Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver "NVK" Begins Running Game While Using GSP Firmware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source NVIDIA Vulkan Driver "NVK" Begins Running Game While Using GSP Firmware

Red Hat developer David Airlie has shown off the progress being made on bringing up not only the open-source Mesa NVIDIA Vulkan driver "NVK" but doing so while making use of the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware that ultimately is needed for being able to deliver better open-source driver support and performance...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVK-Running-Talos-13-FPS

[Phemg]

Really great news!

Hope this also works for Tegra, Ubuntu 18.04 on Switch L4T is starting to show its age...

[Britoid]

Really great news!

Hope this also works for Tegra, Ubuntu 18.04 on Switch L4T is starting to show its age...

I feel like Tegra has a completely different setup to the desktop in how the driver needs to work.

[Snaipersky]

Tegra doesn't have relocking issues, unlike other NV drivers.

[saladin]

Does anyone know how the GSP performs on a desktop card, or in opengl?

[brad0]

Does anyone know how the GSP performs on a desktop card, or in opengl?

So you didn't even read what it said?

[toughy]

Does anyone know how the GSP performs on a desktop card, or in opengl?

Supposedly the GSP firmware is the same one used in the NVIDIA proprietary drivers, so the answer should be it performs very well. How the GSP performs with the open-source driver, I guess nobody knows, because the Linux kernel module for it is not out yet. And it looks like it will take many months before it will be ready, as NVIDIA is not working on the nouveau module, unlike AMD or Intel that develop the kernel drivers for their products. The open-source kernel module that NVIDIA does provide is not included into Linux, as it is mostly generated automatically from their internal sources after new releseases of the proprietary driver.

To be fair I think NVIDIA may offer some limited support or cooperation for developing the nouveau kernel module, but we don't know much about it and it must be very limited.

I asked the same thing about OpenGL, so I don't know, but I can only expect the old driver will not work and will need to be replaced by Zink.

[kokoko3k]

I too use nvidia in offload mode, at 1080p (1060 and haswell) it reaches x00 fps without much troubles.

Is there an additional bottelneck here?

[sarmad]

I too use nvidia in offload mode, at 1080p (1060 and haswell) it reaches x00 fps without much troubles.

Is there an additional bottelneck here?

My thoughts exactly. Offloading certainly isn't the cause of the slowness, or at least not the main cause. I'm guessing re-clocking is still not fully working, if at all.

[Developer12]

Really great news!

Hope this also works for Tegra, Ubuntu 18.04 on Switch L4T is starting to show its age...

The tegra is a completely separate open source driver.