NVIDIA Releases Optimus Linux Driver With New Features

An anonymous reader writes "Nearly one year after Linux creator Linux Torvalds publicly bashed NVIDIA and several years after their multi-GPU mobile technology premiered, the graphics vendor has finally delivered an Optimus-supported Linux driver. NVIDIA released the 319.12 Beta Linux driver that brings support for 'RandR 1.4 GPU provider objects' that basically allows for Optimus-like functionality when using the latest X Server, Linux kernel, and XRandR. The 319.12 beta also has many other features including better UEFI support, installer improvements, new pages on their settings panel, and new GPU support."

Comments

Nice!

[JGsmiles]

It's cool to see Linux gaming getting more attention.

Parity?

[steelfood]

So does this release bring the Linux drivers into parity with the Windows drivers? I'm sure this is a large step in the right direction, but if the Windows driver is still more capable or efficient, then Linux will still suffer on the gaming front.

nVidia have been jerking Linux around

[Mister Liberty]

for as long as I can remember, and that is long
(Linuxer since 1991).

Never bought anything else for a display card though.
Explain that.

Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around

[epyT-R]

Because, unlike ATI/AMD, their driver works by and large? If you only play AAA titles released around the time of the driver version you're using, amd cards work alright...usually. Try doing anything else with the card (autodesk/adobe/video playback accel/demoscene/older games/newer games) and prepare yourself for the glitch gremlin.

I'm not saying that nvidia drivers are perfect. They're not, but they're a lot better than AMD.

Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around

[thesupraman]

Quite Agree.

Lets also not forget that the linux kernel (and other projects) have done their share of jerking NVidia around also, in the name of forcing them to work in the way the OSS people want, rather than in the way NVidia is willing to (they make/sell the cards after all).

It pretty much looks to me that NVidia have been waiting for X Server support for the features, and can now support it since that has arrived.

Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around

[TheRaven64]

I've been using nVidia Linux drivers since, 1992 (*gasp*)

Gasp indeed. I'd be very impressed by this, given that nVidia was only founded in 1993 and released its first graphics card in 1995.

Fearless Leader

[Flammon]

I love this picture of our fearless leader. Doing what we've all wanted to do to companies that fuck with us.

http://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=0x2012&image=linus_nvidia_finger_med

Re:Will the bumblebee project still be necessary?

[marcansoft]

As far as I can tell, this only adds support for using the nvidia card for everything (rendering the whole desktop) while sending its final framebuffer to the Intel for scanout. This is a strictly different use case from what bumblebee enables (rendering *specific apps* on the nvidia card while using the Intel for everything else).

Personally, since I only need the performance of the nvidia card one in a blue moon, the bumblebee approach is much more useful to me. Otherwise, I'd have to deal with tearing on everything (the current version of the nvidia RandR output provider does not support vsync) and increased power consumption.

I think what nvidia calls "render offload" in their README (which is currently not supported) is what would in fact replace bumblebee, if/when implemented. I'm curious as to how it would interact with power management, though. One of the very nice things about Bumblebee is that it doesn't even power up the nvidia card (via ACPI) until required, and that's easy because it starts up a background X server on demand to do the rendering. It's probably trickier to puil this off if you have to load the nvidia driver into your primary X server to take advantage of the direct integration.

How Optimus affects gaming performance

[tepples]

it has nothing to do with gaming performance.

Of course it has to do with gaming performance. If you can't switch between the IGP and a discrete GPU without a reboot, then the launch and shutdown time for any high-performance 3D game includes a reboot to GPU mode, then a reboot to integrated graphics to save battery.

Re:How Optimus affects gaming performance

[Peristaltic]

You silly laptop gamers, *real* gamers use desktops :s

I thought they used d20's.

Lenovo Notebook? Don't Celebrate Just Yet...

[Freshly Exhumed]

I'll be glad when this is actually able to run on Lenovo's notebooks, which require an ugly ACPI hack to enable the Nvidia GPU: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch/issues/2#issuecomment-3797568

Re:So how do true Scotsmen occupy their downtime?

[Rob the Bold]

So what do "real gamers" (as you define them) do instead of gaming while riding the bus, train, or carpool to and from work?

Angry Birds.

I think people forget this

[Sycraft-fu]

nVidia has reasons for doing things the way they do. Yes, one of them is probably "because we don't want AMD grabbing our work," However there is some validity to that in that it is expensive to have a team of highly qualified people to do your development.

However that aside, there are licensing issues that keep their drivers closed, and there may be good reasons to want to use that code rather than try to re-implement it. Likewise there may be reasons to do their own thing and bypass some of the standard way of interfacing.

nVidia produces Linux drivers that work. They support the latest OpenGL features the hardware can handle, they are fast, and they are stable. That's pretty damn useful. So they are doing something right in their development. People should consider that, rather than just assuming that nVidia could easily deliver everything the same, but just in a format that makes OSS heads happy.

Also consider that maybe working with someone is an easier way to get at least some of what you want than fighting with them.

Re:I think people forget this

[Electricity Likes Me]

They're a hardware company. I have no problem with them running custom firmwares or whatever *on the hardware* but a closed-source software driver stack is just absurd. I'd much rather we move to a model where the drivers were always OSS, even if it meant we needed more firmware running on the GPU itself since it'd be a return to having standard interfaces and it would mean everyone would get the benefits of improvements in the driver stack, rather then just the favored operating system.

Who?

[minus9]

Who's this Linux Torvalds guy?

Somebody get Soulxkill his coffee.