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Nvidia Releases Updated Drivers for FreeBSD

Posted by michael on from the bsd-has-graphics? dept.

brsmith4 writes "Nvidia has released their latest drivers for the FreeBSD platform. This release addresses a number of issues and has been anticipated for well over a year. You will need at least 4.9-STABLE or any of the 5.x-CURRENT releases to install them. Some of the new features include added support for the latest NVIDIA GPUs including GeForce 6800 Series and improved interaction with -CURRENT's new threading libraries, not to mention the fact that my Dell laptop no longer shuts off the LCD when the driver gets loaded. The driver also provides tighter integration with the linux execution environment, making it very easy to run your favorite linux game titles. You can pick up the driver here. Pay no attention to the date, August 13th, 2003. It was a type-o."

3 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Re:what about 5-release or stable when that comes by brsmith4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Worked for me. Getting better frame rates on BSD than on linux.

  2. About damn time ! by SILIZIUMM · · Score: 2, Informative

    An update every 6 months is welcome for sure ! I hope they will sync their release path with the Linux drivers, THAT would be awesome (ie when the Linux driver is avaiable, the FreeBSD one will be (or within days...)).

  3. Re:what about 5-release or stable when that comes by brsmith4 · · Score: 4, Informative

    These are all averages over five minute segments, same levels and scenes

    Platforms: FreeBSD 5.2.1-CURRENT w/ ports/emulators/linux-base-8 (RedHat 8) vs. Fedora Core 2 w/ vanilla 2.6.7

    Card: GeForce2Go 32Mb (Default CPU Clock and Mem Clock, obviously, since nvclock does not support mobile devices)

    Quake 3:
    Linux: 1024x768@32bit full detail settings 37.45fps
    FreeBSD: 1024x768@32bit full detail settings 40.10fps

    Endgame (chess screensaver):
    Linux: 1024x768@32bit 42.78fps
    FreeBSD: 1024x768@32bit 47.50fps

    Return to Castle Wolfenstein:
    Linux: 1024x768@32bit NVFog, 2xAniso, Full detail 33.40fps
    FreeBSD: 1024x768@32bit NVFog, 2xAniso, Full detail 36.40fps

    Atunnel Screensaver:
    Linux: 1024x768@32bit 47.90fps
    FreeBSD: 1024x768@32bit 43.74fps

    Glxgears (obligatory):
    Linux: 400x400@32bit window 724.20
    FreeBSD: 400x400@32bit window 790.00