NVIDIA getting geared up to support hardware accelerated XWayland

[quote=BielFPs]

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: EikeIs it impossible for my graphics card vendor to do full Wayland support while keeping its driver closed?

Presuming is Nvidia you're talking about, right now the answer is yes because Nvidia proprietary drivers can't run GBM.

The issue has nothing to do with proprietary or open source. Support for Wayland has been here for ages. Support for Xwayland is, as you see, coming to full feature. Is purely technical choices (and lack of discussions when they should have happened...).

Quoting: x_wing

Quoting: 3zekielNvidia already has wayland support, using standard egl extenstions. Rest of the Linux world uses custom (GBM) extensions. Then it becomes a question on who is right or wrong in this story. Nvidia says everyone else uses eglstream, Linux world says yes, but GBM has been there for quite some time.

What do you mean by "everyone"? Nvidia is the only one that adopted EGLStreams, not to mention that they are the ones that created this "standard" that only they implement.

I mean other OSes, at least ChromeOS and Android was their argument. I did not say their argument is good either. And if anything, issue is they did not say anything for years and then came and said "we support that and only that"

Quoting: 3zekielI mean other OSes, at least ChromeOS and Android was their argument. I did not say their argument is good either. And if anything, issue is they did not say anything for years and then came and said "we support that and only that"

AFAIK, no other OS uses EGLStream (I'm sure Android doesn't at least). Nvidia presented EGLStream as a OS independent solution, but the reality is that it was designed with the sole purpose of adapting to their needs. If Nvidia would want to improve GBM they would sit down with other wayland devs and start discussing a new standard that also works for Mesa drivers.

The big problem here is that Nvidia doesn't want to do a step back or rework in their driver design.


Last edited by x_wing on 7 January 2021 at 3:04 pm UTC

Quoting: HoriAMD's still at 1st gen RT and we know how useless Nvidia's 1st gen RT was. Same goes to whatever AMD calls their DLSS equivalent - which IMO is the biggest advantage Nvidia has.

1st gen tech is usually "bad" and it's a much better move to wait until 2nd gen. And Nvidia is already there :(

I think dealing with raytracing in its current state is not that simple. To begin with, not that many games implement it. Then, RTX is not always prettier than standard rendering. And finally, Dirt 5 offers better ray tracing performance on AMD, so it might still be a matter of optimisation.

What I do see nonetheless, is Nvidia advertising a technology which is not a thing yet, just like they always did.

Even with this move in the right direction, which makes me really happy, I am tired of running drivers that work like no others. There are always rough edges. This and the current product lineup is driving me away from Nvidia.

Quoting: x_wing

Quoting: 3zekielI mean other OSes, at least ChromeOS and Android was their argument. I did not say their argument is good either. And if anything, issue is they did not say anything for years and then came and said "we support that and only that"

AFAIK, no other OS uses EGLStream (I'm sure Android doesn't at least). Nvidia presented EGLStream as a OS independent solution, but the reality is that it was designed with the sole purpose of adapting to their needs. If Nvidia would want to improve GBM they would sit down with other wayland devs and start discussing a new standard that also works for Mesa drivers.

The big problem here is that Nvidia doesn't want to do a step back or rework in their driver design.

Actually, it was in the pipe at some point, that 3rd, merged better API, but nothing came out of it. And yes, I agree Nvidia does not want to rework their driver, and that is the core of the issue I guess. Also, I understand it is not a technically better all around or anything like that. So yeah... We simply have to deal with it because it's Nvidia.
But I guess changing back must be non trivial for them, otherwise it would be done.

Good, but coming from Nvidia with their money I'd count it as too little too late to affect how Linux gamers will perceive them. Judging by the trend of GOL stats, Nvidia usage is still the majority but it's continuously falling giving place to AMD. Nothing short of Nvidia supporting proper open source drivers will help them in this regard.

Regrading Wayland itself - now the big missing piece is Wayland support in Wine.


Last edited by Shmerl on 7 January 2021 at 4:19 pm UTC

Quoting: 3zekielThe issue has nothing to do with proprietary or open source.

I didn't said that the problem was the driver being proprietary, I said the problem is the said driver not supporting GBM.

Quoting: Shmerlbut coming from Nvidia with their money I'd count it as too little too late to affect how Linux gamers will perceive them.

I wish this was the case, but there's a lot of fanboys using Linux who are defending Nvidia, even when it's obviously their fault that wayland don't work with their graphic cards. Even a half-arsed "fix" from them is more than enough to make a lot of linux gamers to still give them money.

Quoting: ShmerlRegrading Wayland itself - now the big missing piece is Wayland support in Wine.

Fortunately, this only depends of open source software, so it'll eventually become true :)

Quoting: BielFPsI wish this was the case, but there's a lot of fanboys using Linux who are defending Nvidia, even when it's obviously their fault that wayland don't work with their graphic cards. Even a half-arsed "fix" from them is more than enough to make a lot of linux gamers to still give them money.

That's usually the perception of those who come from Windows and there indeed Nvidia is very dominating and people really don't care about whether something is open source or not. So when such gamers are switching to Linux they can also bring that kind of attitude with them, but even they often get what the point is eventually.

The way I see it, the actual trend among Linux gamers is growth for AMD and decline for Nvidia. But influx of former Windows gamers might continue to offset that.

I think with AMD investing more in gaming cards in general, situation on Windows will balance out too, so that influx will have less of an impact on Linux in the future.


Last edited by Shmerl on 7 January 2021 at 5:12 pm UTC

Quoting: BielFPs

Quoting: 3zekielThe issue has nothing to do with proprietary or open source.

I didn't said that the problem was the driver being proprietary, I said the problem is the said driver not supporting GBM.

Indeed, but I was referring the original question "Is it impossible for my graphics card vendor to do full Wayland support while keeping its driver closed?"