Nouveau Lights Up The GK106 Kepler

[Gusar]

Why do you think overclocking was disabled on closed source driver by nvidia on fermi+ ?

It wasn't "disabled", they never implemented it. They decided not to, because their time is limited and they wanted to spend it on other stuff. I can search for the exact quote if you want to, it's somewhere at the nvnews forums.

Precisely to make nouveau driver perform like crap due to low GPU clocks. So that you stay with closed source driver.

Now you're talking about reclocking, which is a totally different thing from overclocking. The card starting at the lowest clock is being done from a thermal standpoint, no connection to nouveau.

BTW, AMD APUs start at the lowest clock too.

But if they stop 2D development and do not provide anything - that would hinder nouveau development rate for 2D, for basic functionality and overall progress because it could be easier to deobfuscate from 2D driver.

That's an interesting spin. But that's all it is - spin. Not providing info, whatever info, is not "hindering". It's doing nothing.

Also, they never planned to implement even basic 2d for Fermi in the nv driver, nothing to do with nouveau. I'm too lazy to go search for the exact mailing list posts, but they said implementing 2d accel would require accessing the 3d engine and they didn't want to expose anything about the 3d engine. Which makes sense, modern graphic cards don't have 2d engines anymore, and the nv driver never had anything about 3d engines in it.

Then, they went ahead and disabled reclocking. Why would somebody do that? It hinders sales for possible overclockers.

You're again mixing reclocking and overclocking. Reclocking is very much there in their driver, and overclocking was not "disabled", as I already explained above.

[crazycheese]

Even if I had 80% performance with nouveau, I'd still use the proprietary driver. Also, why would they even attempt to block nouveau? They're already supporting it by not suing its developers.

Use whatever you want. I don't care what you use.
Also, nouveau is clean room reverse-engineered.
If its developers reside outside from such degraded countries as USA, they can't be sued, wherever nvidia likes it or not.
So your argument is invalid and my is valid. They are not blocking, they are hindering.
Second indication - they stopped supporting "opensource" obfuscated 2D driver once they saw nouveau is good enough.
To contradict your possible counterargument - they stopped the development altogether, instead of supplying 2D only documentation to nouveau. Thats the reaction if somebody wants to hinder.
So counterargument "nvidia is aware that nouveau does 2D job" would be also invalid.

Had they stopped 2D development and provided 2D documentation - would mean that they think nouveau can do their job for them and implement 2D driver.
But if they stop 2D development and do not provide anything - that would hinder nouveau development rate for 2D, for basic functionality and overall progress because it could be easier to deobfuscate from 2D driver.

Then, they went ahead and disabled reclocking. Why would somebody do that? It hinders sales for possible overclockers.
Its not complex to implement. It was also never implemented for further generations - this indicates its not a bug. Its a planned measure.
Why would someone plan to reduce own functionality? Precisely to hinder nouveau spread.

Try Tesseract (some FOSS game/engine made for more modern GPUs).
On a laptop with a 9600GT, I have 9FPS on a blank map, where I have 60FPS on map "authentic" (a medium-sized map with about 30 light sources).

Will test it as addition, but primary test run will be to match that of Veerappan.
Currently MESA is growing and anything that contains shaders or OpenGL3 functions will be predictably heavily slow-downed.

[Calinou]

"Why do you think overclocking was disabled on closed source driver by nvidia on fermi+ ?
Precisely to make nouveau driver perform like crap due to low GPU clocks. So that you stay with closed source driver."

Even if I had 80% performance with nouveau, I'd still use the proprietary driver. Also, why would they even attempt to block nouveau? They're already supporting it by not suing its developers.

"I can only tell my experiences. Nouveau on 3.2 Debian kernel is working very well with 260GTX - Compiz, OpenArena, UrbanTerror."

Try Tesseract (some FOSS game/engine made for more modern GPUs).
On a laptop with a 9600GT, I have 9FPS on a blank map, where I have 60FPS on map "authentic" (a medium-sized map with about 30 light sources).

[crazycheese]

I wish 250GTS owners may say same, but they can't.

So this one is already fixed?

I can only tell my experiences. Nouveau on 3.2 Debian kernel is working very well with 260GTX - Compiz, OpenArena, UrbanTerror.

Regarding the 6100, its old Sempron machine that my collegue uses for his business and documents. He is ~80 years old and is computer newbie.
I will dump lspci and glxinfo here in around a week, when I get to that machine.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

By the way, I used nouveau on 260GTX and its running fine. The problem is, closed driver is too very polished.

I wish 250GTS owners may say same, but they can't.

I had already one old machine with 6100 nvidia IGP, that didn't work with ANY closed source driver, but nouveau works like a miracle there!

So this one is already fixed?

[crazycheese]

"AMD GPUs are usually better than Nvidia equivalents and more recent ones are much better, because they are universal GPUs. They are much less restricted to gaming."

