NVIDIA GPUs on Linux: What You Need to Know (Open vs closed drivers, module, GSP firmware, etc...)

[@mirkodiciano4647]

Nicely done papa my brain is nice and full

[@nsawatchlistbait289]

Oh

[@miller_de]

You've did it! Amazing, thank you very much! The stream were already helpful, but now we have a compact and single source which we can give out to users wanting to learn about NVidia on Linux!

[@jjdizz1l]

Thank you for explaining this. I always wondered what the difference was.

[@RichardBejtlich]

Great video. I play Starfield on Linux Mint with latest 565.77 drivers for my 4070 Ti Super installed via Ubuntu PPA. It took two commands to add the repo. Zero problems.

[@eloymelo77]

Great video!

[@sauriak8286]

Thanks for your very interresting clarification of the Nvidia drivers mess. Top notch !

[@Groovy-Train]

Merci papa!

[@nex7053]

for me nvidia RTX card + KDE + wayland + dual monitor setup was full of frustration, quirks and resentment. And not that long ago.

[@xpressrazor]

@nex7053 Recently I switched from Manjaro to Arch in one of my laptops, and it was frustrating for installing Nvidia drivers. Luckily, I immediately installed envycontrol and switched properly, and that seems to have done the job. If envycontrol messes up, I usually boot in recovery mode, turn off kde login manager (sddm) until envycontrol command fixes the settings.

[@nex7053]

@xpressrazor I was using fedora KDE and basicaly button for primaty display would behave in opposite direction. So i had to set primary display on my secondary screen to have main taskbar on primary. First i thought it was just UI bug but it actually caused problems when apps were staring. For some reason also one of those display created dupe in that json config file which is also weird cuz those displays are identical brand and model.

[@xpressrazor]

@nex7053 I remember having similar issue, don’t remember how I solved it though in my laptop. When using steam deck with tv, I just use tv as my only display, so I don’t have to deal with that issue.

[@nex7053]

@@xpressrazor I got quite frustrated and eventually rolled back to Windows on my main rig. Still have fedora on my laptop tho, where i have AMD GPU and there it is without single flaw. While in my desktop I even had situation I installed KDE theme and I was not even able to boot again, do not know why but when I tried to get it working I reinstalled system like 20 times in one evening. And because I needed to work next day I just gave up.

[@xpressrazor]

@nex7053 Understandable

[@roterodamus]

Thanks for explaining that. A few days ago, I was trying to install the nouveau drivers for my 1650. I eventually realized I didn't actually need them, and now I understand why. I'm currently using the open kernel module, I haven’t had any issues yet, but there’s still more testing to do.

[@weench]

Thanks for this topic. I have 4070 and play THE FINALS without problems on Void Linux since December 2024 (2 months Linux user)

[@mf4071]

The difference between NVIDIA and AMD on Linux nowadays seems to be that AMD prioritized all of their driver development on Linux to AMDGPU since about 2020 to replace the now defunct Catalyst driver. NVIDIA could dedicate all of their efforts to NVK and do away with the proprietary driver but so far they haven't. After using AMDGPU on Arch Linux for the past 5 years, which is also what the SteamDeck uses, I can't switch to NVIDIA. So far AMDGPU has been the best experience that I've had with any graphics driver on any platform but if NVIDIA's business practices improve in the future, I look forward to a fully performant and featured NVK driver to play with.

[@DocKotoga]

Is there any info on how the implementation of the Blackwell will work in Nobara? I am currently planning a new computer and would like to install a 50xx and I would also like to use Linux on it.

[@LovecraftianGodsKiller]

I think it might be best to wait a little bit until the drivers get updated to support the 5000 series cards. Especially the open source drivers (nouveau or the official open source drivers) and maybe even the nvk driver (I know almost nothing about the nvk drivers so don't quote me on that).

[@FsmTeam.]

Ok fort intéressant tout ça.

[@kobuz]

hi could you show step by step properly installation nvidia driver on cachyos

[@Duckly97]

Pretty sure it does it for you when you install it on Nvidia hardware and select closed source driver. If you didn't do that, the manual way on Arch is to install `nvidia-dkms`* and `nvidia-utils` and set `nvidia_drm.modeset=1` in your kernel params (/etc/default/grub for grub) and set `nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm` in your `/etc/mkinitcpio.conf`(although I think the driver does this automatically) *Reason for `-dkms` is so you can use any driver with it, regular `nvidia` driver is just for the main (non-cachy) kernel.

