nvtuner

Disclaimer: If you download this software from me, and wind up melting your graphics card, it's not my problem.

I've uploaded the source and an ebuild for the nvtuner package. nvtuner is a bit of software that is used to mask/unmask pixel pipelines and vertex shaders on nVidia 6800 series AGP cards. This means you can attempt to turn a 6800LE into a 6800NU/GT/U, or a 6800NU into a 6800GT/U. I can't take credit for writing the code, as someone over at guru3d was originally responsible. I've just added a bit of a bugfix (it's hacky, but my C knowledge is not up to much!) and packaged things together nicely. I've got a few ideas for other features I might add to it at some stage, if I learn enough C and get round to it, or I might just turn the code over to the guys at nvclock and let them incorporate it into the next release of their software.

Oh yeah, and I'm told it works for 6200 series cards too, though I've not got one so I can't confirm that.

Anyway. Here's some files, and for the Gentoo users, instructions on where to put them:

• nvtuner-0.05_alpha.tar.gz - the source code. Put this in your /usr/portage/distfiles directory.


• nvtuner-0.05_alpha.ebuild - put this in your portage overlay, I recommend putting it under media-video/nvtuner.


• nvtuner.conf - put this in the files directory in whichever directory you put the ebuild in.


• nvtuner.init - put this in the files directory in whichever directory you put the ebuild in. Also, this init script has a load of comments at the bottom from when I was figuring out how to do various things. I've left them in for my benefit if I come back to the code, you can all feel free to ignore them though.


• nvtuner-0.05_alpha-everything.tar.bz2 - if you don't want to faff downloading 4 files, download this and untar it in your root directory. It will put all the files in the right places, assuming your distdir is /usr/portage/distfiles and your portdir overlay is /usr/local/portage.

After that, run this command:

ebuild $place_you_put_the_ebuild digest

to create digest and manifest, then emerge the software as normal. You may need to tweak the conf and init files to your liking. I expect you will definitely need to tweak the conf file, to get the appropriate mask and PCI memory location for your system.

If anyone needs a hand figuring out the hardware masks for their system, let me know and I can give instructions on how to do it, or you may be able to get help either here at the Gentoo forums or by searching at the Guru3d forums. I might write a bit of documentation on how to figure out the mask, or I might attempt to code it into the software, but for now you'll have to figure it out yourself.