System Tweaks window will show up displaying Core, Shader and Memory clock speeds. The first profile will be the 2D mode. Remember that we need low settings for core and memory clock in that mode which will save power, reduce video card temperature and allows to reduce the fan speed because of this. The effect is a power saving, low temperature and low noise profile.

The value depends on a few factors and it is probably a good idea to start with relatively high clock speeds and reduce them further if no problems are experienced. A minimum core and memory clock of between 200 to 250 should be the goal for the 2D profile.

After setting the clock speeds check the Apply Overclocking At Windows Startup box. Hit Apply at the bottom and save the profile under Overclocking Profile Settings. (2D Profile)

Now do the same for the 3D clock speeds. A click on Defaults will load the default speeds for the video card. Make sure the Startup Settings box is unchecked. Click Apply again and save the profile. (3D Profile)

4. Configuring the fan speeds for the two profiles

After creating the two clock speed profiles for 2D and 3D mode we have to create a fan profile for each mode. The fan setting can be loaded by clicking on the icon next to Customize under the Target Adapter area of the main interface and selecting the first icon of the icon row called Low-Level System Settings.

We start by defining the fan speed for the 2D profile. A click on Enable low-level fan control will provide access to the fan speed settings. Select Fixed from the check boxes and move the slider to the left. Clicking Apply will change the fan speed to the selected value. It’s a matter of listening to the fan and selecting a fan speed level that is barely, if at all, audible. A value between 10-20% should be perfect for most video cards and ears. You should not set it to low unless you keep an eye on the temperature levels of the video card.

Check the Apply Fan Settings At Windows Startup box, hit apply and save the profile. (2D Fan).

Now do the same for the 3D profile. A click on Defaults will load the fan speed defaults again. Select a Fixed fan speed value that you are comfortable with, apply the changes and save the profile. (3D Fan)

5. Monitoring System Settings That Reveal 2D or 3D mode

We have created two clock speed and fan speed profiles and set the low clock and low fan speed profiles to load at Windows startup. If you keep the settings this way the 2D settings will be loaded in 3D mode because Rivatuner does not know when to change the profiles. You would have to change them manually whenever switching from 2D to 3D or vice verse.

What we do know is to configure hardware monitoring which will give the profile launcher the information needed to change profiles automatically.

Hardware monitoring is another icon in the Target Adapter icon row that appears when clicking on the icon next to Customize. The Hardware Monitoring display will open. A click on Setup in the lower right corner opens the settings which allow us to define additional values that should be monitored.

There are a few options to distinguish between 2D and 3D mode. One is to monitor Hardware Acceleration which is unfortunately also triggered in some 2D applications. A hardware acceleration of 0 means that it is off and would trigger 2D mode while a hardware acceleration of 1 would mean it is turned on and would trigger 3D mode. Another option is to monitor the Framerate instead which is always 0 in 2D mode.

You can enable one or both settings in the Data Sources menu in the lower half of the menu. A click on the checkmark in front of the name of the source will activate the monitoring of the source. A click on OK will close the setup window. Now find the Hardware Acceleration graph in the Hardware Monitoring window.

An icon is displayed next to the Hardware Acceleration name. A click on it will check the hardware acceleration continuously. A new icon will appear in the system tray. Right-click that icon, select Setup and check the Run At Windows Startup entry. Now that we have done that it is time to configure the profile switcher.

6. Configuring the Profile Switcher

Before we can schedule the profile changes we have to create two launcher items. Selecting Laucher from the main tab and clicking on the green + icon will initiate that. Select Regular item from the next menu.

Enter a name (2D / 3D) and check the Associated overlocking profile and Associated fan profile boxes. Select the corresponding profiles created earlier. You should have a 2D and a 3D launcher item afterwards in the main Launcher window.

Now it is finally time to configure the Scheduler. A click on the Scheduler will load a window that resembles the Launcher tab. A click on the green + will open the menu were we can configure when to change from the 2D profile to the 3D profile.