[@kobuz]

@ thanks a lot

[@besarionchikhladze55]

I don't quite get one point. Right now, closed module enabling to turn off gsp firmware to get more performance . If there will be only open module driver in the future, will it update gsp firmware somehow?

[@AshySamurai]

Not to bash you (thank you for putting effort to make it easier for people) and prob issue on my end but I still didn't understand it. Where are the dlss and other features sit in this scheme? Is it better to go with open driver from negativo17 or what is it better to install? Gotta rewatch it again, maybe I missed something.

[@jannekschushek9577]

That means wait some weeks until 5090 will work?

[@maartenbw22]

Merci mon ami français. Quality information I was l looking for for a long time. Really interested what will happen with the 570 driver and support for the 50xx series cards. I have a laptop with a GTX1650 (which is Turing), so I am just barely onboard with the Nvidia Open hype train.

[@vijinho]

In the past few days on CachyOS, "nvidia-open"drivers stopped working for me on my laptop (MX550) and RTX 3060 desktop, got a low-res display upon booting after running CachyOS "System Update". I had to fix by uninstalling them and installing nvidia-open-dkms drivers instead, using 'chwd -f -i nvidia-open-dkms'.

[@Vitis-n2v]

Nvk is vulkan driver. For opengl you still need either nouveau or modesetting driver

[@kdzuto]

for open gl you may use zink

[@Vitis-n2v]

@@kdzuto zink is completely fine for desktop but i wouldn't use it for gaming just yet. I do look forward to zink replacing native opengl drivers though.

[@blaze3495]

Are you french by any chance?

[@sevenfacedsin]

For my system, i9-9900k and RTX3069, Gnome + x11 + closed driver has been the way to go. I’ve been having some strange shadow related problems using 565.77 using Bottles for World of Warcraft that weren’t present in a previous graphics driver.

[@der_chrissn]

Wich driver is best in Nobara 40/41 with 4070super?

[@jjdizz1l]

The 565.77 proprietary.

[@shadyKING057]

I have an idea for a new video for you. Topic: How to manage Gamescope to change resolution in Games where this cannot be done. In Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2 etc. you can't change screen resolution from native with your high refresh rate, for example when I change resolution in CS2 without Gamescope from 1920x1080 144hz to 1280x960 I can get only 60hz and scaling along with mouse control breaks and you can't play. Here some launch parameters that i use for Counter-Strike 2 on Linux: gamescope -w 1280 -h 960 -S stretch -e -f -r 144.0 --force-grab-cursor --adaptive-sync --immediate-flips %command% (before %command% you need to write two minuses "--" but i can't do this because youtube crosses out whole sentence before them as feature of youtube comments) On KZbin, apart from a few videos (I can only remember one), there is no guide at all on how to do this, and when I was a Linux newbie, I didn’t even know about the existence of Gamescope.

[@hamartia_theorist]

Nvidia drivers work well now but the performance in games is still not as good as in Windows. I really hope they address that in future versions.

[@skaifer1715]

Well, I guess the time has come for me to replace my GTX 1060. It's been a good 8 years🧙‍♂. I'm leaning towards a switch to AMD graphics card. Have to study a bit. Haven't used AMD hardware, all I have heard it is Linux friendly.

[@durockps]

Salut, as-tu un channel en français?

[@A1RM4X]

Salut! Je n'ai qu'un seul channel et c'est celui-ci!

[@Henk717]

For me NVK is not just "Not as good" its outright bad in performance. Extremely bad. I get frame lag on steam big pictures menu for example and llamacpp generates slower than my CPU. I don't know if this is normal or if I do something wrong. I do have the gsp enabled to my knowledge.

[@katnerd-Glen]

I do think it's funny that Nvidia finally got legitimate Linux drivers and I'm planning on switching to a Radeon driver in March. Mainly I'm just sick of the unobtanium the cards are and how they're always for sale at up to $500+ more that MSRP. That and even the MSRP is too much unless your making money off them. Radeon cards can do the extremely light RT work that most games require now so the only thing I'd want the Nvidia cards for would be things like path tracing which taxes even the 4090, so that's pointless too. Since I'm switching over to Linux gradually to avoid Windows 11 sending my credit card numbers to Microsoft I might as well get the gpu that I know works just as well in both platforms.

[@hecller22]

I'm confused by the Mesa drivers on the RX570, big stutterings on all unreal game engines, but I have three Nvidia graphics cards, GTX and RTX, and the drivers are not a problem, even the new drivers on the GTX card will run Forza 5 without crashes from 2024!

