NVIDIA NVDEC Video Decode Support Sent Out For Linux 5.17, Better Power Management

[coder]

There is so much intellectual IP/patents in their original driver that practically speaking its impossible to open source. The only way that NVidia could create an open source driver for their NVidia GPU's would be to do a clean room implementation, likely with a separate segregated team to avoid any legal issues.

At the very least, they could simply give the Nouveau devs more hardware info and support. I mean, there's basically your "clean room" implementation, right?

Ideally, also some way to sign specific builds, so they could use the hardware's full potential.

[Ladis]

At the very least, they could simply give the Nouveau devs more hardware info and support. I mean, there's basically your "clean room" implementation, right?

Ideally, also some way to sign specific builds, so they could use the hardware's full potential.

Yes, would be enough to give the firmware for re-clocking. Until that, Apple's M1 will have soon better Linux OSS driver than NVidia.

[bug77]

so nvidia's tegra gpu uses open source drivers? but their regular gpu's don't? why can nvidia make tegra open but their regular gpu's?

The GeForce driver is much, much older. It was written back when GPU drivers for Linux were a mess.

[coder]

The GeForce driver is much, much older. It was written back when GPU drivers for Linux were a mess.

How much do you actually know about its internals? Do you know that they haven't done any significant refactoring or numerous, partial rewrites? That seems implausible, to me.

[bug77]

How much do you actually know about its internals? Do you know that they haven't done any significant refactoring or numerous, partial rewrites? That seems implausible, to me.

It's a cross-platform driver, the same for Linux, Windows or BSD. Whatever refactorings it may have undergone, they weren't geared towards Linux/Mesa.