Open-Source NVIDIA Support For Recent GPUs Is Poor But Now You Can Fake It For Testing

[sandy8925]

I have a couple of old PCs and laptops that Nouveau works fine on. I only really need a frame buffer, though...

I installed the Nvidia binary blob a couple of times, but it all fell apart when the kernel updated (I think it actually scribbled on my HDD at one point) and I couldn't be bothered to keep reinstalling it. Nowadays, Intel and AMD cards are plentiful anyway!

Yeah, this is why I prefer Intel. Good quality open source driver that just works, support is finished well ahead of time, and problems are rare (in my experience). And almost every single feature is supported.

[X_m7]

nouveau.config=NvBoost=1 or 2 allows nouveau to use boost clocks, it's just disabled by default because you can get above the power budget while boosting and nouveau can't detect it, so... safer to not boost by default.

Yeah, that was what I meant by pushing it, although now I'm not sure what I was experiencing before. Now with NvBoost=1 it's been stable after a few DiRT Rally benchmark passes and Xonotic bot matches, it went from 1088 MHz to 1164 MHz (full boost is 1202 MHz with proprietary drivers), got about 5% extra average fps too. With NvBoost=2 it certainly did crash in a Xonotic round after a bit, but it only went to 1189 MHz so it's not like it'd be a big difference anyway, and temperatures were stable in the low 70s C too.

Either way, it's fabulous for what it is. Also, one nice thing that apparently happened in 2020 is this bug being fixed, turns out that was why Nouveau can turn my dGPU off properly now, many thanks!

[karolherbst]

Meanwhile here I am, daily driving Nouveau with my Optimus powered laptop (i7-6700HQ and GTX 960M). Reclocking works up to base clock (seems to be unstable if I push it, besides it's only some 100ish MHz anyway), and it's been significantly faster than the iGPU for almost everything I tried (except for OpenMW in some scenarios). Oddly enough despite being fully aware that I'm leaving a lot of performance on the table I'm really enjoying the experience still, thanks to the fact that I can make use of Wayland, have fully working dynamic power management, no screwing around with proprietary mess and not be completely stuck with the iGPU levels of performance. Now I'm spoiled enough that going back to nvidia-xrun on my old install (dual booted) feels incredibly clunky, and I've already set it up so I don't even have to retype my password. While there is the official PRIME render offload it can't turn off my dGPU properly so it's a complete non-starter for me just for that reason.

Now if Vulkan support ever appears and gets good enough for DXVK I'll dump the proprietary driver for good as celebration, and be sure to go AMD next time I get a new system of course. Frankly even if it's just at the level of the current OpenGL performance I'll be happy, not like it's got much chance at running the latest games even with the proprietary drivers anyway.

nouveau.config=NvBoost=1 or 2 allows nouveau to use boost clocks, it's just disabled by default because you can get above the power budget while boosting and nouveau can't detect it, so... safer to not boost by default.

[X_m7]

Meanwhile here I am, daily driving Nouveau with my Optimus powered laptop (i7-6700HQ and GTX 960M). Reclocking works up to base clock (seems to be unstable if I push it, besides it's only some 100ish MHz anyway), and it's been significantly faster than the iGPU for almost everything I tried (except for OpenMW in some scenarios). Oddly enough despite being fully aware that I'm leaving a lot of performance on the table I'm really enjoying the experience still, thanks to the fact that I can make use of Wayland, have fully working dynamic power management, no screwing around with proprietary mess and not be completely stuck with the iGPU levels of performance. Now I'm spoiled enough that going back to nvidia-xrun on my old install (dual booted) feels incredibly clunky, and I've already set it up so I don't even have to retype my password. While there is the official PRIME render offload it can't turn off my dGPU properly so it's a complete non-starter for me just for that reason.

Now if Vulkan support ever appears and gets good enough for DXVK I'll dump the proprietary driver for good as celebration, and be sure to go AMD next time I get a new system of course. Frankly even if it's just at the level of the current OpenGL performance I'll be happy, not like it's got much chance at running the latest games even with the proprietary drivers anyway.

[pal666]

I would love to use nouveau just because it is OOB. But while no reclocking and Vulkan on mine 2060 it is useless for me.

next time you could make smarter hardware purchase

[pal666]

And I don't know a single person who intentionally stays on nouveau

well, you don't know much, do you? my kitchen computer uses gt 440 with nouveau and it works without issues. i don't use ubuntu though. and btw, it uses wayland, which is unavailable to nvidiots like you

[Kano]

I think the new feature can be very useful. Changing the GPU to debug things which basically doesn’t require the GPU at all is useless.

About nouveau in general you can say it basically works, it is required for older GPUs, you can forget to use VDPAU even with extracted firmware as it just crashes. Has got less issues with HDMI or DVI to HDMI. It seems to prefer RGB mode and audio works over DVI (compared to amdgpu). For basic things the functionality is enough, gamers or Kodi users (especially with slower CPUs) most likely will install the binary driver very soon.

[theriddick]

To be honest I've had just as many odd problems with AMDGPU drivers as I did with the NVIDIA blob when I had a 1080TI in my system. Currently got a 6800XT which might explain the issues (won't be fully featured/improved until kernel-5.12).

Generally with NVIDIA blob drivers if you install the DKMS hooks correctly then they are mostly fine. Plus only update the kernel to a major version when you confirm the driver works with it.
This is all easiest to do on a distro that has stuff like AUR on ARCH, if you run Ubuntu based distro then it may be a little less forth coming and easier to step on landmines. (same goes with amdgpu really).

Basically comes down to making sure you have the correct repository setup with the correct driver, easy enough for a modest linux user like me.

[dragon321]

And I don't know a single person who intentionally stays on nouveau

Oh yeah, you don't know so it has to be true.

It's not like there is any force to use it. You can use blob like most users do. But if developers want to work on it and somebody wants to use it - it's their choice. And for these users Nouveau development and articles are not redundant.

[karolherbst]

Articles likes this are so redundant. Open source NV drivers are, and have always been, horrible. And most probably will always be. There's no "good" open source NV driver, only "less awful". 50 shades of [email protected] And I don't know a single person who intentionally stays on nouveau, that's reserved to the extreme Stallmannists who believe that every time you boot up with a binary blob, God kills a kitten.

Don't you love it when you install Ubuntu on a (quite old) laptop with say a 1050 Ti, and there's literally nothing on the screen after the reboot? Oh yeah, you gotta remember to fail the boot process a couple of times (because Ubuntu doesn't let you enter GRUB by default, that's a useless feature, much like Ctrl + Alt + Backspace for restarting X, right?), and once you finally enter GRUB, add nomodset to the boot arguments, then you can finally log in, and then either modify GRUB to permanently add that, or install the binary driver. Usability at its finest, especially for complete noobs.

Remember the old saying, IE is the best browser to download Firefox with? Well Nouveau is much like that, it's the best driver to download the official NV driver with.

do us all a favour and delete your account so nobody has to read your gibberish.