NVIDIA 535.86.05 Linux Driver Fixes Excessive Memory Use, Kernel Panic On Full vRAM

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA 535.86.05 Linux Driver Fixes Excessive Memory Use, Kernel Panic On Full vRAM

NVIDIA today published their latest stable point release in the R535 Linux driver series to fix a variety of outstanding issues...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-535.86.05-Linux

[edxposed]

Still no fixes for any Vulkan Video bugs

[bosjc]

Fixed a bug that could cause some Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) monitors to flicker by allowing the refresh rate to drop below the monitor's minimum.

That was basically the straw that broke the camel's back for me and got me to switch over to AMD 7 months ago. Bug has existed for ever with large threads on the dev forums, basically making freesync monitors useless as they blank/go black under the monitors min refresh rate.

Nice they finally fixed it after all these years, I guess. Don't have any Nvidia hardware left to test it on, though.

[ryao]

That was basically the straw that broke the camel's back for me and got me to switch over to AMD 7 months ago. Bug has existed for ever with large threads on the dev forums, basically making freesync monitors useless as they blank/go black under the monitors min refresh rate.

Nice they finally fixed it after all these years, I guess. Don't have any Nvidia hardware left to test it on, though.

I did not realize this was a Nvidia driver bug. I brought a new monitor and gave away my Asus VG279Q due to this problem. The new freesync monitor did not have this problem. It was an Eve spectrum, which had many more problems, but not this one.

[bosjc]

Yeah, Nvidia driver bug and only on Linux.

See: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/...value/79697/41

Which links a few other issues. Looks like we were all right on the cause (dipping below the monitors min refresh rate). Only took 3-4 years for Nvidia to address it.

[WannaBeOCer]

That was basically the straw that broke the camel's back for me and got me to switch over to AMD 7 months ago. Bug has existed for ever with large threads on the dev forums, basically making freesync monitors useless as they blank/go black under the monitors min refresh rate.

Nice they finally fixed it after all these years, I guess. Don't have any Nvidia hardware left to test it on, though.

I had this issue on my Radeon VII. When ever Low framerate compensation (LFC) would enable it would cause flickering. Switched to a Titan RTX and haven’t had the issue even when it dipped below 48. That was on an Acer XF270HU which was a FreeSync certified monitor only. Haven’t had any issues with the 27GN950 monitor I’ve been using.

[blackiwid]

So isn't it fair to state that the driver before this release was pretty horrible? I always / often hear that yes it's ideology that we don't want unfree drivers but that nvidia drivers are the best and seldom have problems.

Well just bought a switch with tegra chip

[ryao]

So isn't it fair to state that the driver before this release was pretty horrible? I always / often hear that yes it's ideology that we don't want unfree drivers but that nvidia drivers are the best and seldom have problems.

Well just bought a switch with tegra chip

They do have few problems, but that does not mean no problems.

[HerrLange]

I had hoped for better Wayland/EGL Stream support. Anyone recently tested a recent Nvidia card with KDE Plasma running Wayland?

[avis]

The driver still doesn't fix all the cases of display flickering.

Thanks for checking. Per the changelog:

Fixed a bug that could cause some Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) monitors to flicker by allowing the refresh rate to drop below the monitor's minimum.

we made some changes that we were hoping would help with this, but it sounds like there are still some issues remaining.
disable_vrr_mclk_switch=1 disables the entire feature that allows for leveraging VRR to extend vblank on configurations where there wouldn't be a long enough vblank to change memory clocks without glitches. Something seems to still be going wrong with it on some configurations. Disabling it of course works around any issues, but as you noted, without this feature some configurations will remain pegged at P0.
I suspect that the "screen FPS stuttering" issue that you mention is an expected consequence of the feature, since extending vblank briefly can result in a lower effective refresh rate. However, if is disrupting your experience, it's possible that something might be making it more noticeable than it should be.

Looks like ever since NVIDIA has become an AI company, they moved some of their QA/QC staff from the GPU division to the AI division. The result is alarming to say the least. I don't remember such major fuck ups with basic things such as display output. If it doesn't work, your GPU is worthless. WTF, NVIDIA?!

And that's coupled with the insane margins they decided to charge for the Ada generation of GPUs.

And worst of all AMD is not really willing to compete as they are busy selling Epyc CPUs and APUs to Sony/Microsoft/Valve.

The consumer GPU market is almost as bad as during the COVID era.