Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Accelerated nVidia Drivers for FreeBSD

Posted by michael on from the bring-out-all-the-freebsd-games dept.

zero0w writes "nVidia has released the official OpenGL accelerated driver set for FreeBSD 4.7 STABLE. Check out the nVidia Driver page for more detail. According to the page, this release should be considered as initial beta. So don't count on it to build a day-to-day production system, yet."

16 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. initial beta? by sczimme · · Score: 4, Funny

    According to the page, this release should be considered as initial beta

    Isn't that usually called 'alpha'?

    --
    I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
    1. Re:initial beta? by jmenezes · · Score: 2, Funny

      Unless your Microsoft, in which case beta is where everything gets pressed on the CDs and a several hundred dollar price tag gets put on it, right?

      --
      Stop over-analyzing your analizations
    2. Re:initial beta? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Unless my Microsoft what?

    3. Re:initial beta? by benwb · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, no, no, that's alpha. When a product hits beta Microsoft stops supporting it.

    4. Re:initial beta? by EvilAlien · · Score: 3, Funny

      Just a hint for the future, you miss out on those highly covetted "Troll" and "Flamebait" moderations if you actually spell Microsoft correctly. If you want to be really elite and properly anti-Microsoft, you should incorporate a $, or use "shaft" or "sloth" instead of -soft.

      Without those <sarcasm>insightful plays on the word 'Microsoft'</sarcasm> one typically only manages to produce an asinine off-topic comment.

      Just some hints for the future, your mileage may vary, all standard disclaimers apply.

      Thank you for not choosing Microsoft... meanwhile, back on topic:

      This is great news for the FreeBSD community. One of the complaints against the OS and long sought-after milestones has been graphics drivers for desktop applications, design work, and even gaming. FreeBSD, like most other OSes, isn't just for servers, and this helps make it better for the desktop.

      nVidia always impresses me with their efforts to support operating systems other than the 500 lb Redmond gorilla that dominates the desktop market. Linux and FreeBSD support is a great PR move for nVidia, and is one of the reasons I will ALWAYS choose nVidia over ATi, Matrox, etc.

      --
      perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
  2. Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Finally I can stop dual-booting to Linux just so I can play games...

  3. Sure, rub it in by dubbayu_d_40 · · Score: 5, Funny

    As if your shell wasn't already 100X better than my dos console, you just have to go and make it paint faster.

  4. Re:Source code... nVidia... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    There are a ton of wait() in , so for every new release of the drivers can remove some wait() and make it look like a bunch of genius programmers improving the speed. I KNOW. Why is no one suspicious that every driver release is significantly faster?

  5. FACT: NVIDIA is dying by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is official; 3D Gamers.com now confirms: NVIDIA is dying.

    One more crippling bombshell hit the happily fragging NVIDIA community when /. confirmed that NVIDIA drivers are coming to FreeBSD. Coming close on the heels of the recent Doom3 beta, which plainly shows that we'll need the GeForce5s of the future to run it, uh, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. NVIDIA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by...er... putting a graphics card in every Apple, every X-Box...

    Geez, trolling is a lot harder than I thought...

  6. Re:Great! But... by swordboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the question is, will my games run faster on FreeBSD?

    I dunno but SSH runs great on my headless nForce firewall.

    w00t!

    --

    Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  7. Re:So what? by Textbook+Error · · Score: 1, Funny

    Every 3D linux game: Rune, heretic2, q3a, ut, ut2003, descent, hg2, sof, terminus, parsec... Should I continue?

    Nope, I think you got them all...

    --

    Nae bother
  8. Good Deal by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I can get working on my dream Apache module called mod_3daccel

    --
    (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
  9. Dancing on the head of a pin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    So before NVidia got involved, there was one member of the FreeBSD community. Since I'm a member of the FreeBSD community, but not a developer, then there were no developers. So the code must have come from devine compilation.

    Therefore FreeBSD is sponsored by ${DIETY}!

    And given the way storage medium densities are increasing . . ..

  10. I like it by Ded+Bob · · Score: 3, Funny

    I am running with the nVidia drivers now on my Ti4200. Things I have noticed:

    1) You need a chmod 0666 on /dev/nvidia*. It helps xlock run.
    2) Atlantis mode (xlock) is my desktop background. Hi shark. Please do not eat my menu.
    3) The artifacts left behind by the XFree86 nv driver are no longer there. I believe that XFree86 v4.3 is supposed to fix this.

    Now, I need to go find some games. Time to try out UT.

  11. Release quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    this release should be considered as initial beta. So don't count on it to build a day-to-day production system, yet.

    So its just like the linux version then?

  12. Great...just when... by AcquaCow · · Score: 2, Funny

    I thought I might actually be productive and get some work done today, nVidia has to go and do this to me!

    ...must resist the temptat...WAIT! You mean I can have GL accelerated sprongies now!!! OMG! *click*

    -- AcquaCow

    --

    up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
    *makes note to limit user processes...