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NVIDIA have released their 381.22 driver which comes with plenty of fixes, newer Vulkan support and more.

It now turns off OpenGL threaded optimizations by default, as they had enough reports showing that it was causing instability.

It adds support for these Vulkan extensions:
  • VK_EXT_acquire_xlib_display
  • VK_EXT_display_control
  • VK_EXT_display_surface_counter
  • VK_EXT_direct_mode_display
  • VK_KHX_external_memory
  • VK_KHX_external_memory_fd
  • VK_KHX_external_semaphore
  • VK_KHX_external_semaphore_fd


They also removed their NVIDIA logo splash screen which could show up on booting into a distribution. I'm glad they've removed it, but I practically never saw it. The only time I've ever seen it is on my TV PC which weirdly shows it for a second before the login screen, that's the only time I've ever personally seen it happen across all the computers I've owned with NVIDIA. It likely depends on how it's installed.

It also has "Improved compatibility with recent kernels", so you should have little to no trouble with this driver on the latest and greatest Kernel. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Drivers, NVIDIA
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54 comments
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Redface May 10, 2017
Quoting: freerunnerliveI habe big Problem with playing 4k h265 movies. Under windeath i have very low CPU usage. Under Linux my CPU sucks over 100% usage.
Do you think it is related to this new nvidia driver, or do you have it with earlier versions too?
It might be enough to switch to another videoplayer
bubexel May 10, 2017
Quoting: Yaakuro
Quoting: bubexelIt have direct mode for VR? Anyone knows?...

The drivers 381.09 had already Direct Mode support for SteamVR.

Wrong. 381.09 doesnt have direct mode.

update: yes, this new driver works with direct mode! :D


Last edited by bubexel on 10 May 2017 at 2:34 pm UTC
edddeduck_feral May 10, 2017
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: DMGGame support said that it is driver fault and I need to wait till they optimize it. And how can I know, is it driver fault or game developer?

Most times, you just can't...

Well Said, even though some people post like they are sure of who's to blame unless you're in the developer (game/driver) it's usually pretty hard to tell especially with more subtle bugs.

Sometimes you can work it out but it's rarely obvious. In fact sometimes even as a developer it can take a good few days / weeks to work it out as it can end up being a bit of both :)


Last edited by edddeduck_feral on 10 May 2017 at 2:29 pm UTC
GloriousEggroll May 10, 2017
Quoting: metro2033fanboyI hope it aint the current 381 on their PPA, cause that one freezes my Mint a lot! ... EVGA 1060

PS: The one on Nvidia PPA is .09 and this one is .22 haha...waitinggggggggggggggggg


kernel problem maybe? I run 381.09 dkms beta on arch with 4.10 kernel with no problems, 980 ti

also I wonder if this will be compatible with libglvnd, as the beta drivers require nvidia-libgl but the older 378 driver works with libglvnd


Last edited by GloriousEggroll on 10 May 2017 at 2:49 pm UTC
skinnyraf May 10, 2017
Quoting: Avehicle7887To anyone still on the 375* series,

We are stuck on 367.27 on SteamOS, you insensitive clod ;)

Edit: I wonder if game devs, e.g. Feral, can put some pressure on Valve to update Nvidia drivers in SteamOS.


Last edited by skinnyraf on 10 May 2017 at 4:11 pm UTC
Yaakuro May 10, 2017
Quoting: bubexel
Quoting: Yaakuro
Quoting: bubexelIt have direct mode for VR? Anyone knows?...

The drivers 381.09 had already Direct Mode support for SteamVR.

Wrong. 381.09 doesnt have direct mode.

update: yes, this new driver works with direct mode! :D

Well not sure what you did but I was using 381.09 and SteamVR + HTC Vive in direct mode :)


Last edited by Yaakuro on 10 May 2017 at 4:24 pm UTC
freerunnerlive May 10, 2017
Quoting: Redface
Quoting: freerunnerliveI habe big Problem with playing 4k h265 movies. Under windeath i have very low CPU usage. Under Linux my CPU sucks over 100% usage.
Do you think it is related to this new nvidia driver, or do you have it with earlier versions too?
It might be enough to switch to another videoplayer
All versions incl. The New one habe the same problem
Comandante Ñoñardo May 10, 2017
Quoting: 14
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoYes. In Windows, the Nvidia driver has a huge list of games and You can configure the driver settings for each individual games...
In Linux, to configure the driver settings for each game is not that easy.
It's not? Maybe not quite as easy, but there are Application Profiles in the NVIDIA X Server Settings that you can set up based on multiple triggers, process name being one of them.

I know about "Aplication Profiles" in the NVIDIA X Server Settings... It MUST be intuitive like the windows version of the driver's GUI, but it's not..
Considering the open and cooperative nature of Linux, by now there should be a huge list of game presets in the "Aplication Profiles" list..

Also, I don't understand why the GUI of the Nvidia linux drivers looks so different than the intuitive GUI windows version.



Even the Nvidia Physx settings tab is not available on the Linux version...

In my opinion, that is not good if We want more incursions (or migrations) of Windows gamers.
GloriousEggroll May 10, 2017
Quoting: GuestGreat, the new 381.22 driver borked my x server (installed it via 18.1 Mint's driver manager too).

*sigh*

I don't have time for this, gotta mess around with it when I get home from work tonight. Basically after updating, I log in via the usual login screen and it goes straight to a black desktop with only a visible mouse cursor.

Gonna try reverting to 375.xx

if you have any nvidia kernel modules in mkinitcpio.conf and have any nvidia kernel settings (such as nvidia-drm.modeset=1), try removing them then re-run mkinitcpio -P (or reinstall the driver package as it usually runs this anyway). I had to do this to get 381.09 beta drivers to work in arch


Last edited by GloriousEggroll on 10 May 2017 at 5:05 pm UTC
GloriousEggroll May 10, 2017
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: GloriousEggrollif you have any nvidia kernel modules in mkinitcpio.conf and have any nvidia kernel settings (such as nvidia-drm.modeset=1), try removing them then re-run mkinitcpio -P (or reinstall the driver package as it usually runs this anyway). I had to do this to get 381.09 beta drivers to work in arch

I'm pretty sure it's a bad combo of the new nvidia drivers + the settings I had on my previous nvidia-settings + my older kernel (the original one packed with 18.1 cinnamon) + cinnamon itself.

Seems like it's a common issue with cinnamon, so when I get home from work I'm going to stick XFCE on there and see how that fares, and if that works ok then I'll update my kernel (pretty sure that'll fix it) and try cinnamon again.

If that doesn't work I'll try installing 381.22 manually (Which I used to do, but after I added the nvidia PPA I got lazy with Mint's driver manager as, before now, had always worked flawlessly).

I've been told more recently that mint isn't as good as it used to be and the devs sometimes can't keep packages maintained properly. Not what I know, nor fact, nor am I aiming to offend, just what I've been told by a few friends. Better off going with one of the *buntu suites for now if you want to stay debian based and have stability, but then again wiping and reinstalling things is never fun. Another solid choice for stability might be Fedora 25. Arch and Antergos are bleeding edge and are great for me, but you do have to troubleshoot often when package updates go awry (albeit not very often)
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