[@pitape1822]

Is Cachy using Nvidia open ? How can we switch from Nvidia open and closed on Ubunutu, Mint or others?

[@jjdizz1l]

CachyOS uses the NVIDIA open driver as default with compatible GPUs. However, you definitely can switch to the proprietary drivers without an issue. I believe the command is: sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos-nvidia

[@vilian9185]

​@@jjdizz1lisn't the open drivers the recommended by nvidia?

[@jjdizz1l]

@ Yes, but they’re not better than the proprietary version for now. And the newest GPUs only work on the open drivers.

[@mercster]

They are called "blobs" because they are like an undifferentiated mass, you cannot look into them... Nvidia compiles them and gives you a .ko, and it is a "blob" of technology on your system provided by someone else, that you cannot look at or build. Though if the new "open" thing from Nvidia can be built... tat's good. But people have bee calling the Nvidia proprietary driver a "blob" for so long, I guess it's carrying over. I just installed Fedora 41, switched to X11 and installed the proprietary Nvidia blob (heh.) I don't think using Wayland+Nvidia+open drivers is going to run ALL my games well at this point... I will be happy when it comes...

[@mercster]

From Nvidia's own documentation, the GSP firmware is for offloading GPU initialization and management tasks to the CPU. To talk only in terms of open/closed is not correct, I do not think...

[@miavelvet]

since im new on linux i can only share my current experience and i can say that 3090 works horrible on desktop (fine in games) and im gonna buy amd next and wont touch nvidia for at least next few years. Its mostly gsp problems

[@A1RM4X]

I feel you. Some distros have the option / detailled wiki for dealing with the GSP (IE: CachyOS / Nobara / ...). Maybe you should try one of those to make sure you are not ditching your 3090 for nothing.

[@TawNY1337]

damn i just switched to cachy and have a 1080ti

[@jjdizz1l]

Then you would just use the 470 drivers. CachyOS should have automatically set that up for you.

[@Groovy-Train]

@@jjdizz1l The 10xx series still use the latest 5xx propietary drivers.

[@jjdizz1l]

@Groovy-Train Ah OK. Just not the Open driver?

[@Groovy-Train]

@ No, open driver only for Turing cards and above.

[@VivekNa]

I dont understand what prevents nvidia from opensourcing everything. Drivers are merely an API layer for the HE. Nothing in there is valuable to them. No one is going to "steal" anything from nvidia. This is the "dog in the manger" corporate policy. Considering almost all servers in the world run Linux, the least amount of decency would make them open the specifications

[@justbob8294]

its mostly DRM for hdmi.

[@beonyou]

I use a Nvidia 2070 in my actual PC ... and my next video Card will be an AMD. Nvidia is a mess on Linux, and your video point out the fact it won't be easier in future. Nvidia sucks with Linux, Nvidia loose customers, Nvidia will have to react (i hope so). And my Nvidia 2070 works fine, that's not the point.

[@CowCatwithafancyHat]

This is the year that AMD will get my money, my wife’s PC is still using the 1080ti and we will just change it just because it heats up the room. My PC is using the 4090 which is excellent because I never game more than 90-100 FPS as I love efficiency. Cachy OS was an excellent choice when I switched. I know nothing about any command line and the damn logic of the folder system but, didn’t need it as everything was there. Waiting for KCD 2.

[@rimenahi]

Driver install, click click, next next Windows gang rise up 😎 😂

[@Groovy-Train]

Yeah but the way Windows is going sucks, which is why I'm going full time to Linux. Microsoft's actions are literally forcing me away from using their OS. While this video sounds complicated, for most people it's a case of just using the proprietry driver for now and it all works. Some linux distributions will automatically install the best Nvidia driver for you when you install the OS; others may have a driver manager which is point and click. In general use it's certainly not as complicated as it seems here, it's just that Nvidia are transitioning to a more open source way of doing things, so there is some confusion as to which drivers to use. AMD Radeon users just install Linux and are good to go from the outset, which is even easier than pointing and clicking on Windows. 😎

[@Henk717]

Nah don't play that game you won't win. Realistically its not like this on Windows either. For most people it gets downloaded and installed trough Windows Update but if that fails its indeed next next. Without downloading a driver the windows display driver is trash tier. Many Linux distrubutions these days have the nvidia driver on the disk. So its not a next next click click, you just select one option that you want it and it works immediately. So on multiple Linux distributions its actually easier.