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Back in July 2020, NVIDIA announced the open source release of various parts of the NVAPI interface to help "Windows emulation environments" and they've now produced a much newer version.

What exactly is this? As their documentation from the release states:

NVAPI is NVIDIA Corporation's core software development kit that allows access to NVIDIA GPUs and drivers on all Windows platforms. NVAPI provides support for categories of operations that range beyond the scope of those found in familiar graphics APIs such as DirectX and OpenGL.

This release contains a version of nvapi.h, provided under MIT license, to enable open source re-implementations of NVAPI for Windows emulation environments.

An NVIDIA developer sent word about the update, which expands the support across a ton more Functions, Structures, Enums and so on. For regular gamers, it doesn't mean all that much. However, for people working on the DXVK / VKD3D-Proton translation layers, this can help. One possible use case is so the likes of DXVK might not have to keep spoofing being an AMD GPU for certain games to work around issues with the NVAPI.

Just another small piece of a larger puzzle involving getting Windows games running on Linux nicely with Steam Play Proton.

You can find the download here if interested. More info on the NVAPI here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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10 comments

TheSHEEEP May 20, 2021
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It is really interesting to me how much work and money goes into this.
This cannot all be just for the few percent of gamers using Linux.
Ehvis May 20, 2021
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPIt is really interesting to me how much work and money goes into this.
This cannot all be just for the few percent of gamers using Linux.

I would bet on the fact that nvidia's Linux support is primarily focussed on their professional users in the graphical industry. Linux gamers do provide a nice test bed for driver support though.
Guppy May 20, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPIt is really interesting to me how much work and money goes into this.
This cannot all be just for the few percent of gamers using Linux.

Companies tends to not like other companies monopolies - so if they can spend what amounts to lunch money and upset Microsofts de-facto monopoly on gaming operative systems a bit, of course they will.

If you can't see why imagine this scenario ( better believe the big wigs at Nvidia has ) - Microsoft introduces a new verified "hardware badge" only hardware with this badge will have full acceleration in DX, and ofcourse the this verification can only be performed by Microsoft and is not cheap - 20% worked for apple/google so why not.
LinuxGeek May 20, 2021
Hopefully this will solve several errors that only happen in NVIDIA, for example World of Final Fantasy that it have graphic errors exclusively in NVIDIA graphics, or other games that are incompatible if you have an NVIDIA graphics, also improve the implementation of "Async Shaders".
Tiago May 20, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPIt is really interesting to me how much work and money goes into this.
This cannot all be just for the few percent of gamers using Linux.

I agree, there is must be something behind this, some end game.
Mohandevir May 20, 2021
I don't know if it all adds up, but maybe it's all linked somehow?

https://ekultails.github.io/ekultails-jekyll-uno/2021/chrome-os-vulkan-passthrough/

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-arm-gaming-laptops/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/04/14/nvidia-and-mediatek-join-forces-for-rtx-gpus-you-can-actually-buy-in-a-chromebook/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/17/exclusive-google-is-working-to-bring-steam-to-chrome-os/

Could this be where Gamescope comes into play?

Let's wait and see, Newell hinted to something, by the end of the year... It felt like it was linked to VR, but maybe it's wider than that?

Edit: Personnally, I would really like to see an Nvidia Shield with RTX, able to run my Steam library locally alongside Stadia and/or GeForce Now. Just saying.


Last edited by Mohandevir on 20 May 2021 at 12:25 pm UTC
benjamimgois May 20, 2021
Quoting: MohandevirI don't know if it all adds up, but maybe it's all linked somehow?

https://ekultails.github.io/ekultails-jekyll-uno/2021/chrome-os-vulkan-passthrough/

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-arm-gaming-laptops/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/04/14/nvidia-and-mediatek-join-forces-for-rtx-gpus-you-can-actually-buy-in-a-chromebook/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/17/exclusive-google-is-working-to-bring-steam-to-chrome-os/

Could this be where Gamescope comes into play?

Let's wait and see, Newell hinted to something, by the end of the year... It felt like it was linked to VR, but maybe it's wider than that?

Yeah, i really think this must have a relation with Nvidia arm gaming notebooks. Lets home it brings DLSS to Linux !
rustybroomhandle May 21, 2021
Quoting: benjamimgois
Quoting: MohandevirI don't know if it all adds up, but maybe it's all linked somehow?

https://ekultails.github.io/ekultails-jekyll-uno/2021/chrome-os-vulkan-passthrough/

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-arm-gaming-laptops/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/04/14/nvidia-and-mediatek-join-forces-for-rtx-gpus-you-can-actually-buy-in-a-chromebook/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/17/exclusive-google-is-working-to-bring-steam-to-chrome-os/

Could this be where Gamescope comes into play?

Let's wait and see, Newell hinted to something, by the end of the year... It felt like it was linked to VR, but maybe it's wider than that?

Yeah, i really think this must have a relation with Nvidia arm gaming notebooks. Lets home it brings DLSS to Linux !

As mentioned above, DLSS is supported in Linux. I think what you really are asking is if it can be supported in games. For native games I guess there just needs to be games that implement it. For Proton, it will not be supporting DLSS as it's vendor specific. Once a nice open standard becomes available I'm sure they will map DLSS to use that instead, like they did with RTX->DXR
Mohandevir May 21, 2021
Quoting: rustybroomhandle
Quoting: benjamimgois
Quoting: MohandevirI don't know if it all adds up, but maybe it's all linked somehow?

https://ekultails.github.io/ekultails-jekyll-uno/2021/chrome-os-vulkan-passthrough/

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-arm-gaming-laptops/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/04/14/nvidia-and-mediatek-join-forces-for-rtx-gpus-you-can-actually-buy-in-a-chromebook/

https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/01/17/exclusive-google-is-working-to-bring-steam-to-chrome-os/

Could this be where Gamescope comes into play?

Let's wait and see, Newell hinted to something, by the end of the year... It felt like it was linked to VR, but maybe it's wider than that?

Yeah, i really think this must have a relation with Nvidia arm gaming notebooks. Lets home it brings DLSS to Linux !

As mentioned above, DLSS is supported in Linux. I think what you really are asking is if it can be supported in games. For native games I guess there just needs to be games that implement it. For Proton, it will not be supporting DLSS as it's vendor specific. Once a nice open standard becomes available I'm sure they will map DLSS to use that instead, like they did with RTX->DXR

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https://www.pcgamer.com/amd-gaming-super-resolution-patent/
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