hangs using opengl

Quoted 10 lines · Nick Martens

Hi,
I'm having some trouble with my box, at the time that i start an opengl game in X sometimes the load of my machine gets really high (not in all games Quake III runs just fine). when i try to move my mouse it won't move, when i press CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE nothing happens and I have to reset my system. Is this kernel related or just an opengl problen ? if it's kernel related I am running kernel 2.4.5 And my video-card is an NVIDIA geforce 2 pro 450 from gainward. before this card i had a diamond viper 770 ultra and the same problem occured. If this is not a kernel
issue: where can i go to solve this ????

First off, please forgive any non-compliance with linux-kernel posting protocol in the posting about to follow.

Via has recently released a patch to Via-chipset based boards that addresses issues Windows XP users have been experiencing (BSODs and friends) while playing OpenGL games, especially with NVidia chips. The problem and the description of the fix (as taken from the Readme.txt from Via's patch) are as follow:

"
So what does it do? It closes the RX55 memory register in BIOS. The RX55 register's official name and function is Memory Write Queue (MWQ) timer. The MWQ timer is actually a timing device included in the memory host controller to prevent write data being held in the memory queue too long. After the data has been in the queue too long it times out. This timed out data is then given a higher write request priority. Now that might sound nice a bit of extra performance BUT the procedure fails when overloaded. 3D games and Win XP put too much load on the memory queuing timer procedure. The nVidia new driver exaggerates the problem even more as the driver enables nVidia cards to use even more memory than previous driver versions.

So in a nutshell it’s a memory timing problem that only happens when the RX55 register is opened. Some motherboard manufacturers have already released new BIOS that have the register closed. In other instances, this patch is needed.
"

I have an AMD Athlon 1200 CPU on an Asus board running the VIA KT266A North Bridge System Chipset and the VIA VT8233 South Bridge System Chipset. My video card is an NVidia GeForce2MX with the drivers from NVidia in place and working (OpenGL /is/ accelerated).

I have experienced the same problem as Nick in that, whenever I run an OpenGL screensaver or Unreal Tournament, the computer will freeze at some unpredictable time (usually when I'm leading the game ;o) ). If I ssh in and kill the X server, it freezes completely and has to be rebooted via Reset button.

In light of VIAs discoveries, and the fact that the patch that they now have available for Windows is not available for Linux also, I was wondering if somebody on this list may be kind enough to help us with what may very well be the symptoms of the same problem, but on Linux. Could the code that accomplishes the above (turn off the RX55 register) be made into a patch that can be applied to the kernel, thus providing an equivalent patch for Linux systems ?

Please keep in mind that VIA provides this patch strictly as a beta, and will most likely include it in their next release of the 4in1 drivers (which are available for Windows only - no Linux support "at this
time"). They say that, after more testing, if this proves to be a fix,
they will include it.

For further info, please consult the followings:
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64
http://www.theddrzone.com/news.asp?id=404

Thanks.

Quoted 2 lines

Greets Nick