There are third party repos for Mesa usually depending on the distribution or simply Mesa master packages in the main repo itself. If you are on a distro which doesn't have it, you can figure out how to build things yourself. Because you actually can, unlike with Nvidia. It's not AMD or Nvidia issue at all I think.

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And the reason is that AMD don't recommend using their PRO package, they recommend using Mesa. So it's not surprising distros don't want to spend time on packaging it. AMD plan to deprecate PRO altogether over time. Percentage of cases where PRO is needed is gradually decreasing and distros focus their efforts on the common cases that users actually need.

So Nvidia doesn't win here. They are only losing because they are stuck with their blob and AMD are moving to fully open driver.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeI have been using nvidia for years, and it has pretty much been 'just works'.

I remember Nvidia breaking more than once due to kernel updates and I remember Nvidia messing up my install to the point of frustration and wiping out the whole OS to reinstall. Not upstreaming their driver has consequences. Ditching the blob felt very good and I'm not interested in going back to that horror :)

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Quoting: slaapliedjeWhereas with Nvidia cards, you will have to enable non-free repo and install 'nvidia-driver' package. But once you do that, it just works and they keep it well up to date.

It works, until it doesn't because it's not compatible with the latest kernel which you might need for completely unrelated reason. Leaving you to scratch your head, how to make your other hardware work and have a working Nvidia driver.

So it's clearly not "just works".

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Quoting: 3zekielI think what you fail to see is that Nvidia drivers are integrated, as latest version, in most distros. Most of the time with akmods or equivalent, which means you never have to deal with DKMS and reboot issues you talk about.

That's not true. Even such packages can mess up your system big time. I had such experience with Nvidia in the past. Every time you install a new kernel you have to rebuild dkms for Nvidia, which the package itself can support. But there is no guarantee it it would work correctly any more than for AMD.

Distros don't need to focus on such solution for AMD with packages, because AMD provide the driver in upstream kernel. If you want to go out of your way and deal with dkms mess - you always can. But do it on your own. With Nvidia that's the only solution, unless you want to use nouveau.

So I agree with x_wing. Nvidia doesn't offer any more convenience than AMD installation wise. It actually offers less.

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Quoting: 3zekielwhere solution was to "update to latest driver, i.e. kernel + mesa". If it had been nvidia, I could have just updated to latest driver instead of pulling the kernel.

AMD provide dkms for their updates outside the kernel, same as Nvidia do. So you could use that, Nvidia doesn't have any special difference in this regard. What differs is that AMD also provide upstream kernel driver, while Nvidia don't.

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Quoting: 3zekiel1/ With nvidia you don't need latest kernel usually, unless you absolutely need another feature.

It doesn't matter what you need it for (some new hardware or whatever). Nvidia simply doesn't guarantee to work with recent kernels. AMD does. So clearly the situation is reverse. AMD provide drivers for kernels seamlessly. Nvidia provide one you need to build through dkms without guarantee that it will work.

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I'm talking about gaming. I never needed OpenCL or using AMD-pro.

Also, AMD are working to replace their closed OpenGL with Mesa gradually. OpenCL work is done independently and is progressing well.

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Quoting: PJIt really depends. If you need a stable driver you won't have to uninstall/rebuild manually after each kernel update

That's exactly AMD situation (the driver is part of the kernel). Nvidia on the the other hand requires rebuilding the driver because it's not upstream and uses dkms. So tough luck if they don't support certain kernels like happened recently.

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Quoting: poisondI have no idea how you come to the conclusion that NVidia performs worse for DXVK titles when all evidence points to the opposite.

vkd3d-proton and dxvk are not the same and what I wrote is straight from developers. Phoronix might have tested dxvk in the past, but I haven't seen any tests for dxvk or vkd3d-proton in the regular reports there.

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