Which GPU's do NVIDIA fully support for Linux?

Graphics / Linux Linux
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Hi guys, my question to you is this

Which graphics cards does the Nvidia driver for Linux have FULL support for?

Basically, I have several nvidia cards, a few different gaming computers, and based on my experience the nvidia driver for linux simply is the only bottleneck on my system that I cannot work around, which does not unlock the performance potential of my 3060 RTX GPU, like the drivers on Microsoft Windows do for it. Using monitoring software, the best I can figure out, is that the driver simply will not unlock it’s best performance states on Linux, which is indicated by it’s power draw.

On Microsoft, with current drivers, and the same computer system, my 3060 RTX gets extremely high performance levels, and can max out frame rates all day and night, and make all the competition want to quit, and play different games.

I’ve been asking similar related questions here a long time, and trying to find more information, which is generally ignored, but based on what other people have reported on this forum, it seems the absolutely most expensive nvidia cards that we can possibly buy do get good support with the linux driver, such as with the 4000+ RTX series. They are demonstrating their cards get maxed out power draw, and raging performance, with little manual configuration on their part, or none, just like how nvidia drivers typically function.

So it seems to me, based on the evidence that some GPU’s do get FULL support from the nvidia driver for linux, and other GPU’s, while possessing basic functionality, do not get FULL support from Nvidia.

So my question to you guys is, which GPU’s specifically do get FULL support from nvidia for their linux driver, because I can possibly switch out my newer more expensive hardware for older hardware, and get better performance on Linux, and finally stop wasting my time, trying to configure other aspects of my system to compensate for the malfunctioning nvidia driver.

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None, period. Not even from AMD or Intel.

If you’re interested in “full” support that is all the features of all the graphical applications working and no serious bugs, there are no such cards.

You should be using/or sticking to Windows instead. Forget about Linux.

Whoever tells you otherwise is either lying, or making stuff up, or they simply have a very narrow use case and they love anecdotal evidence which is extremely popular among Linux fans.

Last but not least NVIDIA under Linux

  • Does not support voltage control in any shape or form
  • Doesn’t even allow to limit power for mobile GPUs any longer
  • Doesn’t currently support frame generation
  • Doesn’t have a Control Panel similar to the one available in Windows. The Linux one is extremely basic.

So it seems to me, based on the evidence that some GPU’s do get FULL support from the nvidia driver for linux, and other GPU’s, while possessing basic functionality, do not get FULL support from Nvidia.

Been using NVIDIA Linux drivers for almost 25 years now. There’s no such thing. They have a single driver for all the currently supported GPUs starting with Maxwell. Some GPUs are now only supported by legacy drivers and that’s indeed where support is “limited”.

Of course GPUs differ in what features they expose so you won’t get RTX (hardware ray tracing) support for cards preceding the GeForce 20 series.

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I think that some hardware does get great support from nvidia, and other manufacturers, but the reports on the internet suggest that the newest most expensive hardware has the expected support, and performance levels for consumers, as opposed to older hardware, which isn’t even older but released in the same time period but cost less money.

In otherwords the MOST expensive stuff is represented by people here, and elsewhere to get FULL support, as I have qualified it, and hardware released at the same time, which is NOT the MOST expensive hardware possible, does not get FULL support.

So again, people on the forum, and online show that some hardware is working as it should be, and other hardware, such as the 3060 RTX card in my case specifically, is not working as it should be.

I’m convinced if I pop in my older 1060 TI card, which will take me all of 60 seconds, I’ll suddenly be able to max out frame rates in video games and laugh at all the silly windows players ; D

Theres a lot of weird behavior on these linux forums, I wonder if AMD forums exhibit the same behavior, because as a person that invests a lot of time in learning about hardware/software and building custom computers/operating systems I am going to make intelligent informed decisions about what hardware and systems I invest my time in in the future.

1 Like
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Your second post has now reached the level of an alternative realm or outright lunacy but if you wanna run Linux to feel/look cool, go for it.

But looking at the first 50 posts or so clearly shows that NVIDIA has serious troubles with all its GPUs under Linux including horrible DX12 performance (via WineD3D emulation of course).

Looks like you’ve not checked anything and you’re here just to waste people’s times.

5

No i build custom linux systems all the time, using standard means, and all the gaming projects stuff for linux, and Linux gets better performance than microsoft windows, in terms of latency, with very simple modifications, it’s only bottleneck is the Nvidia driver. Literally.(and misinformation online)

The secret is to avoid actually just following advice from google searching, and pave your own path forward. It’s very easy for example to make your own custom gaming kernel, with modfications that the microsoft kernel uses to benefit gaming

I see people’s posts here, but I understand alot of people online just spread misinformation, which they are reticent to meaningfully defend themselves when challenged by a real human being.

So I have been trying to speak to real human beings here for awhile, to no avail, for example, and other linux forums, they treat us worse than microsoft help desk personel!

and since no one will help, am looking at switching to amd over both intel/nvidia

( i can tell you just want to attack people on the nvidia forum, so you don’t have to continue pretending to reply to my post anymore birdie)

it’s possible people aren’t relentlessly harrassed on amd forums, which would be evident by simply reading.

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One major issue is the poor dx12/vkd3d-proton performance.

Then we have the Wayland vram leak but that’s being worked on.

And the occasionally desktop, stuttering when the card is in a low power state.

General VRAM/HOST MEM management isn’t good which can make apps and games crash if you overcommit or run out of VRAM.

I think those are the major 4 issues right now. Some may disagree and that’s fine but all of them is something everyone is affected by.
If the above is fixed I honestly don’t have much to “complain” about.

7

Im just going to repeat myself, I think some nvidia graphics cards get better support than others from the nvidia linux driver.

That is the only subject in this thread. It’s not complicated, it’s a simple issue, and testing different cards would demonstrate that that is the problem we are looking at.

Everyone has different cards, different drivers, different operating systems, different kernels, on linux, including different versions of relative software, so lots of different problems are related to this overall situation.

But here I have simplified the issue, to just looking at the level of support for different GPU’s specifically, which based on reporting in this forum, have different levels of support!

Some cards get maximum performance! Others do not. The question is, which cards get the FULL support from the nvidia driver for linux?

A relative question might be, which nvidia cards have given you guys the BEST experience with the nvidia driver for linux?

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I’ve ran both Ampere and Ada GPUs, the experience was the same.