I would love to try out the new Open source drivers that are currecntly released…
too bad it doesnt look like the 1070 / 1080 cards will be supported with the open drivers :(
NVIDIA… DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS TO SUPPORT THE 1070 / 1080 CARDS?? THEY AREN’T THAT OLD AND THEY STILL HANDLE WHAT I’M DOING!
PLEASE CONSIDER ADDING 1070 TO SUPPORT WITH THE OPEN DRIVERS!!
IF YOU WONT RELEASE THE OPEN DRIVERS FOR THE “NOT TOO OLD” 1070 / 1080 CARDS… I WILL ASSUME YOU ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE AND TRYING TO GET PEOPLE TO BUY NEW CARDS!
I WILL THEN JUST GET A RADEON INSTEAD OF NVIDIA … WHICH IF I UNDERSTAND, IS BETTER SUPPORTED UNDER LINUX ANYWAYS!
A more complete answer straight from the horse’s mouth:
Thanks for asking.
Maxwell, Pascal and Volta are definitely still important GPUs with a large user base; we aren’t abandoning those GPUs!
Unfortunately, the open kernel modules here rely on the GSP (GPU System Processor), which was first introduced in Turing. That is why the open kernel modules can’t support pre-Turing.
Fortunately, NVIDIA’s internal code base is organized such that we share a lot of code between the open kernel modules in this repository and the proprietary kernel modules that are needed for pre-Turing GPUs. So, many/most changes to the open kernel modules will also apply and benefit the proprietary kernel modules. It is not as if the proprietary kernel modules will be ignored and allowed to bitrot.
For the foreseeable future, NVIDIA will continue to support both: the proprietary kernel modules and the open kernel modules. The two sets of kernel modules share a lot of code, they provide the same interfaces to the user-mode driver components like OpenGL, Vulkan, and CUDA, and they will continue to evolve together.
Users will need to choose at install time which set of kernel modules to install: if you’re using pre-Turing GPUs, continue to use the binary kernel modules. If you’re using Turing or later, and the current features/performance of the open kernel modules meet your needs, use the open kernel modules. Over the next several releases, we’re working to close the feature/performance gap, such that the open kernel modules are as featureful and performant as the binary kernel modules.
Long term, yes, as pre-Turing GPUs age out, the focus will be on the open kernel modules. The open kernel modules will also evolve new features not possible in the binary kernel modules. I don’t know timelines, but that is long term. Pre-Turing is definitely not considered “legacy” today.
Ok thank you for your reply and passing the info to me… I hadn’t seen it.
Sorry about the capitalized shouting,
I can understand if they cant make it available due to the limitations of the older cards…Although I still don’t fully understand why they cant
I have so many problems with the geforce 1070 and / or the drivers on arch linux.
I had to revert to the 535 drivers just to stop the errors / hangs / freezes / suspend hangs / panics… And its been this way for months now.
I was hoping (and read) that the open drivers seemed to be working for people…And being open, I was hoping would get more attention / development / fixes for all the issues i and others are having.
I guess when I am in the market for a new card, I will re-evaluate what is best on linux at that time. right now, it loOks like radeon is more pro linux.
afaik from what i heard and read, if you are laptop user, 550.107 closed source drivers aim to fix the freezing issues.
Perhaps consider giving it a try.