Open-Source NVIDIA Changes Sent In For Linux 5.12

What a narrowminded view. For the record, I'm an Nvidia customer because for various reasons I find their products superior (or used to find them superior when I last was in the market for a GPU), and I'm also an avid Linux user and open source enthusiast, and I really care about Nvidia finally getting their heads out of their a$$es and open sourcing their drivers and/or at least playing nicely with the open source graphics stack. And I know for sure I'm not alone in thinking like this.

Yeah, NVIDIA drivers are pretty nice. Only reason I don't use them, is because I need proper, functioning open source drivers (especially in-tree ones) and Wayland support.

I'm going to have to buy an AMD card before wayland hits every damn OS. The window of functionality is closing rapidly on nvidia.

Intel's better, trust me on this one. Way lesser headaches and problems than with AMD.

[pieman]

well gamingonlinux website has a survey people can do to measure hardware stats: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics
it is voluntary and its just based off the community who uses the site, but if it has any decent measurement for linux users, at least gaming linux users, nvidia still holds the crown. even though amd owns the crown for cpu's.

i currently have a 3090 fe myself, and even though i use nvidia, i would LOVE for nvidia to adopt open source drivers. if i could get my hands on a 6900 xt, i would buy it in a heartbeat and sell my 3090 fe just for open source. the only reason why i use nvidia and got my 3090 fe was because amd for the longest time just wasn't competitive in performance. i didn't believe rdna2 was going to be competitive at all. i was proven wrong and happy i was.

i do have a sapphire 5700 xt but i believe its defective. if people remember me, back around march - april of 2020 i was posting here about my experience. it was nice to have open source drivers and be able to use mesa. i really enjoyed wayland with gnome 3. but my 5700 xt kept causing MCE issues and BSOD's in windows. warcraft 3 reforge was the worst offender in triggering them. at first I thought it was my cpu at the time (3900x) because I was getting machine check errors, but after buying a SECOND 3900x, and then finally my now my intel 10850k, i realized it wasn't the cpu, motherboard, or anything else. it was the 5700 xt causing them. going back to my 2080 super and now 3090 has been smooth sailing. i even bought a seasonic prime gx 1000 to replace my corsair rm850x thinking it could have been the psu.

edit:
that said, i haven't had any issues with nvidia. its been rock solid on linux and gsync works fantastically. both with my non gysnc compatible freesync monitor, and now my certified gsync compatible freesync monitor. the nvidia control panel is extremely nice and i wish amd provided an official open source control panel themselves. my disgruntlement is strictly lack of open source. i feel like nvidia is bolted on and made to work around linux while amd gpu's are just built in, fully integrated.

[Danielsan]

Having free open source graphic driver can have a tremendous leverage at the enterprise level as well as in the research field, however also not having a feature may lead Nvidia to invest more resources in the opensource

[oiaohm]

But they do care about the performance (or quality) uplift brought by upscaling.

I am a Linux gamer that might rare. I don't dual boot. The reality is on Linux DLSS 2.0 does not work.

To get the uplift in performance by upscaling I have to have a AMD card so I can use gamescope from valve.

Of course gamescope from valve will work with Nvidia when Nvidia finally supports Xwayland and Wayland properly.

Reality here I do care about the same thing here and are mega pissed at Nvidia for dragging there feet over Wayland support because it means I have not had access to particular functionality. Yes up-scaling a game can really boost number of frames by reducing the amount of work the GPU in fact has todo.

Please note functional up-scaling is also important when you are playing old games in wine Yes games that run faster in wine than on windows.

So I really do care about performance and its one of the reasons I mega hate Nvidia at the moment.

[JackLilhammers]

oiaohm
anth
Who cares about Linux?!

Of course here people do. Here.
In the rest of the world gamers mostly don't.
But they do care about the performance (or quality) uplift brought by upscaling.

In this sense open source drivers are not a selling point while features are, even if they're only available on Windows.
I mean dual booting is not a big deal, and is probably the best way to enjoy the best of both worlds

[anth]

DLSS 2.0 is a selling point.

Not on Linux. Yes, it exists in the drivers but nothing uses it.

The NGX library is proprietary and covered by NDA, which means it can't be used by open source software including games and translation layers. Linux-native proprietary games could use it but I'm not aware of any which do - the sort of new AAA games which benefit from this only run through those open source translation layers.

[oiaohm]

DLSS 2.0 is a selling point. Open source drivers are, to most users, a nice to have, at best.
The average user hardly knows the difference between freeware and free software...

DLSS 2.0 is not a selling point on Linux.

https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope

Linux for everyone with AMD and Intel graphics has gamescope that offer what DLSS does with valve doing per game filters.

[JackLilhammers]

I cannot change my GPU it is a mobile one... By the way with Intel and AMD pushing opensource driver Nvidia will be forced to do something because it will be a selling point now...

DLSS 2.0 is a selling point. Open source drivers are, to most users, a nice to have, at best.
The average user hardly knows the difference between freeware and free software...

[Danielsan]

I cannot change my GPU it is a mobile one... By the way with Intel and AMD pushing opensource driver Nvidia will be forced to do something because it will be a selling point now...