Give the task a name, select the 3D profile from the list of profiles under Name and select Run Task on hardware monitoring range event under Schedule. Pick Hardware Acceleration as the Data Source and select a range from 1 to 1. A click on OK will save the new scheduled event.

Now create another scheduled event for automatically switching from the 3D profile to the 2D profile. All settings remain the same except for the profile which obviously has to be the 2D profile and the range for the hardware acceleration setting which has to be 0 in both cases.

Conclusion:

We have created two profiles which switch automatically from 2D to 3D and 3D to 2D profiles. The 2D profile will make use of a low noise fan, low power consumption and lower temperatures while the 3D mode will use the default video card settings to ensure that all 3D applications function properly with decent framerates.

If you have any questions about the procedure feel free to ask. Please note that Rivatuner will automatically start with Windows when setting this up this way.

One guy seems to have decided that his team, which currently ranks 16th, could need a boost and build a server farm that combines 51 8800 series NVIDIA video cards and 13 MSI P6N Diamond motherboards which can hold four PCI video cards each.

What do you think? Is that an overkill?

The GPU may fail due to temperature fluctuations and users may experience symptoms like random characters or lines on the screen. The problem is that if customers experience those symptoms the Bios update will not help them anymore and they have to contact Dell support to fix the issue.

Everyone else should check the website to see if their Dell notebook is in the list and update the Bios of its GPU accordingly. The affected notebooks according to Dell are:

• Inspiron 1420
• Latitude D630
• Latitude D630c
• Dell Precision M2300
• Vostro Notebook 1310
• Vostro Notebook 1400
• Vostro Notebook 1510
• Vostro Notebook 1710
• XPS M1330
• XPS M1530

The Bios update will turn on the GPU fan more frequently at half or quarter speed to reduce temperature fluctuations. Dell confirmed once again that this will have no noticeable effect on battery life. New notebooks will be shipped with the updated Bios.

The real question however is which GPUs are affected but there does not seem to be a direct answer for this. There is however the list of Nividia GPUs that have been used in the affected Dell notebooks, here it is:

• 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GS
• 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS (64 bit)
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GS (128 bit)
• 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
• 128MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 135M
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 360M 256MB TurboCache (128MB dedicated)

My suggestion would be to check your notebook, even if it is not from Dell, to find out if a video card from the list has been used to build it. If that is the case contact the hardware manufacturer to find out how he handles the problem.

The guys from Laptop Video 2 Go have come up with a solution to this problem. They provide an inf generator and driver downloads so that most notebook users can updated their notebook’s graphic card by downloading those files from the website. The modded inf files not only work with most notebook graphic cards but do provide access to several hidden features as well that fix issues and add tweaks to the drivers.

Basically the user selects a driver that he wants to install, downloads the modded inf file from the website, replaces the inf from the driver package with the modded one and starts the installation of the driver.

I suggest you read the FAQ on the site which explains the process in detail and provides links to the pages that are needed to download the files.

This file can cause a high load on Windows systems because it seems to require a Registry key and if it cannot find that key it will constantly bombard the Registry with lookups, a thousand for instance of spawning a new window. Sounds crazy right ? Now the easiest way to check this out would be to install an application like Process Monitor and check if a lot of Registry calls are made that point to NVTweak \ DisableWindowCaching.

If that is the case you can either create a new DWORD DisableWindowCaching and set it to 0 or disable nwiz.exe from starting with Windows which is probably the best option if your system does not make use of multiple monitors.

My 6600 GT was making lots of noises that were driving me crazy. I could not understand why it was necessary to run the fan in full speed when writing a blog post like this. I was able to reduce the fan speed using the software Rivatuner which has fan profiles for 2D, low power 3D and 3D modes.

Reducing the fan speed is not possible for every video card. I had to update the bios of my last video card to be able to reduce the fan speed. My suggestion is to load Rivatuner and see if you can change the fan speeds to reduce the noise of your video card. Here is how you do that:

Begin by downloading and installing Rivatuner. Once that is done run the software, you will see the following screen.

