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Can someone please explain why "feature parity" even matters here? If Nvidia can do something with GNU/Linux that is technically hard to do with Windows, why s

Can someone please explain why "feature parity" even matters here? If Nvidia can do something with GNU/Linux that is technically hard to do with Windows, why shouldn't they do it? In what way does it make sense to force technical limitations of Windows on GNU/Linux users?

regularfry 13y ago
It's possible they have a licensing deal with MS that forces them to do this, the same way Amazon dictate that they must have the best price on a book. Then again, I find the simplicity argument somewhat convincing as well. NVidia's unified driver model must be hellishly complicated anyway, anything they can do to keep control of the complexity is probably something they'd greet with open arms.
devx 13y ago
It doesn't. That's just their excuse. If it did, they'd start removing Windows driver features, too, since they can't be found on the Linux driver, and therefore there's no feature parity.
pyre 13y ago
Pressure from Microsoft in some fashion?
- frank_boyd 13y ago
  Valid point. We know how MS has managed to keep up their sales point monopoly for decades (forced Windows sales via mandatory pre-installations). We know how they wanted to offer exclusively their browser on Windows (the EU disagreed with that idea).
firloop 13y ago
Maybe Nvidia doesn't want end users to feel like they're missing out on anything on Windows, therefore finding the need to cripple Linux users?
- pyre 13y ago
  But what is Nvidia's motivation for that? How does Nvidia win if people stay on Windows vs. moving to Linux? As far as graphics cards are concerned, they would just start putting more effort into their Linux support (to match the swing in customer OS usage).
wmil 13y ago
"feature parity" is a poor choice of words, but nVidia builds their Windows and Linux drivers from a single code base. Keeping support for four monitors in the linux code probably meant adding a bunch of #ifdefs in various files. They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to maintain.
- pyre 13y ago
  That may be true, but they are presumably already maintaining a bunch of #ifdef's for the Windows-only features.
  - eridius 13y ago
    Given the relative popularity of Windows vs Linux, it probably is worth the effort to maintain Windows-only features.
  - 67726e 13y ago
    True, but Windows has the much larger market share so it becomes worth it.
  - kbenson 13y ago
    Being able to assume the #ifdef for features go one direction can have some benefit in reasoning about the code it relates to. In other words, there may be benefits to keeping the windows features a superset of the linux features, most likely in preventing stupid programmer errors.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    > That may be true We'll never know. That's a binary blob on your machine.
    - pyre 13y ago
      This is true, but I fail to see the relevance here. This post just comes across as a "any chance to mention Free Software" type post. This thread is talking about if this decision by Nvidia makes sense. Trying to inject "well, we could all just ignore Nvidia if you were using Free Software," doesn't really contribute much to that conversation. > That's a binary blob on your machine. On my machine? It's less likely than you might think.
jlgreco 13y ago
How is this a limitation with Windows even? I'm sure Windows can have more than 3 displays, so why does Nvidia have this restriction on either platform?
- anonymfus 13y ago
  Because they sell "professional" Quadro/Tesla cards with this feature enabled at enormous prices.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Aaaah... so this probably is not about Linux vs. Windows, but rather actually about 'GeForce GTX 560 Ti' vs. Quadro. They aren't worried about driving people away from Windows, they are worried about cannibalizing Quadro sales. There is probably a lot of use cases for many monitors that don't really require Windows (perhaps pro power-users, like traders, who need lots of browser windows open at once), so they need to ensure that their premium cards retain their edge even on Linux. That makes much more sense.
    - gizmo686 13y ago
      But how many of those users would need to use NVIDIA's drivers? As I understand it, the benefit of NVIDIA's drivers over Noueveau is performance, not basic hardware support. If all you need is many monitors for web browsers, then you should not have a problem using Noueveau.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        > But how many of those users would need to use NVIDIA's drivers? That's a good point; I cannot say. Perhaps they think they are dealing with people who think 3D performance is necessary, or dealing with people (IT organizations?) that prefer 1st party drivers to hardware savings. I don't think Microsoft is really involved in this though.
      - betterunix 13y ago
AUmrysh 13y ago
I bet it has more to do with them pushing new cards and wanting users to replace them with new ones. I have the 560 Ti and it's capable of playing most current games comfortably. The newer cards seem to be able to do 4 monitors, but the 500 series is being left behind by nvidia as they push the 600/700 series with their shield and shadowplay features.

