# Two Graphics Cards

## pkluss

Is it possible to install two graphics cards?  I'm sick of trying to get my ATI 9600 to work in Linux, but I love it in XP.  I have an old NVIDIA card that I can put in if this is possible.  Is there even a slot for two graphics cards usually?  If so, how easy is it going to be to get each OS to recognize the correct one?  

-Phil

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## jbrazio

You only have one AGP slot on your mainboard.

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## cbr2702

If your "old NVIDIA" card is PCI, then yes.  Or you can go out and get a $50 PCI card.

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## hardcore

 *brazio wrote:*   

> You only have one AGP slot on your mainboard.

 

Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots   :Very Happy: 

And you can pick up a GF4 MX PCI cards at Best Buy still, otherwise, there's always ebay.

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## A Hired Goon

as stated above. your most likly limited by your 1 agp slot.

options:

pci card: Would give you a supported card for linux, plus you can play with the other one till you get it working and have dual head!   :Smile:  plus you could have dual head in windows too ( assuming you have 2 monitors of course)

new agp card: probably not what you want, but is an option.

you can put as many pci video cards in as you have slots.  in XF86Config you just tell it which card you want to use (PCIX:X:X).

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## beastmaster

 *Quote:*   

> Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots 

 

Any good branded motherboard for dual AGP slots that is linux friendly?

(I'm thinking of getting one   :Very Happy:  )

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## hardcore

 *beastmaster wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots  
> 
> Any good branded motherboard for dual AGP slots that is linux friendly?
> 
> (I'm thinking of getting one   )

 

Refer to this  thread.

Alienware is the only manufacturer I know of to have a dual AGP slotted MB.  Just wait til PCI Express comes out, then you can have mutliple graphics cards in your system easily.

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## jbrazio

 *hardcore wrote:*   

> Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots  

 

 :Rolling Eyes: 

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## Gentree

I have Gentoo running both GeforceTi4200 AGP and a Voodoo Banshee PCI.

I can boot to either by changing the BIOS setting for primary video.

I can even boot to PCI and then startx configured for the AGP.

Not a very useful feat but it proves that it all works very flexibly.

I seem to recall the other OS was less cleaver but would work if BIOS was set to AGP.

In a word: Yes.

HTH

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## BennyP

Gentree - can you run both displays at the same time?? I have a voodoo5 AGP as priomary, and an ATI mach64 PCI as a secondary video card, but the ATI card does not display anything

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## Gentree

In what sense do you want to run two displays at the same time?

As I said, I can boot to the PCI in console mode , login , then startx with x configured for the AGP card.

In this case I have to put the pci card as primary in BIOS.

From what you posted it does not surprise me that you get nothing on the other card since it seems you are not configured to use it.

What are you hoping/trying to achieve?

 :Cool: 

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## lbrtuk

 *beastmaster wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots  
> 
> Any good branded motherboard for dual AGP slots that is linux friendly?
> 
> (I'm thinking of getting one   )

 

It's really not worth it. Dual AGP is a hack and what's more, there is usually negligible performance advantage of AGP cards over PCI. Especially if you're going to be running two cards (ie- good luck getting glx to work on both of them).

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## BennyP

I want to have X running on my big monitor (AGP voodoo5) 

and a console screen (framebuffer/bootsplash??) running on the small monitor (PCI mach64)

at this point i haven't done any configuration for the PCI card except compile atyfb module with both available options for that module (2.6 kernel)

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## solomonHk

What is it about your 9600 that does not work?  And is it an XT, SE????

I might be able to assist you in getting your ATI up and kicking NVidia ass.

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## deangelo

[quote="solomonHk"]What is it about your 9600 that does not work?  And is it an XT, SE????

I might be able to assist you in getting your ATI up and kicking NVidia ass.[/quote]

I have a 9600xt I could use some help with.

What info can I get you so you can help me? 

I have a good feeling that 1) my kernel is not configured right, 2) my X server isn't configured right, 3) my modules probably arent configured right either. I emerged the ati drivers, then ran the ati x configuration script and now if I try to start an xsession either through xdm(gdm) or manually it either locks my box right up (can't even  numlock) or xfree dies and the terminal is garbled.

This seems to be a relevant piece of my XFree86 log

(II) Loading extension ATIFGLRXDRI

(II) fglrx(0): doing DRIScreenInit

drmOpenDevice: minor is 0

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0

drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)

drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)

drmOpenDevice: Open failed

drmOpenDevice: minor is 0

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0

drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)

drmOpenDevice: open result is -1, (No such device)

drmOpenDevice: Open failed

[drm] failed to load kernel module "agpgart"

drmOpenDevice: minor is 0

drmOpenDevice: node name is /dev/dri/card0

drmOpenDevice: open result is 6, (OK)

drmGetBusid returned ''

(II) fglrx(0): [drm] loaded kernel module for "fglrx" driver

(II) fglrx(0): [drm] created "fglrx" driver at busid "PCI:1:0:0"

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## CiscoSid

 *deangelo wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I have a good feeling that 1) my kernel is not configured right, 2) my X server isn't configured right, 3) my modules probably arent configured right either. I emerged the ati drivers, then ran the ati x configuration script and now if I try to start an xsession either through xdm(gdm) or manually it either locks my box right up (can't even  numlock) or xfree dies and the terminal is garbled.
> 
> 

 

Hi all,

I'm having exactly the same trouble with my 9600XT. As soon as either startx or kdm, the machine locks up, and I can't do anything. I've had problems with this card in all the distributions I've tried, but gentoo is the only one that locks up. Again, I guess this is my fault for not doing something right, but I'd really like to get this working, as other than this I love gentoo so far.

