Nvidia 340-series driver

Jimbo_G · 2022-01-08 14:29:30

I have a GeForce 210 card on my 10-year-old desktop, currently running BL Lithium. In the past I've had some problems with this card, and as I'm thinking of making a few upgrades to this PC it's something I'm thinking about replacing.

Anyway, I noticed in the Debian documentation that use of the 340-series driver is now strongly discouraged (https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsD … op_Drivers) and that the nouveau driver should be used instead. I hadn't noticed this change so I thought I'd mention it here.

Any thoughts on cards to replace the GeForce 210 would be welcome (nothing too powerful is necessary). Also, is it worth trying the nouveau driver again, or is my card just too old?

jeffreyC · 2022-01-10 14:31:42

First; what kind of connection does your monitor use?

If you need DVI:
AMD abandoned DVI before Nvidia did and unlike Nvidia all the makers build much closer to the same card, so if you chose AMD you will be looking for an older card, maybe nearly as old as what you have now.

hhh · 2022-01-12 01:24:36

I use the 340 driver on Beryllium/Bullseye. I downloaded the deb from the Buster repo and it installed. Not recommended, but the option is there. Lithium uses Buster repos so you can just install it with apt, apt-get or aptitude...

https://packages.debian.org/buster/nvid … gacy-340xx

The nouveau driver worked for me but screen tearing was a problem, fixed by the Nvidia legacy driver and by adding this to my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file...

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "MetaModes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" "off"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "on"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Source for the tearing fix...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … en_tearing

Your mileage may vary.

Jimbo_G · 2022-01-17 14:01:17

Thanks for the suggestions, my monitor can be connected with HDMI so I guess that's one less thing to worry about.

jeffreyC · 2022-01-17 17:29:15

As a replacement card on the Nvidia side I would suggest a GTX 750 Ti, they are still supported with current drivers, use no extra power beyond what the motherboard slot supplies and run cool.

On the AMD side I do not know what to recommend, since I found out they do not support my monitors I stopped looking at them.

DeepDayze · 2022-01-17 17:48:23

jeffreyC wrote:

As a replacement card on the Nvidia side I would suggest a GTX 750 Ti, they are still supported with current drivers, use no extra power beyond what the motherboard slot supplies and run cool.
On the AMD side I do not know what to recommend, since I found out they do not support my monitors I stopped looking at them.

That would be the minimum now and should be supported by current nvidia for at least a few more years. That card works fine under nouveau as well (I have a 1GB one I got out of a salvaged old system).

You can find this card on ebay or in used computer stores.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2022-01-17 17:49:21)

Jimbo_G · 2022-01-24 15:57:34

Good to know, thanks for the suggestion, I'll get looking on ebay

Colonel Panic · 2022-01-25 21:07:24

Thanks for this! I've just bought a bigger (24") monitor and could be getting a new video card to go with it, so this information could be very useful for me.

Jimbo_G · 2022-01-27 15:34:55

Any other suggestions of good secondhand cards to look out for would be welcome.

jeffreyC · 2022-02-02 00:17:40

Jimbo_G wrote:

Any other suggestions of good secondhand cards to look out for would be welcome.

It would help if we knew how many watts your power supply is.

Newer ones tend to use more power, sometimes a lot more.

AndrewSmart · 2022-02-10 20:33:40

Jimbo_G wrote:

Also, is it worth trying the nouveau driver again, or is my card just too old?

I went with nouveau. Worked way better than I remember 14 years ago. I also have 11 year old desktop.

Also RuneScape works again with nouveau because nouveau supports EGL while Nvidia never chose to add full EGL support to their 340 driver. RuneScape won't start at all with proprietary Nvidia driver because it needs full EGL. So... nouveau is better at gaming in my use case with that old card.

It also prompted me to upgrade to a mobile AMD Ryzen 4500U mini pc, with integrated graphics. I did a deep dive, better performance per watt and cheaper than a new budget Nvidia card all things considered. Electricity savings over a few years would pay for it compared to my old rig, and I get a better cpu&gpu. But I wasn't looking for peak performance for graphics intensive games, I like simpler games. My 2cents.

Also AMD gpu driver is more Linux friendly. No NVIDIA proprietary shenanigans.

Last edited by AndrewSmart (2022-02-10 20:44:32)

ph4c · 2022-02-16 20:06:44

So I have a 8800GT card...is there a security vulnerability with this card or the official drivers? Or both? Will nouveau work with this card or is it time to upgrade?

jeffreyC · 2022-02-16 21:20:11

ph4c wrote:

So I have a 8800GT card...is there a security vulnerability with this card or the official drivers? Or both? Will nouveau work with this card or is it time to upgrade?

1) I do not believe there is a security problem.
2) Nouveau will probably work.
3) There are many things that card cannot do in any modern application or game, so unless you are playing retro games it would be a good idea to upgrade but recently made graphics cards are scarce and expensive.

