I have an Nvidia geforce 9500 gs card on Ubuntu 13.04. I downloaded the driver already but cannot change performance settings and my streaming video is very choppy. I can't even find System/administration/hardware drivers; it doesn't exist.
Ubuntu – How to get an nvidia control panel
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Solved it Myself This Way
I have found an unorthodox but working solution to link nvidia-173 to its native nvidia-settings package. As always, Debian developers and maintainers will fix almost anything because they are still the best out there. There is a .deb package for nvidia-settings-173.14.39 32bit available on this page. If you need the 64bit package, you can find it on this page.
Unfortunately, there is no way Gdebi will install the .deb package but fortunately there is a solution to make the correct 'nvidia-settings' package version 173.14.39 work with the nvidia-173 driver from the Ubuntu repositories.
Use this solution only after you install/activate the nvidia-173 driver package present in the Ubuntu repositories. It will work for any version of Ubuntu 32bit, Ubuntu 14.04 included.
First thing to do is to completely remove the useless nvidia-settings version 331 or whatever version comes together with nvidia-173 driver package. This can be done using Synaptic or from a terminal window:
sudo apt-get remove nvidia-settings
and after that you can run
sudo apt-get autoremove
to remove the rest of the packages which are incompatible with nvidia-173 like 'nvidia resolution extra' and similar.
Next you can download the nvidia-settings-legacy-173xx_173.14.39-1~bpo70+1_i386.deb package from the link provided above, and extract the files in a temporary folder named nvidia in your user home directory.
Inside the .deb archive there are 2 folders, one is named DEBIAN, and contains files that are not needed for the actual job, so leave it as it is. The other folder is labeled USR and this one includes both the .png image file useful for editing the nvidia-settings.desktop file, and also includes the actual nvidia-settings files which are present in a subfolder from the archive, namely inside USR/lib/nvidia/legacy-173xx.
You should log out and login again as root, and copy all the files except for nvidia-settings.desktop file from nvidia temporary folder to this folder:
/usr/lib/nvidia-173.
I am talking of course about files contained inside the temporary nvidia folder from your user home directory which are located in USR/lib/nvidia/legacy-173xx.
Next you have to copy the nvidia-settings.desktop file to
/usr/share/applications
and edit this file to look like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Exec=/usr/bin/nvidia-settings
Terminal=false
Categories=HardwareSettings;System;Settings;
Icon=/usr/share/icons/nvidia-settings-legacy-173xx.png
Name=NVIDIA X Server Settings
Comment=Configure NVIDIA X Server Settings
Next you must copy the nvidia-settings-legacy-173xx.png image file from your nvidia temporary folder located in your user home directory (the image file is present in USR/share/pixmaps/) to:
/usr/share/icons/
Finally, navigate to /usr/lib/nvidia-173/ and right-click the 'nvidia-settings' file and make a shortcut for this file (choose 'Send to Desktop' from the right-click menu). Move 'nvidia-settings' shortcut from your desktop to /usr/bin/. If you choose just to copy-paste the file, you should delete 'nvidia-settings' shortcut from your desktop after you finished copying the file inside /usr/bin/.
It won't be difficult because, remember, you are still logged in as root. After you finished with all that, you can log out, and login again with your usual username and password.
And you're done. You can access 'nvidia-settings' from your Settings Manager or you can open 'nvidia-settings' if you type in a terminal window the following code:
sudo nvidia-settings
You can change all settings that you think you need to change, and Power Mizer will also be active and functional.
NOTE: I did not test this solution with Ubuntu 64bit. If, after activating the driver, there is a folder named nvidia-173 present in /usr/lib/ then I suppose it could work for 64bit version too. If nvidia-173 folder is located somewhere else or labeled with a different name then you should adjust the commands and the entries for editing nvidia-settings.desktop file accordingly.
Best Answer
To open the settings menu to allow installing additional proprietary drivers go to the "System Settings..." menu on the top panel. Choose "Software and Updates"
In the following window select then "Additional Drivers" tab:
This will let you select available stable proprietary drivers for your graphics card (above shown for a virtual machine).
On selecting the recommended "Nvidia Current" driver it will install on your system. Nvidia settings can then be accessed most easily from the Dash: