Next year could certainly be interesting in the world of Linux GPU drivers, specifically NVIDIA this time going by a talk they're going to have at the GPU Technology Conference.
On their website (thanks Phoronix) they're listing a session titled "Open Source, Linux Kernel, and NVIDIA", which is being presented by long-time NVIDIA engineer John Hubbard. The title alone is enough to really get you thinking, what exactly are they up to? Then you read the details of the talk, which makes it sound even more exciting and makes me very curious:
We'll report up-to-the-minute developments on NVIDIA's status and activities, and possibly (depending on last-minute developments) a few future plans and directions, regarding our contributions to Linux kernel; supporting Nouveau (the open source kernel driver for NVIDIA GPUs, that is in the Linux kernel), including signed firmware behavior, documentation, and patches; and NVIDIA kernel drivers.
Both AMD and Intel already have their drivers open, with developers paid to work on them and so perhaps NVIDIA will finally follow along? Stranger things have happened, so I wouldn't completely count NVIDIA out on that, although I'm not expecting them to make such a big shift. What do you think they're planning?
GTC is being hosted in San Jose, California and runs from March 23 - 26, 2020. The talk doesn't seem to have a set time or date yet.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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20 comments
To be honest, I don't get very exited as the primary topic for the sessions is listed as 'Supercomputing'. Lets see what the announce but I don't have big expectations.
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Quoting: x_wingTo be honest, I don't get very exited as the primary topic for the sessions is listed as 'Supercomputing'. Lets see what the announce but I don't have big expectations.
Primary topic might not be very important. Any plans on the part of Nvidia for "supporting Nouveau" will likely make it better all-around, and hopefully help with overall development. Very much looking forward to their announcements in this regard.
IMHO, any steps in the right direction are better than no steps or steps in the wrong direction.
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slaapliedje Dec 6, 2019
Quoting: GuestInteresting. I think that earths polar caps will melt before NVIDIA open up their driver. But we'll see what happens in the next year.Maybe NVIDIA will give us a big surprise in conference and open up their driver code:) One can hope that.But in reality that doesn't happen easily. So my expectations are low...Oh, so a few years from now? :P
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Quoting: GuestAlready bought an AMD RX 5700 XT too late Nvidia.Even if the unthinkable happens and they actually start properly contributing to Nouveau development, it'll likely be quite a while until it results in perfect open source driver support for their latest gaming hardware. So, maybe we'll actually have more choice the next time we're looking for a GPU. (I got a 5700 XT as well.)
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Good, if true. Nouveau replacing the blob will be very good for Linux desktop progress and Wayland adoption, that has been slowed down by Nvidia for years. But for now, I'm pretty skeptical about them actually working with upstream, given long standing Nvidia's reputation.
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 December 2019 at 8:58 pm UTC
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 December 2019 at 8:58 pm UTC
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Quoting: GuestAlready bought an AMD RX 5700 XT too late Nvidia.
AMD... No hardware encoder support for in-home streaming, no thanks.
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Quoting: StenkaAMD... No hardware encoder support for in-home streaming, no thanks.
It has H.265 hardware encoder, but not VP9. That's annoying, but not a major issue.
From vainfo on RX 5700XT:
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 19.3.0-rc5 for AMD NAVI10 (DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.1+, LLVM 9.0.0)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProcPersonally, I'm looking forward to AV1 becoming ubiquitous everywhere. It should happen soon.
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 December 2019 at 9:09 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: StenkaAMD... No hardware encoder support for in-home streaming, no thanks.
It has H.265 hardware encoder, but not VP9. That's annoying, but not a major issue.
From vainfo on RX 5700XT:
vainfo: Driver version: Mesa Gallium driver 19.3.0-rc5 for AMD NAVI10 (DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.1+, LLVM 9.0.0)
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
VAProfileMPEG2Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileMPEG2Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Simple : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVC1Advanced : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264Main : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileH264High : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileHEVCMain : VAEntrypointEncSlice
VAProfileHEVCMain10 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileJPEGBaseline : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile0 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileVP9Profile2 : VAEntrypointVLD
VAProfileNone : VAEntrypointVideoProc
Personally, I'm looking forward to AV1 becoming ubiquitous everywhere. It should happen soon.
Steam no support amd mesa vaapi implementation, gaming on Steam link not playable, totally choppy software-rendered, in nvidia simply works.
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Kimyrielle Dec 6, 2019
I am sooo happy that AMD is a true choice again, so I don't need to worry about these guys open-sourcing their driver, or not. There is absolutely no way that my next PC will feature an NVidia-made GPU. NVidia is a textbook example why (near-)monopolies are bad, and also a textbook example for a thoroughly evil company.
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Quoting: GuestAlready bought an AMD RX 5700 XT too late Nvidia.Heh, i ordered it today morning :-D too late Nvidia.
