Nouveau vs. NVIDIA Linux Comparison Shows Shortcomings

[brosis]

I bought Nvidia's hardware and use the vendor's Linux driver because I want the best performance possible. Did I do something bad? (I could swear I paid for all this stuff.)

Category "bad" is highly subjective and hence unapplicable!

What you did is pay for solution with clear definitions.
Performance over specific LIMITED time and LIMITED features (by means of driver support for specific OSes with single license to use this driver in binary form) as mentioned in Nvidia EULA. Nothing more.

Opensource is CLEARLY MUCH MORE demanding and not covered by your Nvidia agreement.

nouveau driver is running fine on a rare Geforce GTX 460 v2 (Fermi based) for casual use or some hindi games.
It will be a matter of time Nvidia will have no choice but to assist nouveau developer due to competition.

Happens ONLY if you support NON-nvidia now. So...
PS.
Would also be nice if they fire "for-fun" guys straightaway and driver actually stabilizes.
All this "fun" in official Linux results in nothing more but damage to reputation.

[Larian]

Umm....

I bought Nvidia's hardware and use the vendor's Linux driver because I want the best performance possible. Did I do something bad? (I could swear I paid for all this stuff.)

[finalzone]

nouveau driver is running fine on a rare Geforce GTX 460 v2 (Fermi based) for casual use or some hindi games.
It will be a matter of time Nvidia will have no choice but to assist nouveau developer due to competition.

[brosis]

@brosis

I don't know how to do that with udev, maybe it works with systemd, but thats not available with Debian in a recent version (udev is therefore outdated as well). But that is still something that should NOT be done by udev IHMO. If you only own 1 card and you like a driver so much I am sure you can optimize it for your needs. But instead of forcing radeon to lowest state i could remove the card as well, all my systems have got Intel gfx too. I currently switch cards depending on what i want to do:

a) Play Serious Sam 3 -> Use any fast gfx card, Fglrx however needs 2x alt-enter and my hd 5670 is a bit slow for that game, so maybe better gtx 295
b) Play Killing Floor -> use Fglrx (hd 5670) because Nvidia cards suffer from weird rendering issues
c) Use HDMI audio -> use Intel onboard (hd 4000) or Nvidia (gt 630 oem) - because Fglrx has got issues with HDMI after playing some minutes with some games
d) Test uvd/vdpau -> use Radeon (hd 5670 currently)
e) Test xvba -> use Fglrx (hd 5670 or 4550)
f) Play Source engine game -> try any gfx solution as i mainly use only the timedemo feature (i dont like TF2 much, i have got HL2DM but i dont like that game as well, maybe i play a bit longer when L4D2 is available)

The udev can set default policy if he finds radeon card.
That would be "profile", "low".
Then a daemon can be spawned that will watch process list against user-defined list of applications. If the application is found, it sets profile to high and watches for it to kill, otherwise exits.
Pretty much HAL polling logic here, but sure way can be optimized.

No way its as efficient as automatic power mode management by closed source nvidia blob, but hey, the driver is opensource and one of the most advanced ones that also have powerfull hardware already available.

You recommend fglrx for a,b,f which is due to 3D performance, which is what I agree. But I think the performance will eventually be there with radeon.
Video playback d, radeon already capable.
HDMI audio c radeon should be capable, we even have had a developer for this feature on forums asking to submit bug if it does not work.

[brosis]

So because it doesn't work on some hardware, people like me who have hardware for which it DOES work should NOT be able to enjoy this and instead everyone should drop Nouveau? What kind of moron are you?

They have VERY LIMITED manpower, what they have accomplished despite being so few and working on their spare time with is goddamn incredible.

They can't fix/work on every driver AT ONCE, during development bugs will creep in and cause regressions in previously working drivers, which is why you don't use development drivers unless you are doing testing.

Unlike Michael, I don't randomly build daily Nouveau development snapshots from GIT and expect them to be bug free, and then write articles which makes it seem as if Nouveau is constantly breaking on people's desktops, which is not the case as people get their driver updates from their distro repositories once they've gone through some testing.

