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Don't Expect An Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver Anytime Soon

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  • #21
    Originally posted by fuzz View Post

    But open source drivers work even better...
    They don't have the optimization of the closed drivers (if they reach the same OpenGL support level), power management is hit and miss (all miss in case of nouveau) and I'm not sure where video hardware decoding stands. Other than that, yes, they're totally the better choice.
    You do get instant support for newer kernels and X, but I'm not drooling over it, I've enjoyed that feature for years already.

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    • #22
      Originally posted by eydee View Post
      "Nouveau developers" isn't a closed group. What if someone jumps in and makes a vulkan driver? I'm sure they won't reject it just for the sake of rejecting it.
      it works both ways. what if they move to amd?

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      • #23
        Originally posted by darkbasic View Post
        Why do people keep buying Nvidia

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        • #24
          Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
          Most Windows users prefer Nvidia because they overall perform better.
          in other words, it all comes down to unsupported propaganda

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          • #25
            Originally posted by bug77 View Post

            They don't have the optimization of the closed drivers (if they reach the same OpenGL support level), power management is hit and miss (all miss in case of nouveau) and I'm not sure where video hardware decoding stands. Other than that, yes, they're totally the better choice.
            You do get instant support for newer kernels and X, but I'm not drooling over it, I've enjoyed that feature for years already.
            Sounds like you are in favor of AMDGPU and intel.

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            • #26
              I buy NVIDIA because it actually works, It has FreeBSD and Linux support with full OpenGL 4.5 acceleration on both. I don't have to hope or wonder if a feature will work. They just do. That's not propaganda or unsubstantiated, I've run AMD, Intel and NVIDIA, I've had mixed experiences on all of them and I've had failures on all of them. For laptops I would stick to Intel mostly for power draw. For a desktop system NVIDIA works great. There's enough open source support that it's not painful to run without the binary for a few days after initial Linux install. WINE is useless for many of the purposes I have for it (for example GLScissor doesn't work properly in Caligari Truespace, and Glide isn't supported, neither is surface flipping in DirectX 5/6 mode) these are real issues which affect me. I've been asking for change for 15 years now and nothing has been done on these issues, so I don't like WINE. I am now using KVM/Qemu/Dosbox where applicable to work around WINE's shortcomings.

              Why would people work on Nouveau? Because it's a labour of love. Some people like to rewrite 3d modellers, some people like to remake games, and some people like to reverse engineer graphics drivers. Why do you use Linux instead of Windows? It's a similar question and kind of silly for a Linux user to ask.

              I would like to thank the Nouveau developers for their fine work and wish them the best success. Their efforts are appreciated, despite the vocal minority which don't understand the hobbyist mindset, or what it means to work on something out of love for it. I feel sorry for those guys, passion is a valuable thing and not having it is sad.

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              • #27
                Originally posted by pal666 View Post
                in other words, it all comes down to unsupported propaganda
                Not sure what is unsupported propaganda about AMDs power requirements. You're often looking at 50%-100% more power for the same performance.. My room is hot enough already. And I don't necessarily want to have to buy a new power supply either.

                I remember way back when I built some earlier machines with Linux in mind, specifically looking for an Ati Rage Pro 64 (IIRC) chip because it had better support under X11R5(?) back then (I've been running Linux as my primary desktop > 20 years). Then a couple of 3Dfx cards, because they also worked in Linux. After that, it was generally accepted that nVidia worked better than Ati/AMD for Linux. For years, the solid advice was "nVidia works", without regards to binary blobs or open source. I think they were both equally closed back then.

                I am constantly following video card developments, although I guess I have become stuck in my ways. The general state seems to have been for the last 5 years:
                -AMD uses more power, sometimes much more, but is a little cheaper
                -AMD has decent open-source support (for Linux) that usually works
                -AMD's windows drivers (I usually buy my best cards for games in Windows, then move them to my Linux machine a generation later) aren't as good as nvidias, on the whole
                -nouveau works for older cards, not for newer cards
                -nvidia binary blob "just works"

                I've had/used the following nvidia cards with Slackware Linux: GeForce 200 TI (IIRC), 7300GT, 7600, 7950, 8600GT, 450GTS, GTX650, GTX 650 TI, GTX 950. They've all worked just by downloading the latest nvidia blob and installing it. Once I had to patch a bad typedef, I think, for a very recent driver that was fixed in a day or two..

                At this point, I prefer "working binary blob" over "hope it works" open source. Yes, I understand - at some point, nvidia may stop releasing the binary blob. At which point I doubt the open-source driver would be any better. If that day ever comes, and I can't keep going with my existing card for some reason, I'll have to re-evaluate and maybe switch to some other OS in my old age...

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by vw_fan17 View Post
                  You're often looking at 50%-100% more power for the same performance..
                  more bullshit propaganda
                  Originally posted by vw_fan17 View Post
                  -nvidia binary blob "just works"
                  except when it does not work at all, like in modern linux
                  Originally posted by vw_fan17 View Post
                  At this point, I prefer
                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_pigs

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                  • #29
                    My 290X, clocked at 900MHz, consumes about 130-150W. It just depends on the Bios settings. With this card I get about as much average and high FPS in 1440p@maxed out like gamingonlinux.com measured with a 980ti@1080p.
                    So at first: you can buy success in benchmarks for your inferior products to some extend and let the competition look like crap (if the platform allows it). And you can let your customers pay all that. But this boomerang might catch you as soon as the circumstances change. (<- This just stands here without any relation to the rest of the text or to any specific company.).

                    It does also not make sense to give up on everything else just for less power consumption: The RX 480 Reference's voltage converters for example could theoretically deal with 600W. This overrating decreases the chances of coil whine and delivers very stable voltage even when the card is highly overclocked.
                    On the other hand, if you rip everything off to save cents as long as the card works - and that's how some "particular" cards look to me... you shouldn't be surprised when many people complain about coil whine and you find many cards with blown up MOSFETs on the market.

                    So a third party RX 480 has about 6.2 TFLOPS, a GTX 1060 about 4.6 and a 1070 about 7.0. From a rational point not even considering that Linux is a totally different situation, there is nothing at all to decide. Especially if you plan to fire Vulkan games with them.
                    So you may interpret what I wrote however you like it. I'm not responsible for your fantasy. But I'm about to receive my new 480 today and due to several technical reasons I have never considered another GPU- manufacturer. This might have been different before AMD decided to introduce its AMDGPU driver - now there is no doubt at all. The last thing that might lead Linux friends to Nvidia are few percents of performance that people can experience in some cases. But hell, these will disappear anyway - and it looks like we would even get Vulkan in the Kernel driver within the next months - no matter by whom they will be provided.

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by oooverclocker View Post
                      With this card I get about as much average and high FPS in 1440p@maxed out like gamingonlinux.com measured with a 980ti@1080p.
                      In Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II.

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