NVIDIA RTX Remix 0.4 Released With Updated DXVK, Performance Improvements & Fixes

[Weasel]

I would argue that the driver that actually works and displays correctly is "objectively superior for the end user." Though sure, once explicit sync is working that will be nice.

That's just a manpower difference.

Actually, aren't you one of the people who always says X just works and Wayland sucks even though it's technologically superior in many ways? Kind of an amusing turn-around here...

Yeah something that refuses to add essential functionality needed by power users is definitely "technologically superior", that's actually so cringe I can't even reply to it properly.

If the only difference was "just rewrite it for Wayland" then it wouldn't be an issue. The issue is that you CANNOT rewrite it for Wayland because IT DOESN'T offer you the necessary features. That's not a technological step forward, it's a step backward. So kinda the opposite of what you thought.

It's not a manpower issue. You can throw a million hours at it, it won't improve as long as those monkeys develop the protocol.

[MrCooper]

I am not sure why you are bringing this up because it would have been a massive amount of effort from NVidia seeing as they completely removed implicit sync from their driver 1 and a half decades ago, they already stated as much many times.

It really shouldn't be. Only the code which deals with the Wayland/X protocol really needs to worry about implicit sync, converting between it and explicit sync as needed. All the other driver code can use explicit sync as it does now. Some Mesa drivers work like that now.

I cannot comprehend how people can seriously argue that adding a back a fundamental feature that was removed [...]

It's not about putting back something that was removed. Explicit vs implicit sync in the display protocol isn't the same thing as internally in the driver.

[MrCooper]

[...] people can still use Xorg/X11.

BTW, the nvidia driver has to handle implicit sync at some level in that case, e.g. for glXSwapBuffers.

[mdedetrich]

It's not about putting back something that was removed. Explicit vs implicit sync in the display protocol isn't the same thing as internally in the driver.

I remember an NVidia employee stating that they would actually have to do changes to the internal driver in order to support implicit sync for Wayland and/or relevant Linux graphics stack.

There was this big discussion on mesa gitlab somewhere where the NVidia person was actually explaining the details why putting in support for implicit sync wasn't as easy as people were claiming. More specifically it was possible to add support in a simple way but doing so would completely tank performance which for obvious reasons NVidia wasn't going to do.

[smitty3268]

I remember an NVidia employee stating that they would actually have to do changes to the internal driver in order to support implicit sync for Wayland and/or relevant Linux graphics stack.

There was this big discussion on mesa gitlab somewhere where the NVidia person was actually explaining the details why putting in support for implicit sync wasn't as easy as people were claiming. More specifically it was possible to add support in a simple way but doing so would completely tank performance which for obvious reasons NVidia wasn't going to do.

I don't think anyone seriously argues that supporting it would be ideal. It'd be a quick hack, and it would result in various downsides.

The bottom line is that nvidia could have done so, in order to provide compatibility while working towards a better solution. Or they could choose to let their driver be broken, while working towards a better solution. They chose the latter, while everyone else chose the former. I don't think it should be surprising that this is controversial, no matter how much Nvidia thinks it helps them out.

The truth is that nvidia had the same issue pop up for pure X a long time ago. They decided to resolve the situation there (by putting implicit sync compat code in their X driver) because of course they didn't want their driver broken for everyone on X. They chose not to do the same for wayland. Granted the particular solution would have looked different, but it's certainly something they could have chosen to do if they felt it was necessary.

[mdedetrich]

The bottom line is that nvidia could have done so, in order to provide compatibility while working towards a better solution. Or they could choose to let their driver be broken, while working towards a better solution. They chose the latter, while everyone else chose the former. I don't think it should be surprising that this is controversial, no matter how much Nvidia thinks it helps them out.

And NVidia said they could have, but it would have provided a terrible user experience due to the performance hit and since Xorg/X11 still exists and people can use it (i.e. you don't have to use Wayland right now) this would have objectively for both technical and user experience reasons been a terrible idea.

Like this is a honestly a dead horse now, I don't know why people keep on bringing it up. Its not like NVidia is being deliberately malicious here, if they could do it easily they would have (and to boot it would have saved NVidia a lot of time and effort). Instead both NVidia and the rest of the stakeholders decided it was better to spend more effort to fix things properly.

NVidia putting in quick hacks to make implicit sync work was a bloody terrible idea for many reasons, leave it be.

[smitty3268]

And NVidia said they could have, but it would have provided a terrible user experience due to the performance hit and since Xorg/X11 still exists and people can use it (i.e. you don't have to use Wayland right now) this would have objectively for both technical and user experience reasons been a terrible idea.

I honestly don't understand how anyone can argue "slow" is worse than "broken". That is what you're doing, right? Or am I misunderstanding?

[mdedetrich]

I honestly don't understand how anyone can argue "slow" is worse than "broken". That is what you're doing, right? Or am I misunderstanding?

This is a pointless point you are making because its in a vacuum. In generally and especially at the time, Wayland was broken (aside from NVidia) so you could have just used Xorg/X11. It of course would have been a totally different story if you were forced to use Wayland and there was no alternative but thats not the case.

[smitty3268]

This is a pointless point you are making

Well, I obviously disagree with you on that.

Wayland was broken (aside from NVidia)

That's simply not true for many people. I would never claim it was perfect, and many people did have problems. Many also did not, unless they had an nvidia card.

It of course would have been a totally different story if you were forced to use Wayland and there was no alternative but thats not the case.

Ok, so your point is that it was fine to screw over the wayland transition for however long was needed because you didn't care about it, and it's fine nvidia didn't either.

I do actually understand that argument. I see why you would make it. But i don't agree with that take, and I especially don't agree with anyone who says it's the only reasonable take to have.

[mdedetrich]

Ok, so your point is that it was fine to screw over the wayland transition for however long was needed because you didn't care about it, and it's fine nvidia didn't either.

Dude get the god damn hint

There is no f**ken way that NVidia putting in hacks to their driver just to pass some checkbox would have "helped" the Wayland transition (and helped here is in quotation marks because its not really a help, its just making people feel good). Instead of people complaining about x not working in some way, they would instead complain about x not working in another way.

I do actually understand that argument. I see why you would make it. But i don't agree with that take, and I especially don't agree with anyone who says it's the only reasonable take to have.

All of the relevant people (and yes that means other GPU manufacturers, not just NVidia) disagree with you and if you actually cared about the Wayland transition rather than crying "Waaah, why isn't Wayland working with NVidia right now via some hacks" then you would respect their decision, which is to do things properly rather than trying to rush Wayland out to appease people like yourself.

And this is all on the presumption that those hacks which you are asking for NVidia to do would have worked properly, there isn't even any guarantee of that. It is a hack after all. The hacks would have likely caused other issues, a classic case of kicking the can down the road.