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While naturally a lot of the focus for a GPU vendor is on their latest and greatest, NVIDIA do still support many of their older GPUs on Linux.

This month they put out the 340.108 driver, which supports some of their classics like the GeForce 9800 and GeForce 8800 GTX plus many older.

It includes updates to the nvidia-drm kernel module to ensure it's compatible with newer Linux Kernel versions, the bug report script was updated to search the systemd journal for gdm-x-session logs, multiple bugs were fixed when building the NVIDIA kernel module with different Linux Kernel versions, a bug that could prevent nvidia-xconfig from disabling the X Composite extension on version 1.20 of the X.org X server was fixed, plus multiple other improvements to their nvidia-installer for different languages and compatibility with more distributions.

The GeForce 8 series is around 13 years old, and the GeForce 9 series is also around 11 years old so it's actually somewhat amazing NVIDIA support it at all with compatibility updates like this.

You can find it here on the NVIDIA website.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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8 comments

sketch Dec 27, 2019
nvidia cares for it's customers.
RTheren Dec 27, 2019
Nice. New drivers for my 9500GT

<3
damarrin Dec 27, 2019
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This is also for newer cards than the 9 series, like my 330M. Nice.


Last edited by damarrin on 27 December 2019 at 3:09 pm UTC
Kithop Dec 27, 2019
I actually have a Core2Duo system with a 9800 in it that occasionally gets used as an HTPC in the living room, or as a spare machine for when friends are over and want to game with some classics or lightweight stuff.

...but Nouveau is more than adequate for everything I've thrown at it. Sure, it's great that nVidia's still supporting their binary blob drivers, but y'know, maybe open sourcing it or starting over open source like AMD did would be better? ;)

Since the open source AMDGPU drivers in mainline became a thing, I've vowed that every gaming machine I buy or build will have an AMD GPU in it. nVidia had withheld the firmware piece to get reclocking support for the GTX980-era cards now for *how* long? They're 'open source friendly' as long as you're fine with only having support on their terms, with their binary blob doing who-knows-what, tainting the kernel. No thanks.
linux_gamer Dec 27, 2019
I would like to see a 390+ driver with vulkan support for my GTX470, so hope has not died yet.
Thormack Dec 28, 2019
Any chance this is going to fully support optimus chip?

(changing between Intel and Nvidia cards without relogging)
ElectricPrism Dec 28, 2019
As a consumer I have learned to fear late software updates.

On iPhone and Android it means they are zapping your phones speed to get you to buy a new product.

After buying a Nvidia GTX 970 and the lawsuit over false advertising on the GDDR capacity and speed I'm not optimistic.


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 28 December 2019 at 5:26 pm UTC
tuubi Dec 28, 2019
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Quoting: ElectricPrismOn iPhone and Android it means they are zapping your phones speed to get you to buy a new product.
While my original Jolla from 2013 just seems to get snappier with every Sailfish OS update.
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