I'm running 2.4.25 kernel, and have installed the ati-drivers using emerge. 

Anyone got any ideas?

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## crysaz

 *BennyP wrote:*   

> Gentree - can you run both displays at the same time?? I have a voodoo5 AGP as priomary, and an ATI mach64 PCI as a secondary video card, but the ATI card does not display anything

 

You'll have to compile your kernel with Ati mach support. 

I have GF2 MX and ATI RageII (mach64) running 19" and 17" monitors with 2 X servers. Works fine for me.

Thought I haven't find a way to switch between to monitors without mouse. It's really annoying to lift your hand just to activate the other workspace...

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## TheCoop

 *BennyP wrote:*   

> I want to have X running on my big monitor (AGP voodoo5) 
> 
> and a console screen (framebuffer/bootsplash??) running on the small monitor (PCI mach64)
> 
> at this point i haven't done any configuration for the PCI card except compile atyfb module with both available options for that module (2.6 kernel)

 

I wanted exactly the same thing, except linux cant have more than one console active at the same time. The alternative was running an X server on the pci card that started up an eterm/gaim/xmms automatically and use my main screen for everything else. Worked fine  :Smile: . Just specify two device, monitor and screen sections for each card then put the following in serverlayout:

```
Screen "Screen 1"

Screen "Screen 2" LeftOf "Screen 1"
```

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## BennyP

I compiled mach 64 into my computer, and I found out that when i boot without framebuffer or bootsplash, the first part of the bootup sequence appears on Screen1 (voodoo5) and the second part (module loading, colourful *'s) displays on SCreen 2 (ATI), although there's a strange bug where the second character of every line is repeated and you can't see the cursor unless it moves right.

The good things are that I can boot to console on the small monitor (but only without framebuffer, not with) and startx on the big monitor. I can also stop X and return to a viewable console on the small monitor. before i had to reboot because of garbled console on the large screen

The bad things are that i can't use framebuffer and can't see X on my small monitor (the ati PCI card), as well as the wierd bug with the cutoff console

here's the relevant parts of my XF86Config

```

#Begin X Configuration

Section "Module"

    Load        "dbe"   # Double buffer extension

    SubSection  "extmod"

      Option    "omit xfree86-dga"   # don't initialise the DGA extension

    EndSubSection

    Load       "type1"

    Load       "speedo"

    Load       "glx"

    Load       "dri"

EndSection

Section "Files"

    RgbPath     "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/:unscaled"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/:unscaled"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"

    FontPath   "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"

    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/culmus"

    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/freefont"

    FontPath   "/usr/share/fonts/efont-unicode"

EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"

EndSection

##################################################

##              Monitors Section                ##

##################################################

Section "Monitor"

    Identifier  "Syncmaster 750"

    HorizSync   30-70

    VertRefresh 50-160

EndSection

Section "Monitor"

        Identifier "V410"

        Horizsync 50-60

EndSection

Section "Device"

    Identifier  "Standard VGA"

    VendorName  "Unknown"

    BoardName   "Unknown"

    Driver     "vga"

EndSection

##########################################

##              Video Cards             ##

##########################################

Section "Device"

    Identifier  "Voodoo5"

    Driver      "tdfx"

    BusID "PCI:1:0:0"

EndSection

Section "Device" 

        Identifier "ati"

        VendorName "ATI"

        BoardName "ATI Mach64"

        Driver "fglrx"

        Option "no_accel" "no"

        Option "no_dri" "no"

EndSection

##########################################

##              Screen Section          ##

##########################################

Section "Screen"

    Identifier  "Screen 1"

    Device      "voodoo5"

    Monitor     "Syncmaster 750"

    DefaultDepth 24

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       8

        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       16

        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       24

        Modes       "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

EndSection

Section "Screen"

        Identifier "Screen 2"

        Device  "ati"

        Monitor "V410"

        DefaultDepth 32

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       8

        Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       16

        Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

    Subsection "Display"

        Depth       32

        Modes       "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

        ViewPort    0 0

    EndSubsection

EndSection

##########################################

##              Server Layout           ##

##########################################

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier  "Dual Head"

    Screen "Screen 1"

    Screen "Screen 2" LeftOf "Screen 1"

    InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection

Section "DRI"

    Mode 0666

EndSection
```

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## ewan.paton

 *hardcore wrote:*   

>  *brazio wrote:*   You only have one AGP slot on your mainboard. 
> 
> Workstation motherboards have 2 AGP slots  
> 
> And you can pick up a GF4 MX PCI cards at Best Buy still, otherwise, there's always ebay.

 

ive a workstation mb and dont have any  :Sad: 

i do have 2 cpus though which i find a bit more useful with gentoo, is pci bandwith actually a limiting factor yet or are pci cards as fast as agp equivelents

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