Jimbo_G · 2022-02-22 19:42:39

AndrewSmart wrote:

It also prompted me to upgrade to a mobile AMD Ryzen 4500U mini pc, with integrated graphics. I did a deep dive, better performance per watt and cheaper than a new budget Nvidia card all things considered. Electricity savings over a few years would pay for it compared to my old rig, and I get a better cpu&gpu. But I wasn't looking for peak performance for graphics intensive games, I like simpler games. My 2cents.
Also AMD gpu driver is more Linux friendly. No NVIDIA proprietary shenanigans.

That's definitely an option for me, as I will soon need to upgrade/replace a couple of other things to keep my old PC running. Do you know of any of this type of mini PC that are passively cooled?

AndrewSmart · 2022-02-22 22:06:01

Jimbo_G wrote:

AndrewSmart wrote:
It also prompted me to upgrade to a mobile AMD Ryzen 4500U mini pc
That's definitely an option for me, as I will soon need to upgrade/replace a couple of other things to keep my old PC running. Do you know of any of this type of mini PC that are passively cooled?

I read a bunch on that and didn't think the passive cooling designs were worth the premium or DIY hastle/constraint. Wait for DDR5 gen models if that's important.

Focus on getting a NVMe SSD and/or 2.5" SSD that run cool in the first place. Tom's hardware charts are good to inspect the competition. I have bookmarks I'll dig up in a bit.

I chose not to get NVMe SSD to minimize heat/energy and just bought Crucial 2.5" MX500 SSD and 16GB Crucial RAM. Maybe your use case is different, I did what works for me.

Micron (Crucial) has a good patent on energy efficient DDR4 RAM, so I went with them over the Kingston HyperX line RAM most everyone else recommends for AMD Ryzen due to the HyperX's slightly better CL timing. The reason the HyperX is slightly faster is they don't do what Micron does which slows down the CL timing. The Micron energy efficient protocol you see in the datasheet is the reason the CL timing is slightly slower, but I think it's well worth the significant efficiency improvement (i.e. less heat production for same work).

Crucial's Ballistix 3200 line wasn't compatible with Ryzen, I chose regular Crucial RAM. The quick timing and the extra CL delay for the efficiency improvement makes the Ballistix line incompatible with the Ryzen I had is my interpretation (Ballistix timings too quick), lots of unhappy comments from retail customers on Crucial website who didn't check for compatibility first.

ASUS PN51 has a slightly better NVMe M.2 mountpoint heatsink than PN50 and runs a bit cooler per their product page. I bought their PN50 From CDW for $380ish, cheaper, and everythig ASUS I have seems to last forever.

Nvidia's relevant 1030 budget cards run at 20-30W TDP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_10_series

There are nice articles somewhere diving into why AMD Ryzen is so energy efficient. Better graphics performance per watt than Nvidia budget cards.

EDIT:
NVMe SSD charts: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16012/th … d-review/7
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sk … ssd-review
2.5" SSD charts:
https://www.thessdreview.com/our-review … in-sata/5/
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cr … 377-2.html
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/k … ew,17.html
Crucial RAM I bought (also 2.5" MX500 SSD from same website):
https://www.crucial.com/memory/ddr4/ct2k8g4sfra32a

Last edited by AndrewSmart (2022-02-22 23:27:57)

Jimbo_G · 2022-02-23 16:22:41

^ Thanks for the detailed information, it looks like I have some research to do! The fanless thing was just out of interest, and also I really dislike fan noise.

jeffreyC · 2022-02-23 16:28:30

Jimbo_G wrote:

^ Thanks for the detailed information, it looks like I have some research to do! The fanless thing was just out of interest, and also I really dislike fan noise.

Noctua fans and cpu air coolers, highly efficient and quiet, expensive but worth it.

AndrewSmart · 2022-04-21 18:13:37

A recent article on upcoming AMD Ryzen APU nearing discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 card in performance (with much better performance per watt I assume).

AMD’s Revolutionary Ryzen Phoenix APUs Could Mark The End of Low-End Graphics Cards, A Big Win For Budget PC Gamers

Last edited by AndrewSmart (2022-04-21 18:22:08)

#1 2022-01-08 14:29:30

Nvidia 340-series driver

#2 2022-01-10 14:31:42

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#3 2022-01-12 01:24:36

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#4 2022-01-17 14:01:17

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#5 2022-01-17 17:29:15

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#6 2022-01-17 17:48:23

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#7 2022-01-24 15:57:34

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#8 2022-01-25 21:07:24

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#9 2022-01-27 15:34:55

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#10 2022-02-02 00:17:40

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#11 2022-02-10 20:33:40

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#12 2022-02-16 20:06:44

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#13 2022-02-16 21:20:11

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#14 2022-02-22 19:42:39

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#15 2022-02-22 22:06:01

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#16 2022-02-23 16:22:41

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#17 2022-02-23 16:28:30

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

#18 2022-04-21 18:13:37

Re: Nvidia 340-series driver

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