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Back in October last year I wrote about the new open source NVIDIA Vulkan driver named NVK, and now it appears to be able to actually run games. Not particularly well though.

This NVK driver is not from NVIDIA but is instead a new Mesa driver but is a serious effort to see if they can get it into a state where it's usable like what the RADV is to AMD hardware.

Posting on their Mastodon account, driver developer Karol Herbst showed a screenshot of it now capable of loading up The Talos Principle with a follow-up noting "performance is terrible, but that's hopefully resolved with the GSP work which is still ongoing :)".

Image Credit - Karol Herbst

Seems like 2023 could be a really fun year for NVIDIA GPU owners on Linux, if this work continues to improve. Given the work involved, it will likely be a good while before performance is actually at a playable stage.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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16 comments

sub Jan 11, 2023
Do they have enough docs from Nvidia in order to not rely on reversing stuff?
Cmdr_Iras Jan 11, 2023
Interesting project; though I have of course just swapped my Nvidia GTX1070 for a AMD RX 6700XT.
jordicoma Jan 11, 2023
Interesting project; though I have of course just swapped my Nvidia GTX1070 for a AMD RX 6700XT.
Same for me, gf660 to 6600XT. (graphic cards are to expensive)


Last edited by jordicoma on 11 January 2023 at 3:42 pm UTC
InhaleOblivion Jan 11, 2023
Interesting project; though I have of course just swapped my Nvidia GTX1070 for a AMD RX 6700XT.
I made a similar upgrade from the GTX 1070 FE to an RX 6750XT. So far so good though Lutris is acting funny with certain titles.
fireplace Jan 11, 2023
Do they have enough docs from Nvidia in order to not rely on reversing stuff?
It's mostly reverse engineered. Collabora posted about it a while ago.

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/introducing-nvk.html
mahagr Jan 11, 2023
The new open source kernel drivers should help on the effort as it reveals the data structures in the header files. I think it might be one of the reasons why games are now running in the NVK drivers as it should help the devs to figure out things without relying as much on reverse engineering than before.


Last edited by mahagr on 11 January 2023 at 7:17 pm UTC
axredneck Jan 11, 2023
NVIDIA for the losers
and for those who need CUDA for some reason.
drjoms Jan 11, 2023
Interesting project; though I have of course just swapped my Nvidia GTX1070 for a AMD RX 6700XT.
Lol, 3 years ago i swapped, gtx780 for 5700xt. Its very competent card for 1080P, and i manage to play tonnes of titles either with full settings or FSR enabled on 1440P. But I am thinking to upgrade for something else :D After article I was thinking about Nvidia again, though performance from looks of it sucks.


Last edited by drjoms on 11 January 2023 at 10:53 pm UTC
fenglengshun Jan 12, 2023
A part of me does wonder -- if people use the open-source Nvidia driver and, say, the OBS issue happened again, would that break those user's OBS? From what I've read it seems that proprietary Nvidia driver users avoided OBS' issue so that's... weird, and kinda funny, given how annoying Nvidia-Linux experience can be.

Yes, yes, I know it's a logistical issue that shouldn't happen often... but there's been a LOT of those last year, so I just wonder if it'll happen again and if that'll affect the people choosing to use the new open-source driver's users at that time.
sub Jan 12, 2023
Do they have enough docs from Nvidia in order to not rely on reversing stuff?
It's mostly reverse engineered. Collabora posted about it a while ago.

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/introducing-nvk.html

Thanks!

*MEH* so much wasted energy on stuff that should just be documented.
fireplace Jan 12, 2023
Do they have enough docs from Nvidia in order to not rely on reversing stuff?
It's mostly reverse engineered. Collabora posted about it a while ago.

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/news-and-events/introducing-nvk.html

Thanks!

*MEH* so much wasted energy on stuff that should just be documented.
Agreed, nVidia basically released everything BUT actual documentation. Hopefully that doesn’t deter the devs from working on it.
Ardje Jan 12, 2023
Interesting project; though I have of course just swapped my Nvidia GTX1070 for a AMD RX 6700XT.
I look at it like this:
Time that I spend on my computer having fun is time well spend.
Time that I spend on my computer fixing nvidia shit is time I should have gotten paid. So that's time that I loose money, because I could have just worked in that time and get paid. And my job is a lot more fun than fixing proprietary shit, or trying the latest opensource drivers for hardware of a company that has no intention to help.
So I choose to do real work (that I like), getting paid real money, that I can spend on a Valve supported card and having fun time with it.
The last nvidia mistake I made was in 2016 when I bought a steam machine.
The last nvidia incident I got was a few years later, when I returned my refurbished thinkpad for repair and I got one with an unwanted nvidia power sink returned. The intel HD4000 performs better than the nvidia, because intel supports their stuff.
drjoms Jan 12, 2023
would be curious to know if Zync can work with current implementation. And if yes - how bad is it.
Pirolisi Jan 15, 2023
AMD ftw!!!!!! NVIDIA for the losers!!! Even an ameba understands this! So all who owns an NVDIA card have lower IQ than an ameba (Including myself because I have an NVIDIA card in my secondary windows rig!) how nice! But in a serious mannner speaking this NVIDIA open source driver is a bit late. Well hopefully we see a rapid development soon. Only Open source can make it possible.
Grow up...calling people looser and ameba is not for winners.
Corben Feb 3, 2023
And here am I, using nVidia since decades, barely having issues and even being happy about DLSS and nvenc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I remember being very disappointed about ATi back then, when the fglxr driver wasn't updated for X anymore and I couldn't use my Radeon X1950 Pro anymore, and the card wasn't even that old. nVidia instead still supports really old cards with their legacy drivers on modern systems.

Sure it all changed in the meantime, from my experience though nVidia cards are not half as bad as you could get the impression by some comments. Neither my Ubuntu nor Arch system had issues with the proprietary drivers (fingers crossed).
sub Feb 5, 2023
FGLRX



And here am I, using nVidia since decades, barely having issues and even being happy about DLSS and nvenc ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I remember being very disappointed about ATi back then, when the fglxr driver wasn't updated for X anymore and I couldn't use my Radeon X1950 Pro anymore, and the card wasn't even that old. nVidia instead still supports really old cards with their legacy drivers on modern systems.

Sure it all changed in the meantime, from my experience though nVidia cards are not half as bad as you could get the impression by some comments. Neither my Ubuntu nor Arch system had issues with the proprietary drivers (fingers crossed).
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