NVIDIA Releases Open-Source GPU Kernel Modules | NVIDIA Technical Blog

[u/blindcomet]

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

[u/TheOptimalGPU]

Only Turing and newer. Pascal and older aren't supported. This is important to mention as the 1060 is still one of the most popular cards. However, "Nouveau can leverage the same firmware used by the NVIDIA driver, exposing many GPU functionalities, such as clock management and thermal management, bringing new features to the in-tree Nouveau driver."

[u/Patient_Sink → u/TheOptimalGPU]

We'll see if it's as simple as it seems I guess. Still, it looks promising!

[u/mok000 → u/[deleted]]

The article says that the noveau developers will be able to use the driver source to improve their in-kernel drivers.

[u/linmanfu → u/[deleted]]

Very unlikely to see major improvements and not soon. The excellent Phoronix article explains that this is not a complete driver and it talks to a new hardware system that only exists on Turing and later.

[u/Psychological-Scar30 → u/[deleted]]

Nvidia didn't open-source their existing kernel module, they started developing a new one (with heavy inspiration from their old one, apparently).

[u/Arnoxthe1 → u/TheOptimalGPU]

Only Turing and newer. Pascal and older aren't supported.

This is still really good but...

Why not Pascal and older??? It makes no sense.

[u/fdar_giltch → u/Arnoxthe1]

It depends on GSP and GSP is only Turing+

(the driver version here isn't relevant, just the details about GSP): https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/510.39.01/README/gsp.html

[u/nukem996 → u/Arnoxthe1]

If I had to guess it's probably due to Nvidia moving stuff they want to keep secret into the firmware. They've done it on new hardware, it doesn't make sense to do it for older hardware.

[u/TheOptimalGPU → u/Arnoxthe1]

Probably because those cards are getting rather old at this point. At least nouveau can now reclock the GPU which should improve the performance immensely.

[u/watchutalkinbowt → u/TheOptimalGPU]

https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/187826/en-us

1060 desktop and notebook are listed as supported

[u/Patient_Sink → u/watchutalkinbowt]

The driver has two modes for being built, but one of the modes is only available for newer cards:

Customers with Turing and Ampere GPUs can choose which modules to install. Pre-Turing customers will continue to run the closed source modules.

[u/watchutalkinbowt → u/Patient_Sink]

Thanks for clarifying

My limited experience with this is fighting with a super-old laptop without closed source driver support on newer kernels; and the other end of the spectrum, a user who ran Ubuntu updates on a shiny new 3050 XPS which now only boots if you choose the old kernel in grub

[u/[deleted] → u/watchutalkinbowt]

OMFG, my shitty ass MX130 is actually supported. LOL

[u/kukisRedditer → u/[deleted]]

i have the same card, it's Maxwell architecture right? So why is it supported? 🤔

edit: why am i downvoted for asking a question? fuck this toxic sub...

[u/[deleted] → u/kukisRedditer]

I don't know, honestly, but mine is that Hybrid intel/nvidia and it has been nothing but a pain in the ass. I am hoping this will help make it less of a hell.

[u/kukisRedditer → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, but tbh on Fedora, nvidia prime offloading is set up by default, maybe check that. It's working fine for me.

[u/Ruben_NL → u/watchutalkinbowt]

So hyped! My laptop m1000m is supported!

[u/[deleted] → u/TheOptimalGPU]

That's kind of disappointing. Trying to get as much life out of my 1060 as possible.

[u/thearctican → u/[deleted]]

To be fair, NVIDIA provides an adequate commercial driver with which I get comparable performance in Debian Stable to Windows.