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Nvidia desktop GPU drivers are not open. They recently published some include files that make it a bit easier to communicate with and helps the Noveau projects
by sliken 4y ago
Nvidia desktop GPU drivers are not open. They recently published some include files that make it a bit easier to communicate with and helps the Noveau projects.
You can't drive a Nvidia GPU with anywhere near the same performance/functionality with an open source driver.
Corrections welcome.
- wmf 4y agoIn theory in the future you'll be able to use the GPL kernel driver with Noveau to have a fully open-source driver stack with not great not terrible performance. It's not clear when that future will arrive.
- sliken 4y agoThat fits, seems like Nvidia is heading in the same direction AMD did years ago, but is a long ways from nearing the functionality and performance of the binary driver.
- mardifoufs 4y agoI might be totally wrong, as I haven't looked into the details (and I'm not familiar with nouveau either), but I thought they released more than include files? It seems like this[0] is the full kernel driver source (though only for recent nvidia GPUs). But userspace components are still closed source, so that might be what you are referring to. Though surely the kernel drivers are useful for more than just communicating with nouveau? [0] https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
- sliken 4y agoAh, right, full kernel source, but it's really just a shim to user a user space driver. It does help make Nouveau's job easier, but it far from a usable driver.
- salawat 4y agoIt does nothing to help nouveau, since their biggest issue is at the firmware level. Nouveau cannot reclock modern cards due to HS mode and the cryptographic shenanigans that locks you into a binary blob signed by Nvidia.