regularfry 13y ago

It's possible they have a licensing deal with MS that forces them to do this, the same way Amazon dictate that they must have the best price on a book. Then again, I find the simplicity argument somewhat convincing as well. NVidia's unified driver model must be hellishly complicated anyway, anything they can do to keep control of the complexity is probably something they'd greet with open arms.

devx 13y ago

It doesn't. That's just their excuse. If it did, they'd start removing Windows driver features, too, since they can't be found on the Linux driver, and therefore there's no feature parity.

pyre 13y ago

Pressure from Microsoft in some fashion?

frank_boyd 13y ago
Valid point. We know how MS has managed to keep up their sales point monopoly for decades (forced Windows sales via mandatory pre-installations). We know how they wanted to offer exclusively their browser on Windows (the EU disagreed with that idea).

firloop 13y ago

Maybe Nvidia doesn't want end users to feel like they're missing out on anything on Windows, therefore finding the need to cripple Linux users?

pyre 13y ago
But what is Nvidia's motivation for that? How does Nvidia win if people stay on Windows vs. moving to Linux? As far as graphics cards are concerned, they would just start putting more effort into their Linux support (to match the swing in customer OS usage).

wmil 13y ago

"feature parity" is a poor choice of words, but nVidia builds their Windows and Linux drivers from a single code base. Keeping support for four monitors in the linux code probably meant adding a bunch of #ifdefs in various files. They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to maintain.

pyre 13y ago
That may be true, but they are presumably already maintaining a bunch of #ifdef's for the Windows-only features.
- eridius 13y ago
  Given the relative popularity of Windows vs Linux, it probably is worth the effort to maintain Windows-only features.
- 67726e 13y ago
  True, but Windows has the much larger market share so it becomes worth it.
- kbenson 13y ago
  Being able to assume the #ifdef for features go one direction can have some benefit in reasoning about the code it relates to. In other words, there may be benefits to keeping the windows features a superset of the linux features, most likely in preventing stupid programmer errors.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  > That may be true We'll never know. That's a binary blob on your machine.
  - pyre 13y ago
    This is true, but I fail to see the relevance here. This post just comes across as a "any chance to mention Free Software" type post. This thread is talking about if this decision by Nvidia makes sense. Trying to inject "well, we could all just ignore Nvidia if you were using Free Software," doesn't really contribute much to that conversation. > That's a binary blob on your machine. On my machine? It's less likely than you might think.

jlgreco 13y ago

How is this a limitation with Windows even? I'm sure Windows can have more than 3 displays, so why does Nvidia have this restriction on either platform?

anonymfus 13y ago
Because they sell "professional" Quadro/Tesla cards with this feature enabled at enormous prices.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Aaaah... so this probably is not about Linux vs. Windows, but rather actually about 'GeForce GTX 560 Ti' vs. Quadro. They aren't worried about driving people away from Windows, they are worried about cannibalizing Quadro sales. There is probably a lot of use cases for many monitors that don't really require Windows (perhaps pro power-users, like traders, who need lots of browser windows open at once), so they need to ensure that their premium cards retain their edge even on Linux. That makes much more sense.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    But how many of those users would need to use NVIDIA's drivers? As I understand it, the benefit of NVIDIA's drivers over Noueveau is performance, not basic hardware support. If all you need is many monitors for web browsers, then you should not have a problem using Noueveau.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      > But how many of those users would need to use NVIDIA's drivers? That's a good point; I cannot say. Perhaps they think they are dealing with people who think 3D performance is necessary, or dealing with people (IT organizations?) that prefer 1st party drivers to hardware savings. I don't think Microsoft is really involved in this though.
    - betterunix 13y ago

AUmrysh 13y ago

I bet it has more to do with them pushing new cards and wanting users to replace them with new ones. I have the 560 Ti and it's capable of playing most current games comfortably. The newer cards seem to be able to do 4 monitors, but the 500 series is being left behind by nvidia as they push the 600/700 series with their shield and shadowplay features.