A survivor of inverted russian roulette calls me moron, because I am against such testing on people.
You protest against removal of highly unstable high-explosive bomb (because it causes X freeze, crashes and kernel panics unless lucky), because you eventually were lucky enough. You sure don't care about other people experiences, only your own case settles matters.

Maybe you get some different card, blow your ass from nouveau, reread developer (and not your own dream) comment here and reconsider my position?

They dont have "VERY LIMITED manpower", they care SHIT about manpower calculations.

Perhaps at least enable if for devices who actually work, with testing done UPSTREAM and not by distributions. BECAUSE DISTRIBUTIONS CAN'T DO THAT.

Oh, I forgot, it ain't possible, because all nouveau developers are busy at are "creating fun". Not card testing. Not coding. Not stability checks. Just carrying a bomb in the public and declaring it to be safe because you had nothing else but luck. Moron.

[Kano]

@brosis

I don't know how to do that with udev, maybe it works with systemd, but thats not available with Debian in a recent version (udev is therefore outdated as well). But that is still something that should NOT be done by udev IHMO. If you only own 1 card and you like a driver so much I am sure you can optimize it for your needs. But instead of forcing radeon to lowest state i could remove the card as well, all my systems have got Intel gfx too. I currently switch cards depending on what i want to do:

a) Play Serious Sam 3 -> Use any fast gfx card, Fglrx however needs 2x alt-enter and my hd 5670 is a bit slow for that game, so maybe better gtx 295
b) Play Killing Floor -> use Fglrx (hd 5670) because Nvidia cards suffer from weird rendering issues
c) Use HDMI audio -> use Intel onboard (hd 4000) or Nvidia (gt 630 oem) - because Fglrx has got issues with HDMI after playing some minutes with some games
d) Test uvd/vdpau -> use Radeon (hd 5670 currently)
e) Test xvba -> use Fglrx (hd 5670 or 4550)
f) Play Source engine game -> try any gfx solution as i mainly use only the timedemo feature (i dont like TF2 much, i have got HL2DM but i dont like that game as well, maybe i play a bit longer when L4D2 is available)

[XorEaxEax]

I tested this:
6100 IGP - crashes, composite unstable
8300 IGP - crashes
9800 GT - stable

So because it doesn't work on some hardware, people like me who have hardware for which it DOES work should NOT be able to enjoy this and instead everyone should drop Nouveau? What kind of moron are you?

They have VERY LIMITED manpower, what they have accomplished despite being so few and working on their spare time with is goddamn incredible.

They can't fix/work on every driver AT ONCE, during development bugs will creep in and cause regressions in previously working drivers, which is why you don't use development drivers unless you are doing testing.

Unlike Michael, I don't randomly build daily Nouveau development snapshots from GIT and expect them to be bug free, and then write articles which makes it seem as if Nouveau is constantly breaking on people's desktops, which is not the case as people get their driver updates from their distro repositories once they've gone through some testing.

[brosis]

Again bullshit, it is already WORKING.

I tested this:
6100 IGP - crashes, composite unstable
8300 IGP - crashes
9800 GT - stable

So, it comes in one line with your experience and results from Michael test. Nouveau is russian roullete. But inverted one - 5 bullets in 6 load drum. I'd say, radeon is normal russian roulette 1/6 instead.
Consider yourself lucky, no? Eheh.

[brosis]

@brosis

Call it how you like but when something is not enabled by default and works automatically only a few users will even notice it existance. I personally could use it but i have to think about the Kanotix user base as well - even if it is possible they usually dont use it. I do NOT intend to tell em how it works when i provide already binary drivers that can do the job better - it would be completely lost time to do so when it is not even 100% sure that it works.

If you put "low" profile in udev and set profile to "high" for applications from a list if they appear in process list, that would already be "automatical powerstate switching".

This vs binary drivers,.. unlike you, I would choose this and stay with radeon instead. I mean, with nvidia blob you can't even force low powerstate. So its not "complete" either.

[Kano]

@XorEaxEax

It is incorrect that nouveau always uses the lowest clockspeed. It just uses the clockspeed thats set by the vga bios on boot when you don't enforce reclocking. That can be a higher clock as well than the lowest one and could be different from vendor to vendor even for the same model.