NVIDIA GA103 Support Posted For Open-Source Nouveau Linux Driver

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA GA103 Support Posted For Open-Source Nouveau Linux Driver

Merged last year into the Linux kernel's Nouveau DRM driver was initial support for GeForce RTX 30 "Ampere" GPUs initially in the form of the GA100 and GA102 parts. That support for the moment is still limited to just mode-setting/display support with 3D still being tackled, but now a patch has been posted that rather trivially extends the support to cover the GA103 GPU too...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-GA103-Ampere-Nouveau

[birdie]

It's painful to see all this effort essentially going to waste considering NVIDIA keeps the reclocking firmware close to its chest.

It's been how many years already? Six? It's almost disgusting.

[hamishmb]

It's painful to see all this effort essentially going to waste considering NVIDIA keeps the reclocking firmware close to its chest.

It's been how many years already? Six? It's almost disgusting.

Yep, and it's weird to me because I'm not seeing how a well-performing Nouvaeu driver could hurt Nvidia. Of course, maybe I'm missing something.

[karolherbst]

It's painful to see all this effort essentially going to waste considering NVIDIA keeps the reclocking firmware close to its chest.

It's been how many years already? Six? It's almost disgusting.

they released it and we already have work in progress patches to make use of it.

[ezst036]

they released it and we already have work in progress patches to make use of it.

I think this (the release) would be news to a lot of people - including many who may have simply forgotten. Was there ever any announcement at the time? When was it that Nvidia released reclocking information/firmware that could be used?

Speaking for myself, I know I don't remember it.

[You-]

Speaking for myself, I know I don't remember it.

Here: https://www.phoronix.com/review/nvidia-open-kernel

There are are still open questions that the developers involved may know the answers to, but its a starting point which could lead to very good support for nvidia cards from rx20xx onwards, but not the very popular 10 (or earlier) series.

[birdie]

they released it and we already have work in progress patches to make use of it.

Only for Turing and Ampere. Pascal is a lot more important - there are literally tens of millions of such cards.

[karolherbst]

Only for Turing and Ampere. Pascal is a lot more important - there are literally tens of millions of such cards.

Complain to Nvidia about it. Nothing I or anybody else could do here. Well... being able to sign our own firmware _would_ be a path, but...

[Developer12]

I'd really like to see a full-history benchmark of the openGL performance across every nouveau-supported card. It would be interesting to see the slow rise through the initial generations that support reclocking, the sharp drop when it became unavailable, and the (hypothetical) slow rise from there of boot-clock GPU performance.

It would be interesting to see if a boot-clock 3090 is still beaten by a reclocked old card.

[ezst036]

Here: https://www.phoronix.com/review/nvidia-open-kernel

There are are still open questions that the developers involved may know the answers to, but its a starting point which could lead to very good support for nvidia cards from rx20xx onwards, but not the very popular 10 (or earlier) series.

In the context of the original comment(question) about reclocking firmware, this link is a little cryptic. It only mentions re-clocking in one section of the article.

What the article you gave does say is that Nouveau may eventually be able to interface with the GSP Firmware (GPU System Processor) - however, that doesn't clearly state anything about reclocking and it is a hard stretch to say that it implies reclocking in the context of Nouveau. The largest implication which would pretty much crowd out any other, is that Nvidia will continue as is to let Nouveau remain as a second-fiddle. That doesn't (or shouldn't) make people think of the reclocking capability first.

It's no wonder people missed it. (perhaps there's a better link somewhere else)

Also, is this only for Turing and Ampere? If so, that's clearly _NOT_ within the scope of the years/decades long complaint about the lack of reclocking. We all kind of know that Nvidia is going to play a little nicer when it comes to the two newest generations of cards, the specifics about reclocking being publicly announced notwithstanding.