On 2003-12-16 00:41:24 +0000 Julie A juliebread@yahoo.com wrote:
What exactly is the difference between 'nv' & 'vesa'?
XFree86 comes with many different display drivers. "vesa" only uses the basic VESA instructions and should work on nearly any modern PC card. It gives a reasonably good display, but I don't think it's accelerated at all and performance is quite bad compared to some of the other drivers.
"nv" is the XFree86 driver for NVidia-based cards, which I think is accelerated but has no 3D support. I've found it works on most older NVidia cards without any problems. Sometimes there's a short delay before they upgrade it for new models (I don't think they get enough help.) Yours is the second I've heard of it breaking on, I think, which is even stranger as you say it used to work, so it shouldn't be the "new unsupported card" problem.
"nvidia" is a proprietary software driver from the manufacturer, which has 3D support but has caused problems almost every time I've encountered it. You basically have to cry to NVidia if it breaks and hope they help you. I don't see that as a long-term solution.