Valve Working On Explicit Sync Support For "NVK" NVIDIA Vulkan Driver

[LockedPotato]

Did NVK start out as a fork of R515?

Nope. The open source part of R515 has nothing to do with NVK. NVK currently uses the nouveau kernel driver and in the future Nova. The GSP firmware was released around R515 which was incredibly helpful though.

[ssokolow]

Did NVK start out as a fork of R515?

I don't remember anyone saying that, so I've been assuming they've just been writing it from scratch against the nVidia GSP firmware interfaces.

[dlq84]

Oh, I don't remember.

I'm just thinking it seems like the open source R515 and whatever new updates have come to it have been far and few inbetween, and Nvidia has been more than happy to let Valve, Collabora and whomever else do all of the heavy open source lifting resulting in NVK. NVK seems to be always getting new stuff.

Did NVK start out as a fork of R515?

R515 is a kernel module. NVK is a userland Vulkan driver, it's two different things.

[ezst036]

R515 is a kernel module. NVK is a userland Vulkan driver, it's two different things.

Thank you.

[NeoMorpheus]

All the bending over that AMD has done for linux in naught.

Oh well.

[mSparks]

Doubt it. Unless Nvidia suddenly makes an x86 Tegra chip. It's far more likely we'll see a new Steam Machine with Nvidia graphics. This was also probably the final blocker for a public SteamOS 3.x release.

My guess would be something completely new with a lot of their "secret sauce" baked into firmware an running on its own arm chip similar to tegra.

nvidia don't have any good offering for the low power mobile space right now (pretty sure tegra is dead and ancient, 2016 last refresh afaik), but they have been wracking up tons of relevent experience with the likes of jetson and the DGX.

All they need is to tag team with nanite and meta horizon and everyone else will be screwed.

[shmerl]

Makes me wonder if we're going to see a Tegra-based Steam Deck in the future.

I doubt it. AMD are way ahead in making APUs. Tegra can't really compete. If anything, Intel has higher chance of making something with their own GPU baked in if they decide to enter that market more.

Also, AMD is better for Valve due to less stuff in the firmware. Nvidia despite their more "open" attitude simply changed due to moving most of their stuff into firmware blob, so they don't care about kernel and userspace being closed anymore. It wouldn't be smart for Valve to replace AMD with that.

Besides, Nvidia is a bad partner when it comes to hardware solutions, as Evga experience showed. Another reason to stay away from them. Valve so far had good experience with AMD in making their custom APU and the rest, so why bother change that to something worse.

Their work on nvk I think is simply due to being ahead in improving desktop experience for Steam, since they expect Nvidia blob to be replaced with Mesa in the near future.

[mSparks]

I doubt it. AMD are way ahead in making APUs. Tegra can't really compete.

And then you learn the 2016/7 Tegra is what powers the Nintendo Switch.

[r1348]

I doubt it. AMD are way ahead in making APUs. Tegra can't really compete. If anything, Intel has higher chance of making something with their own GPU baked in if they decide to enter that market more.

Also, AMD is better for Valve due to less stuff in the firmware. Nvidia despite their more "open" attitude simply changed due to moving most of their stuff into firmware blob, so they don't care about kernel and userspace being closed anymore. It wouldn't be smart for Valve to replace AMD with that.

Besides, Nvidia is a bad partner when it comes to hardware solutions, as Evga experience showed. Another reason to stay away from them. Valve so far had good experience with AMD in making their custom APU and the rest, so why bother change that to something worse.

Their work on nvk I think is simply due to being ahead in improving desktop experience for Steam, since they expect Nvidia blob to be replaced with Mesa in the near future.

The MSI Claw is powered by Intel, and it's really uncompetitive with the AMD-powered alternatives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZG-WP8A_2c

Long story short: can only reach AMD level of performance at the cost of a much higher power draw (which is a big problem on a handheld), and there's plenty of GPU latency issues.

[scottishduck]

I doubt it. AMD are way ahead in making APUs. Tegra can't really compete. If anything, Intel has higher chance of making something with their own GPU baked in if they decide to enter that market more.

I get the impression you don’t really know anything about tegra.