NVIDIA continues tweaking their work for hardware accelerated Xwayland support

shame nvidia still hasn't made their gpus work with Wayland :/ . This annoys me every time. I wonder when this drivers related clutch will come to an end.

shame nvidia still hasn't made their gpus work with Wayland :/ . This annoys me every time. I wonder when this drivers related clutch will come to an end.

That's not correct, Nvidia GPUs work with Wayland, this is about xWayland.

NVIDIA continues tweaking their work for hardware accelerated Xwayland support

I read: NVIDIA still does not support properly the linux ecosystem.

shame nvidia still hasn't made their gpus work with Wayland :/ . This annoys me every time. I wonder when this drivers related clutch will come to an end.

When i was still with nvidia, and they *finally* implemented gpu offloading, i gained a snappier desktop and lower power consumption by using nvidia just as a mere graphic accelerator when needed.
My poor haswell igp performed so much better doing basic tasks, so in the end this should be not a big loss.


Last edited by kokoko3k on 18 February 2021 at 4:48 pm UTC

shame nvidia still hasn't made their gpus work with Wayland :/ . This annoys me every time. I wonder when this drivers related clutch will come to an end.

Well lad, I have some great news for you, the article you're replying to has pretty much answered your question to a tee: Nvidia GPUs already work in Wayland, it's just that until now they wouldn't provide hardware acceleration for Xwayland, which in a world where most apps still run on X and thus need Xwayland to run on Wayland, meant there was practically no hardware acceleration on Wayland with Nvidia, at all. But as of the next driver release (470) this will apparently be automagically fixed, which means we Nvidia users can finally try our luck with Wayland.

I read: NVIDIA still does not support properly the linux ecosystem.

I read: Nvidia will at long last start properly (?) supporting Wayland as of its next driver release. Half-full, half-empty, you understand.


Last edited by Nocifer on 18 February 2021 at 6:19 pm UTC

I think to get wayland going on NVIDIA you need the EGLStreams package. I see it there in the arch repo.

Wayland has too many annoyances for me even with my 6800XT.
I've got use to the issues with X11 window system, to use wayland you get a whole new set slapped on top.
Also there isn't yet any advantage, there is promise of benefits, but none atm!


Last edited by TheRiddick on 19 February 2021 at 6:22 am UTC

I think to get wayland going on NVIDIA you need the EGLStreams package. I see it there in the arch repo.

Wayland has too many annoyances for me even with my 6800XT.
I've got use to the issues with X11 window system, to use wayland you get a whole new set slapped on top.
Also there isn't yet any advantage, there is promise of benefits, but none atm!

Only advantage I do "see" is some tearing disappear when watching videos or when using with Chiaki (ps4 streaming). One advantage in the background is security, which is already very real as X11 is a security breach nest by design, whereas wayland has a much more sane design on that point (not sharing your buffers with every processes on your PC...).

Now, I think many people expected some kind of revolution on everything, which will not really come. As for the "performance" gain, it will more likely be an efficiency gain eaten away with new features or not really possible to see as anyway your hw already does not struggle.

Double post


Last edited by kokoko3k on 19 February 2021 at 4:43 pm UTC

shame nvidia still hasn't made their gpus work with Wayland :/ . This annoys me every time. I wonder when this drivers related clutch will come to an end.

Well lad, I have some great news for you, the article you're replying to has pretty much answered your question to a tee: Nvidia GPUs already work in Wayland, it's just that until now they wouldn't provide hardware acceleration for Xwayland, which in a world where most apps still run on X and thus need Xwayland to run on Wayland, meant there was practically no hardware acceleration on Wayland with Nvidia, at all. But as of the next driver release (470) this will apparently be automagically fixed, which means we Nvidia users can finally try our luck with Wayland.

I read: NVIDIA still does not support properly the linux ecosystem.

I read: Nvidia will at long last start properly (?) supporting Wayland as of its next driver release. Half-full, half-empty, you understand.

I think "properly" would mean supporting GBM and not relying on specific code made just for nvidia (see gnome or kwin).
What if i want use another wayland compositor?
But i could be wrong, since i switched to amd and the situation has changed (?)

I would like them to work on free-sync/variable refresh rate tech under Wayland so it can be used in a window, and in a dual monitor environment where one monitor is not a free-sync monitor.

Basically allow free-sync to work freely in a screen-space env just like how it works under windows.

That would be nice. Windows has had a huge advantage with dual monitor/higher bit rates/freesync stuff for a long time now. While it can work under Linux it has glitches and restrictions that make it almost not worthwhile.


Last edited by TheRiddick on 20 February 2021 at 7:52 am UTC

That's not correct, Nvidia GPUs work with Wayland, this is about xWayland.

I'd love to be proven wrong. I've re-read some threads about Wayland and it seems Nvidia still does not have GBM support - thus no proper Wayland on NVidia. Yes, you can get some compositors to work thx to eglstreams implementation but it is flaky and IMO it is wrong. Either Wayland devs should change the way it does things and implement something other than gbm, otherwise Nvidia should implement the standard, not try to enforce their way. Bending the knee is not the solution and makes situation more problematic.

But even with eglstreams it is rather awful IMO - at least the last time I've tried (it was around Xmas, when I had a bit more time). WHile in no means scientific test ;) when I've tried 2 distros and 2 DEs in one situation I've launched Wayland on Nvidia only after quite a bit of effort. On the other it was easier to launch. But sadly on both the performance was awful, much worse than on a laptop with integrated intel graphics.
I really do hope the situation got resolved as I can clearly see the benefits of Wayland (not the security ones, but everyday use related). When on hardware with proper support the session is tear free, more responsive and fluid.