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NVIDIA have today put out their latest beta driver for Linux with quite a bit new and it sounds quite exciting.

The big new feature, is that this is their first Linux driver to support 'G-SYNC Compatible' monitors, which they made a bit of a splash about recently. So now, for those of you with a FreeSync monitor, you should be able to turn on G-SYNC and give it a test.

According to Linux YouTuber star Xpander69, who I spoke to and has tested it out, the new G-SYNC Compatible feature will only work with one monitor enabled and the game will have to be in fullscreen. Shame, as that would make it pretty useless for me personally with two monitors I use heavily.

Additionally, they've added support for stereo presentation in Vulkan, an OpenGL application crash after repeated VT-switches was fixed and an issue preventing PRIME displays from being selected in the display settings page of nvidia settings was also solved. Two more Vulkan issues were also solved, with applications being unable to use the VK_EXT_display_control extension and another where destroying a direct-to-display swapchain could crash Vulkan applications.

There's more, they've added support for NVIDIA Video Codec SDK 9.0 which has support for Turing NVENC/NVDEC. There's now NVIDIA optical flow support and a couple other bits.

Sounds like a pretty big release in need of plenty of testing, as it's a Beta release there will likely be some issues.

See the full notes here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, NVIDIA
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Purple Library Guy Jan 31, 2019
Quoting: wvstolzing
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoWhat is that "Allow Flipping" feature for?

That's for Linus. It allows him to flip the bird.
Now I'm imagining Linus tossing Tux in the air like a coin. Heads!
Corben Jan 31, 2019
Wainting for the Ubuntu ppa to be updated with this driver. Hopefully this doesn't break UE4 games again. I remember how an updated just to the nvidia-settings made all UE4 games on Linux just render a white scene (e.g. Everspace, Ruiner, Astrokill).
After upgrading the driver to the same version nvidia-settings had, it was okay again.

Also I hope OBS will be able to leverage the nvidia video codec sdk 9.0 to improve performance.

Has anyone with an RTX card already tried the turing nvenc with OBS?
Eike Jan 31, 2019
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Quoting: wvstolzingThat's for Linus. It allows him to flip the bird.

I didn't know the expression, so I looked it up at urbandictionary.com...

Quoteflip the bird
1. The act of rotating an avian creature through more than 90 degrees.

2. The act of extending the central digit of the hand with the intent to cause offense.

:D
trawzified Jan 31, 2019
QuoteAccording to Linux YouTuber star Xpander69, who I spoke to and has tested it out, the new G-SYNC Compatible feature will only work with one monitor enabled and the game will have to be in fullscreen. Shame, as that would make it pretty useless for me personally with two monitors I use heavily.

It kinda sounds like this is only the case when using synchronization features from a FreeSync monitor on an NVIDIA card, but this also happens when using regular G-Sync. Just wanted to clear that up.


Last edited by trawzified on 31 January 2019 at 10:37 am UTC
TheRiddick Jan 31, 2019
Got it working good under Plasma5 with KWin. However XFCE manager and compton do not allow gsync to function, you can run xfce without compositor however fyi.

AND gsync doesn't support window modes nor multi monitor setups so you need to disable your other monitors before using. Just use xrandr arguments to quickly do this.

Anyway sticking with plasma for now, KCD is now surprisingly playable at 4k with gsync on my 1080ti mini card, pretty happy with that.

My arguments used for easy turning monitor on and off, and yes you can set this up to do it automatically when game launches and when the app closes.

Monitor off:
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --off && sleep 1 && xrandr --output DP-4 --auto && sleep 3 && nvidia-settings --load-config-only &

Monitor on:
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --auto --rotate left --right-of DP-4 && sleep 3 && nvidia-settings --load-config-only &



Iv'e put the nvidia-settings thing on the end because I had problems with gamma control resetting to defaults, doesn't appear to be a issue with Plasma?
Also the sleep is because sometimes the commands execute too fast and monitors in between switching mode has caused desktop freezes (probably xfce related tho).


PS. I hope NVIDIA pull their finger out and fix this dual/multi monitor issue with gsync, its really kind of lame because non of these issues exist for windows users!


Last edited by TheRiddick on 31 January 2019 at 10:51 am UTC
Ehvis Jan 31, 2019
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Quoting: TheRiddickPS. I hope NVIDIA pull their finger out and fix this dual/multi monitor issue with gsync, its really kind of lame because non of these issues exist for windows users!

As I mentioned above, they can't. It's an X issue, not an Nvidia issue.
TheRiddick Jan 31, 2019
Do you think the problem will be resolved in Xserver? how does gsync work under wayland? better?
Xpander Jan 31, 2019
Quoting: TheRiddickMonitor off:
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --off && sleep 1 && xrandr --output DP-4 --auto && sleep 3 && nvidia-settings --load-config-only &

Monitor on:
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --auto --rotate left --right-of DP-4 && sleep 3 && nvidia-settings --load-config-only &



my script :)

# Script to switch Freesync

# Check if display dpy:4 is enabled
check=$(nvidia-settings -q dpys | grep dpy:4 | grep enabled)

# Switch display config
if [ -z "$check" ]; then
 # If enabled - notify and disable freesync
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DP-4: 2560x1440_144 +0+0, DP-1: null, DP-2: 2560x1440_60 +2560+0 { ForceCompositionPipeline = On }"
notify-send "Freesync Disabled, Both Monitors Active" -t 4000 -i messagebox_info
else
 # If disabled - notify and enable freesync
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DP-4: 2560x1440_144 +0+0 {AllowGSYNCCompatible=On}, DP-1: null, DP-2: null"
notify-send "Freesync Enabled with 1 Monitor Active" -t 4000 -i messagebox_info
fi



But yeah it really sucks that you cant use multimonitor with it. I hope they find a way to implement something in X soonish


Last edited by Xpander on 31 January 2019 at 11:01 am UTC
TheRiddick Jan 31, 2019
Yes seems better to use nvidia-settings for switching modes, I was thinking of doing that.

How do you determine when to run freesync or not? are you simply turning it on in your monitor settings when needed? that would be painful for me to do! I'd just use a global env variable and flip it on and off when needed.

PS. I'm a terrible coder, basically whenever I try to do coding it comes out looking like some caveman wall paintings compared to the next persons..lol


Last edited by TheRiddick on 31 January 2019 at 11:08 am UTC
Ehvis Jan 31, 2019
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Quoting: TheRiddickDo you think the problem will be resolved in Xserver? how does gsync work under wayland? better?

That's the trillion dollar question. Will Free/G-Sync work better in Wayland in theory? Will it even work at all? It currently doesn't work though.
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