I was getting some lag with the nouveau driver when editing large image files, so I gave the nvidia driver a try. It fixed the lag, but I had a new problem.
When I use the nouveau driver, I get grub and the splash screen at what looks like my monitor's native 1920 x 1080 resolution. However, when I install the recommended version of nvidia-driver-390 (the recommended version for my Asus GT440 card based on ubuntu-drivers devices), the resolution of grub and the splash screen is only 1024 x 768. I tried the alternative 340 driver, and it gave me the same result.
If I uninstall ubuntu-driver-390, and use apt autoremove to get rid of the leftovers, when I reboot I still get the lower resolution for grub and the splash screen even with nouveau until I run:
sudo apt purge nvidia*
which removes the following:
- nvidia-compute-utils-390*
- nvidia-dkms-390*
- nvidia-kernel-common-390*
- nvidia-prime*
- nvidia-settings*
So something to do with those left-over packages is causing the low resolution.
If I boot into a grub command line and run videoinfo, it tells me that my "preferred" resolution is 1920 x 1080, but 1920 x 1080 is not listed as a supported resolution. In fact, none of the supported resolutions are 16:9.
Just to test, I tried the solution listed here using 1920 x 1080, but I got a "video mode not supported" message. Not a surprise based on the results of videoinfo, I guess.
Clearly, whatever driver is active with nouveau is able to display a higher resolution. I should mention that my UEFI BIOS doesn't display in 1920 x 1080, either.
Is there a way to get my native resolution for grub and the splash screen in 18.04 and still use the nvidia driver?