Click on Customize in the Driver settings block. A overlay menu should appear with several icons, click on the first entitled System Settings. This will load another menu with several tabs. The second tab is called Fan and that is where you can reduce the fan speed for the different modes.

I suggest to play around with the settings a little bit. I would leave the performance 3D setting at 100% and reduce the other two settings. In my case I have given them the values 40% and 50% respectively. Make sure that you monitor temperatures of your video card when applying this settings. You have to make sure that it is running stable with this reduced fan speeds.

Click on Apply fan settings at Windows startup. This ensures that fan speed will be reduced during Windows startup to lower the noise when working with Windows.

Rivatuner has an option to monitor the temperature of the video card. Click on ok to leave that menu so that you see the main menu again. Click the Customize link at the Target Adapter setting and select Hardware Monitoring from the list. Now click on the red dot in the left bottom corner. This starts hardware monitoring and will report the temperature of the video card if it has a thermal diode.

Nhancer is a software for Nvidia graphics cards which offers way more settings than the Nvidia control panel. It provides a global setting which applies to every application that does not have it’s own profile and profiles for individual games and applications.

There are already hundreds of games included in the list and it is also possible to add additional ones that are installed on your computer. Even relative new games like Hellgate London are already included in the list.

The main use of nHancer is the ease of use when changing settings, especially those 3D-related settings of your Nvidia graphics adapter. Gamers who like maximum performance or maximum quality and tweak those settings for individual applications will love nHancer.

All Nvidia graphics cards are supported by nHancer as well as all Forceware 60+ releases, the official Nvidia drivers. Windows Vista is supported as well as DirectX 10.

Read More:

nHancer

Once a 3D application is started the fan starts spinning faster to be able to cool the video card. RivaTuner users may use several other settings in the program to overclock their video card or create custom settings for certain applications. I’m personally using it only to reduce the fan speed but hardcore gamers who need every fps they can get will find the overclocking settings as useful.

To be honest, I did not check all the settings that you may alter in detail but it looks really complex and complete. From refresh rate to AGP transfer rate, everything seems to be at place and accessible if you need to tweak a certain value.

A guy suggested to use the freeware RivaTuner which he said was able to reduce the fan speed of my video card by altering the fan speed directly. This was the solution I was looking for. I quickly downloaded and installed Rivatuner. The only thing left was to lower the fan speed and make the changes permanent.

I clicked on customize in the first screen that appeared right next to Forceware detected and selected the icon for system settings from the panel. The second tab was named fan, the goal of my search. I was able to define a fan speed value for three different states: standard 2D, low power 3D and performance 3D. I changed the settings from 100% to 25 in standard 2D mode, 50% for low power 3D and 100% for performance 3D. 2D means everything that you do normally in windows like using office, surfing the internet or writing an email.

I checked the box that saved the settings and applied them at every system start and voila – the noise was gone. From one second to the next it was gone. My pc is almost silent now, the noisiest part is my external hard drive, everything else is almost silently. (I bought a low noise cpu fan and power supply).

I suggest you take a look at Rivatuner if you face a similar problem like I did. It might solve yours too

All you need is to know the name of the old card, the name of the new card and the freeware Driver Cleaner Professional. Don’t get irritated by the professional, it is completely free to use. Download the freeware and install it. The next step is important. The first thing to do would be to use the uninstall option in Windows to remove everything that could be left from the old drivers.

The best way to run Driver Cleaner Professional would be right after you have uninstalled the old drivers and applications but still have the old card connected to your system. Just start Driver Cleaner and choose the name of the drivers that you want to remove. You can for instance choose a general name like ATI or Nvidia which removes all information about those drivers on your system.

Another option would be to choose a specific driver, like ATI WDM and remove that one only. The program removes all references in the registry and all drivers that are stored on the system.

If the new card is already connected to your system you might run into troubles if the card is from the same company. I suggest you still delete all references and install the newest drivers after you have rebooted your machine.

Update: Driver Cleaner Professional is no longer free software. The developers are now charging for the program. See Remove Old Windows Drivers for a free alternative.