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NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. Here is a different perspective: https://googleprojectzero.b

by ge0rg 9y ago

NVidia seems to produce excellent software (drivers, tools and SDK) for their excellent hardware. Here is a different perspective: https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-windows-nvidia-driver.html https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2017/02/attacking-win... And "excellent hardware" is probably rather subjective as well.

gpderetta 9y ago
Excellent software does not mean bug free of course. Apparently the size of the code base of the driver itself is comparable to that of a typical OS kernel. Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation. There are many more criteria: - Openness: Open specification, existence of open source drivers, necessity for a firmware blob vs. open firmware, support of open standards - Time the hardware is supported by producers with new drivers for new platforms (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). - cost and cost-benefit ratio (the whole Intel vs. AMD vs. ARM flamewar ;-) ) - Existence of intentionally blocked features: Some hardware vendors intentionally block features, sometimes even with the possibility to unlock them afterwards (e.g. by firmware or fuses) if you pay them additional money - Willingness to go to legal limbo in the interest of the users: For example when copy protection schemes for CDs were common in the early 00 years, producers of CD/DVD writers tried to surpass each other with capabilities of their devices to be still able to read out such copy-protected CDs. A modern example might be how other copy protection schemes for, say, audio or video are implemented: In software and written in such a bad way that it will (hopefully) soon be cracked or deeply dongled down in a security chip that is part of the hardware.
  - sherincall 9y ago
    > (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). As someone who deals with old GPU support daily, I challenge this! The most recent drivers still support Fermi chips (GT400 series) that were released over 7 years ago. I'm not sure how long you expect a chip to be supported?
    - hedora 9y ago
      I have a pile of nvidia 5x0 cards that are now unusable under linux. The rest of the hardware I bought that year still works fine (even stuff that's more obsolete than the nvidia cards). AMD has usable (= works with modern Steam games, and suspend/resume) open source drivers, so I bet on them for the new video card. I guess we'll see how it worked out in 2022, or so.
      - sherincall 9y ago
        Are you talking about the geforce 500 series[0]? They are still supported. Assuming the HW is still good, all drivers should still work. You can try with the NVIDIA driver included with the distribution (Ubuntu, Mint, etc), or download the one from nvidia.com If it doesn't work, you can file a bug (see/use nvidia-bug-report.sh). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_500_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_500_series
        hedora 9y ago
        They "work", just not with modern software. I found threads where the nvidia devs and the open source devs discussed the issue. Apparently, the nvidia drivers violate the opengl spec and drop textures at unpredictable times (such as during suspend and mode switches). The "fix" is to constantly spam the same texture at the card, or use some some non-standard opengl extension to see when the driver decided to drop the textures, then recopy them from dram to the card (why keep one copy in video ram when you can keep a second in dram for twice the cost?) From what I can tell, people are sick of implementing this workaround, so newer software doesn't bother. This has been the status quo for over a year. In practice, this means severe screen corruption when switching users or suspending/resuming.

by ge0rg 9y ago

gpderetta 9y ago

Excellent software does not mean bug free of course. Apparently the size of the code base of the driver itself is comparable to that of a typical OS kernel. Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation.

wolfgke 9y ago
> Their hardware is pretty much best in class in both absolute performance and performance per watt, so I would say that it is a pretty objective evaluation. There are many more criteria: - Openness: Open specification, existence of open source drivers, necessity for a firmware blob vs. open firmware, support of open standards - Time the hardware is supported by producers with new drivers for new platforms (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). - cost and cost-benefit ratio (the whole Intel vs. AMD vs. ARM flamewar ;-) ) - Existence of intentionally blocked features: Some hardware vendors intentionally block features, sometimes even with the possibility to unlock them afterwards (e.g. by firmware or fuses) if you pay them additional money - Willingness to go to legal limbo in the interest of the users: For example when copy protection schemes for CDs were common in the early 00 years, producers of CD/DVD writers tried to surpass each other with capabilities of their devices to be still able to read out such copy-protected CDs. A modern example might be how other copy protection schemes for, say, audio or video are implemented: In software and written in such a bad way that it will (hopefully) soon be cracked or deeply dongled down in a security chip that is part of the hardware.
- sherincall 9y ago
  > (NVidia loves to cease support for older GPU chips). As someone who deals with old GPU support daily, I challenge this! The most recent drivers still support Fermi chips (GT400 series) that were released over 7 years ago. I'm not sure how long you expect a chip to be supported?
  - hedora 9y ago
    I have a pile of nvidia 5x0 cards that are now unusable under linux. The rest of the hardware I bought that year still works fine (even stuff that's more obsolete than the nvidia cards). AMD has usable (= works with modern Steam games, and suspend/resume) open source drivers, so I bet on them for the new video card. I guess we'll see how it worked out in 2022, or so.
    - sherincall 9y ago
      Are you talking about the geforce 500 series[0]? They are still supported. Assuming the HW is still good, all drivers should still work. You can try with the NVIDIA driver included with the distribution (Ubuntu, Mint, etc), or download the one from nvidia.com If it doesn't work, you can file a bug (see/use nvidia-bug-report.sh). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_500_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_500_series
      - hedora 9y ago
        They "work", just not with modern software. I found threads where the nvidia devs and the open source devs discussed the issue. Apparently, the nvidia drivers violate the opengl spec and drop textures at unpredictable times (such as during suspend and mode switches). The "fix" is to constantly spam the same texture at the card, or use some some non-standard opengl extension to see when the driver decided to drop the textures, then recopy them from dram to the card (why keep one copy in video ram when you can keep a second in dram for twice the cost?) From what I can tell, people are sick of implementing this workaround, so newer software doesn't bother. This has been the status quo for over a year. In practice, this means severe screen corruption when switching users or suspending/resuming.