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Quoting: GuestInteresting. I think that earths polar caps will melt before NVIDIA open up their driver. But we'll see what happens in the next year.Maybe NVIDIA will give us a big surprise in conference and open up their driver code:) One can hope that.But in reality that doesn't happen easily. So my expectations are low...
I don't know why people often think Nvidia has to open up their blob in an effort to support the/an open source driver stack. This, indeed, won't probably ever happen for various reasons.
How about providing documentation and getting that ridiculous firmware situation out of the way?
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Quoting: PatolaWon't happen, not in any meaningful way. I doubt NVIDIA will ever allow their buyers to control their own property. They do not allow passthrough virtualization nor high-throughput video recording on their consumer products by purposeful disabling these features on them, letting them enabled only in their corporate GPUs. Example, https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/e47rr7/ever_wanted_something_faster_than_xcomposite_or/ -- just see how long that hack lasts.
Good point and very much this.
Locking the cards by not providing information, controlling the driver stack and restrict them to run only signed firmware is not a coincidence. Nvidia does this to diversify their silicons by software.
A true fully open software stack would simply undermine that endeavor.
Patola is right and it's that simple: Won't happen.
Last edited by sub on 6 December 2019 at 10:32 pm UTC
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Take what I say here as an educated guess but not a prophecy:
NVIDIA is not going to do anything with the gaming drivers or firmware. They are going to make it easier to use their NVIDIA cards in machine learning deployments, like "the cloud" and companies with their own data centers... you know, the kind of stuff hackers can rent for 24 hours to crack a DB full of credentials... oh yeah, and more appropriate things like Audi driver aids.
NVIDIA is not going to do anything with the gaming drivers or firmware. They are going to make it easier to use their NVIDIA cards in machine learning deployments, like "the cloud" and companies with their own data centers... you know, the kind of stuff hackers can rent for 24 hours to crack a DB full of credentials... oh yeah, and more appropriate things like Audi driver aids.
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Wasn't there talk that one of the biggest showstoppers for nouveau was beeing unabled to set some specific modes to make the hardware work at full speed at all and that it was related to the signed firmware? I see hints that this might change now. They probably won't open source their blob and even if it was open sourced, it almost certainly would need to be heavily refactored to be included in kernel/mesa, so documentation might just do as well.
Last edited by const on 7 December 2019 at 1:41 pm UTC
Last edited by const on 7 December 2019 at 1:41 pm UTC
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The outline of this upcoming session only says that it will contain an update on the "future plans and directions". This can be anything from "we announce an open rewrite of our Linux driver" to "we will keep the status quo because it works for us". While this talk will be certainly interesting I would be very careful to interpret to much into it before that talk has been held.
To be honest, sharing this outline as "sort of open-source driver announcement" like Phoronix did is just plain wrong in my opinion and will only lead to further freaking people out due believing in promises Nvidia never made. Other people blindly sharing this news on Reddit etc. will further emphasize this. I really don't like this kind of journalism.
Fortunately the headline and posting here at GoL is a bit more objective. Thanks!
Last edited by jens on 7 December 2019 at 3:33 pm UTC
To be honest, sharing this outline as "sort of open-source driver announcement" like Phoronix did is just plain wrong in my opinion and will only lead to further freaking people out due believing in promises Nvidia never made. Other people blindly sharing this news on Reddit etc. will further emphasize this. I really don't like this kind of journalism.
Fortunately the headline and posting here at GoL is a bit more objective. Thanks!
Last edited by jens on 7 December 2019 at 3:33 pm UTC
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Have the finally figured out that AMD has the correct approach to open source drivers? I doubt it.
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In fact, hardware market is dominated by AMD (PSX, Xboxs...). Nvidia has just the retailers PC market and Nintendo Switch (Nintendo made the switch from AMD-ATI, previously on the gamecube, wii and wiiu).
The force of Nvidia on the market is RTX, G-Sync, Nvenc, Cuda... all proprietary technologies. I don't think they will open their drivers.
But, they can port GeForce Experience, or Geforce Now on Linux...
Last edited by Nasra on 4 January 2020 at 3:09 pm UTC
The force of Nvidia on the market is RTX, G-Sync, Nvenc, Cuda... all proprietary technologies. I don't think they will open their drivers.
But, they can port GeForce Experience, or Geforce Now on Linux...
Last edited by Nasra on 4 January 2020 at 3:09 pm UTC
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Quoting: StenkaSteam no support amd mesa vaapi implementation, gaming on Steam link not playable, totally choppy software-rendered, in nvidia simply works.
That's a Steam's problem, not AMD's or anyone else's. VAAPI is standard. OBS supports VAAPI just fine for instance. So use OBS if you need video streaming.
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 December 2019 at 11:23 pm UTC
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