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I recall the GeForce Partner Program raised some controversy, although I couldn't say whether or it was bad or good or why. There's also the issue with them re

I recall the GeForce Partner Program raised some controversy, although I couldn't say whether or it was bad or good or why. There's also the issue with them refusing to open source Linux drivers. Supposedly this is because they throttle workstation GPUs to create a market for higher-end versions while reducing the manufacturing diversity, but I haven't heard a definitive source for this.

bonzini 6y ago
> they throttle workstation GPUs Not sure about this, but they definitely prevent the loading of drivers for GeForce cards if they detect a hypervisor (Quadro cards work). Nvidia claims that it's a bug, and that they're not fixing it only because GeForce cards are not sold to be run in virtual machines. At the very least it's a dubious claim since for a short time there was an arms race as workarounds were figured out and the next version of the driver would detect them... Of course it's market segmentation by obscurity so it only lasted a few weeks and it's trivial to work around, but still it's quite shady since there's absolutely no ill effect from the work around.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  It is absolutely not a bug, Disassembly of NVIDIA drivers shows that its looking for specific KVM signatures, and if you modify those signatures, magically it starts working again...
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    Removing KVM signature is now the standard solution. But there's still a working driver patch to remove the virtualization check, it's available at here. * sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher: Fixes "Bug" in Nvidia Driver preventing "Unsupported Configurations" from being used on KVM https://github.com/sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher https://github.com/sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher
  - bonzini 6y ago
    Of course it's not a bug. :-)
- Nitrolo 6y ago
  Not doubting that this is the case, but what's the reason for nVidia wanting to restrict use in virtual machines?
  - eyegor 6y ago
    They don't want people using geforce cards in compute servers/clusters. It's artificial market segmentation since the workstation cards are higher margin. They want customers to pay the big bucks since hypervisor setups are basically only used in business and big budget settings.
  - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
    Why does Intel cripple ECC and I/O virtualization [0] in high-end consumer desktop systems? Force people to buy Xeon, even if the performance is otherwise equivalent or higher for the use case. Why does Nvidia restrict virtualization? Force people to buy Quadro and Tesla. > nVidia FYI, a few years ago, nVidia has officially changed their name to "Nvidia"... [0] IOMMU is not only a virtualization feature, it's also an important security feature to protect the host from DMA attacks of malicious peripherals (e.g. 1394, ExpressCard, Thunderbolt, USB 4). Fortunately Intel no longer cripples IOMMU (VT-D) since Skylake, but ECC is another story.
    - MindTooth 6y ago
      I believe it’s all caps. http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Brand-Guidelines/NVIDIA_LogoGuidelines.pdf http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Bra...
      - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
        I stand corrected. I also found a clarification from Wikipedia on the situation. > "From the mid 90s to early-mid 2000s, stylized as nVIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products. Now officially written as NVIDIA, and stylized in the logo as nVIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA".
      - 6y ago
AsyncAwait 6y ago
> I recall the GeForce Partner Program raised some controversy, although I couldn't say whether or it was bad or good or why. It was about NVidia wanting to make it so their 3rd party GPU partners, (EVGA, Asus etc.), could only sell their popular GPU brands with NVIDIA in them, so for AMD they'd have to come up with something customers are entirely unfamiliar with. > here's also the issue with them refusing to open source Linux drivers. It's not just that. AMD didn't open-source their original Linux driver, presumably there could have been some 3rd party licensing issues, but they wrote a new one that is open-source. NVIDIA doesn't even let others write an open-source driver for them, they make it purposely difficult to reverse-engineer, sign their firmware that they only release with a massive delay and generally refuse to cooperate.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  > It's not just that. AMD didn't open-source their original Linux driver, presumably there could have been some 3rd party licensing issues, but they wrote a new one that is open-source. Even further than this, they created such a healthy environment for it that there are now two competing open source Vulkan drivers, and the third party one (RADV) is usually winning by a bit, and is now directly supported (with staff) by Valve.

bonzini 6y ago

> they throttle workstation GPUs Not sure about this, but they definitely prevent the loading of drivers for GeForce cards if they detect a hypervisor (Quadro cards work). Nvidia claims that it's a bug, and that they're not fixing it only because GeForce cards are not sold to be run in virtual machines. At the very least it's a dubious claim since for a short time there was an arms race as workarounds were figured out and the next version of the driver would detect them... Of course it's market segmentation by obscurity so it only lasted a few weeks and it's trivial to work around, but still it's quite shady since there's absolutely no ill effect from the work around.

throwaway2048 6y ago
It is absolutely not a bug, Disassembly of NVIDIA drivers shows that its looking for specific KVM signatures, and if you modify those signatures, magically it starts working again...
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Removing KVM signature is now the standard solution. But there's still a working driver patch to remove the virtualization check, it's available at here. * sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher: Fixes "Bug" in Nvidia Driver preventing "Unsupported Configurations" from being used on KVM https://github.com/sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher https://github.com/sk1080/nvidia-kvm-patcher
- bonzini 6y ago
  Of course it's not a bug. :-)
Nitrolo 6y ago
Not doubting that this is the case, but what's the reason for nVidia wanting to restrict use in virtual machines?
- eyegor 6y ago
  They don't want people using geforce cards in compute servers/clusters. It's artificial market segmentation since the workstation cards are higher margin. They want customers to pay the big bucks since hypervisor setups are basically only used in business and big budget settings.
- segfaultbuserr 6y ago
  Why does Intel cripple ECC and I/O virtualization [0] in high-end consumer desktop systems? Force people to buy Xeon, even if the performance is otherwise equivalent or higher for the use case. Why does Nvidia restrict virtualization? Force people to buy Quadro and Tesla. > nVidia FYI, a few years ago, nVidia has officially changed their name to "Nvidia"... [0] IOMMU is not only a virtualization feature, it's also an important security feature to protect the host from DMA attacks of malicious peripherals (e.g. 1394, ExpressCard, Thunderbolt, USB 4). Fortunately Intel no longer cripples IOMMU (VT-D) since Skylake, but ECC is another story.
  - MindTooth 6y ago
    I believe it’s all caps. http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Brand-Guidelines/NVIDIA_LogoGuidelines.pdf http://international.download.nvidia.com/partnerforce-us/Bra...
    - segfaultbuserr 6y ago
      I stand corrected. I also found a clarification from Wikipedia on the situation. > "From the mid 90s to early-mid 2000s, stylized as nVIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products. Now officially written as NVIDIA, and stylized in the logo as nVIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA".
    - 6y ago

AsyncAwait 6y ago

> I recall the GeForce Partner Program raised some controversy, although I couldn't say whether or it was bad or good or why. It was about NVidia wanting to make it so their 3rd party GPU partners, (EVGA, Asus etc.), could only sell their popular GPU brands with NVIDIA in them, so for AMD they'd have to come up with something customers are entirely unfamiliar with. > here's also the issue with them refusing to open source Linux drivers. It's not just that. AMD didn't open-source their original Linux driver, presumably there could have been some 3rd party licensing issues, but they wrote a new one that is open-source. NVIDIA doesn't even let others write an open-source driver for them, they make it purposely difficult to reverse-engineer, sign their firmware that they only release with a massive delay and generally refuse to cooperate.

microcolonel 6y ago
> It's not just that. AMD didn't open-source their original Linux driver, presumably there could have been some 3rd party licensing issues, but they wrote a new one that is open-source. Even further than this, they created such a healthy environment for it that there are now two competing open source Vulkan drivers, and the third party one (RADV) is usually winning by a bit, and is now directly supported (with staff) by Valve.