We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

It seems to be a busy weekend! NVIDIA have put out a new version of their Vulkan beta driver and it's an interesting one.

Today, NVIDIA 415.22.05 became available and as expected of this driver series it adds in new Vulkan extensions. Specifically, it adds support for VK_KHR_depth_stencil_resolve, VK_EXT_buffer_device_address, VK_EXT_memory_budget, VK_EXT_memory_priority (only for Windows currently) and VK_EXT_pci_bus_info.

The extra interesting bit is the improvement they listed in this driver version. They mention that it has "Better pipeline creation performance when there is a cache hit" so it will be an interesting driver to test out. Good to see NVIDIA continue working on performance!

Find the driver info here.

For those on Ubuntu wishing to test out the beta driver, there is this PPA which sadly hasn't been updated since October last year. Hopefully they will get moving on that sometime soon. I'm unsure how other distributions handle beta drivers like this, hopefully they make it easy.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
14 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
48 comments
Page: 1/5»
  Go to:

tpau Jan 6, 2019
I still wonder why they don't go the AMD way and share development of the base driver with the opensource community.
Would make the proprietary part smaller and easier to maintain and make the OS enthusiasts happy.
Is there any convincing reason why the signed firmware is held back?
pete910 Jan 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: tpauI still wonder why they don't go the AMD way and share development of the base driver with the opensource community.
Would make the proprietary part smaller and easier to maintain and make the OS enthusiasts happy.
Is there any convincing reason why the signed firmware is held back?

Because their ********
mahagr Jan 6, 2019
nVidia drivers are bad quality which is likely the main reason why they do not open up the code. I'm frustrated on their drivers as they force the card to run on maximum power for 45 seconds every time there's an opengl draw call. Basically it means that if you install Ubuntu and use default Gnome (which uses opengl X composite extension), your graphics card never goes into powersave state and consumes ~4x more power than it should. They have the same issue in Windows, but because of architectural differences it's not as bad in there.

I guess they do that because of nobody has bothered to implement proper power saving feature and because of not running the card in maximum power makes the cards to look bad in benchmarks. IMHO they really should fix the issue and allow cards to run on optimal clocks as laptops get more and more common. :)
Shmerl Jan 6, 2019
Quoting: tpauI still wonder why they don't go the AMD way and share development of the base driver with the opensource community

Because it's Nvidia. Their managements are jerks and don't get what open source collaboration is. Otherwise they would have opened their kernel driver already.
Thormack Jan 6, 2019
Quoting: GuestI'm waiting the new AMD RX3000 graphics cards and I'll be done with Nvidia and their'e proprietary drivers.

More or less same here.

We might also have the Intel gaming GPU as a choice in the future.
Avehicle7887 Jan 6, 2019
I see many people saying Nvidia drivers are bad etc without mentioning a few key points. Sure they are closed source and not as friendly as others in the Linux world but:

- They've offered Linux support for a long time, I still remember NV drivers back when Ubuntu was all the rage (Ubuntu 10.04 etc).
- Performance of their drivers is competitive, and it took a while for (Mesa) AMD to catch up (and now sometimes perform better).
- They have contributed fixes to their drivers to help with DXVK.
- Their drivers can be used on some old distros without too much fuss, not something you can easily do with OSS ones.

I'm not saying they are perfect either, the crappy Prime support on mobile GPUs is why I don't buy laptops with NV GPUs, I'd rather have Intel HD if no AMD alternative is available. However they are far from the bad quality type that some people make them out to be.
mrdeathjr Jan 6, 2019
This driver comes with vulkan 1.1.96



Cuphead still working (unity games)



^_^
jens Jan 6, 2019
  • Supporter
Quoting: mahagrnVidia drivers are bad quality which is likely the main reason why they do not open up the code.

And you base your assumptions on what exactly?
jens Jan 6, 2019
  • Supporter
Quoting: ShmerlBecause it's Nvidia. Their managements are jerks and don't get what open source collaboration is.

So you had an interview with somebody from the Nvidia management?
jens Jan 6, 2019
  • Supporter
I get that people are not happy with the way NVidia is handling things for Linux, but name calling and assuming that their engineers are amateurs is just cheap talk and usually gets you nothing. They do things the way it fits for them, for quite some people this workflow and choices seems to work too. If you don't like their way, just move on.

Back on topic: "Better pipeline creation performance when there is a cache hit" sounds indeed interesting, I would be curious to know how much performance win it yields in real life scenarios.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.