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?75891-AMD-Catalyst-12-12-For-Linux-Released&p=301305#post301305

"But if you want to stay with nvidia, you need to donate to nouveau team!!"
I have no spare NVIDIA GPU, too. :P

I am not discussing Catalyst, because I want AMD to fscking work and fix open driver. If they don't do it, I will make sure to help people who do it, f.e. Marek.
First time I got 4670, Catalyst was only option and it hanged the system when I switched from Xorg to TTY1.
Next, in a year when I got 4770, I had ~5 fps with open driver in OpenArena, but 2D was usable! I did not install catalyst here even once.
The time when I sold the card, it had already 30fps in openarena, that was 2011.
Now open driver achives ~100fps with this card and runs ~70% of catalyst. It is very very stable driver, with less bugs than nvidia closed source.
By the way, I used nouveau on 260GTX and its running fine. The problem is, closed driver is too very polished. Maybe I need to retest it before it gets sold. I am selling it now.
I would donate it instead, but its running ok already and there are virtually no differences between G200a/b and G92.

When I get my Vishera system, I will donate 50? - the price of 260GTX, to Marek, sooner if he improves something for 5xxx-6xxx GPU.

As a rule of the thumb, you should donate 20% of card cost to opensource team for *the* driver.

So you are fine sitting on nvidia with closed source driver, well, ok, enjoy sitting there. I had already one old machine with 6100 nvidia IGP, that didn't work with ANY closed source driver, but nouveau works like a miracle there!
When you get this experience, you will change your stance.

Why do you think overclocking was disabled on closed source driver by nvidia on fermi+ ?
Precisely to make nouveau driver perform like crap due to low GPU clocks. So that you stay with closed source driver.

[Calinou]

"AMD GPUs are usually better than Nvidia equivalents and more recent ones are much better, because they are universal GPUs. They are much less restricted to gaming."

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?75891-AMD-Catalyst-12-12-For-Linux-Released&p=301305#post301305

"But if you want to stay with nvidia, you need to donate to nouveau team!!"
I have no spare NVIDIA GPU, too. :P

[crazycheese]

"I have purchased 6800GT for 180? and donated it to nouveau project. Now, you can use this card properly."

A 9800GTX is 3 times faster and cheaper, and more recent... why use old GPUs? Also, it can be reclocked, like all other 9xxx NVIDIA GPUs, AFAIK.

Because 9800GTX was not produced in 2004.
And after 2009 I purchased 4670, then 9800GT, then 4770 and now GTX260.

Why the hell should I use 6800GT or 9800GTX?

9800GTX is 9800GT on steroids - hot, slow and huge. Even 5770 beats it. It belongs in antique.

"So... if you think correctly, your best bet is to get pre7xxx radeon, use opensource driver, donate 10% to radeon developers and for another 10% buy low-entry nvidia 6xx model and donate it to nouveau developers.
This is absolutely best thing to do."

AMD GPUs are only good for getting other GPUs. They overheat and they don't work.

AMD GPUs are usually better than Nvidia equivalents and more recent ones are much better, because they are universal GPUs. They are much less restricted to gaming.
Their only trouble is VLIW design, which requires good drivers to utilize the card fully.

Also, G80/92/200 are HD4xxx era GPUs.
You cant recommend 2008 GPU today.

And granted, you want to go opensource, you would go AMD, because it clocks way better and is way better supported.
But if you want to stay with nvidia, you need to donate to nouveau team!!

And, loldonating. *drops gamepad*

*picks the gamepad and punches it down your throat*
Have a nice day.

[Calinou]

"I have purchased 6800GT for 180€ and donated it to nouveau project. Now, you can use this card properly."

A 9800GTX is 3 times faster and cheaper, and more recent... why use old GPUs? Also, it can be reclocked, like all other 9xxx NVIDIA GPUs, AFAIK.

"So... if you think correctly, your best bet is to get pre7xxx radeon, use opensource driver, donate 10% to radeon developers and for another 10% buy low-entry nvidia 6xx model and donate it to nouveau developers.
This is absolutely best thing to do."

AMD GPUs are only good for getting other GPUs. They overheat and they don't work. And, loldonating. *drops gamepad*

[crazycheese]

As if someone was going to buy a $200+ graphics card and not be able to use it properly...

I have purchased 6800GT for 180€ and donated it to nouveau project. Now, you can use this card properly.

Depends what you want to do, but if you want to play games with nouveau I advise getting a 9800GTX (which works well with nouveau, see the recent benchmark)... Using a OSS driver on a recent GPU is almost never worth it.

Not 9800GTX, but 55nm 260sp216 or 275 or 285 GTX.
9800GTX is very inefficient.

The main problem with newer chips AFAIK is absent reclocking code, which restricts performance to idle speeds. Newer GPUs idle at much lower Hz, this is why the performance is abysmal for now.

So... if you think correctly, your best bet is to get pre7xxx radeon, use opensource driver, donate 10% to radeon developers and for another 10% buy low-entry nvidia 6xx model and donate it to nouveau developers.
This is absolutely best thing to do.