NVIDIA 313.18 Driver Update Packs A Ton Of Changes

[efikkan]

I hope this new driver is working better with a real-time kernel.

Good joke… as if a little Valve involvement would suddenly make Linux a good gaming platform. Normal users care more about their hardware working out of the box and you get that with the FOSS AMD drivers.

Normal users who care about performance, power consumption, stability, picture quality(AA, etc.), video acceleration and so on would be way better of with Nvidia hardware. Running AMD hardware with the "free" drivers perform like a low-end graphics card while running very hot.

[rusty]

does anyone know how to enable NVreg_EnablePCIeGen3 ?

[ninez]

I hope this new driver is working better with a real-time kernel.

Nvidia blob not working well for you with linux-rt?

...for me the last bunch of releases have been working quite excellently. I still occasionally run into the odd minor issue, like this:

[ 8427.367670] Pid: 1401, comm: irq/42-nvidia Tainted: P        W  O 3.6.11-rt25-1-rt #1
[ 8427.367671] Call Trace:
[ 8427.367678]  [<ffffffff8146fa34>] __schedule_bug+0x4d/0x59
[ 8427.367680]  [<ffffffff81476410>] __schedule+0x8d0/0x9f0
[ 8427.367683]  [<ffffffff81078ce6>] ? __task_rq_unlock+0x16/0x50
[ 8427.367685]  [<ffffffff8107acef>] ? rt_mutex_setprio+0x10f/0x2a0
[ 8427.367686]  [<ffffffff81478090>] ? _raw_spin_unlock_irqrestore+0x20/0x60
[ 8427.367689]  [<ffffffff8109bbb5>] ? task_blocks_on_rt_mutex+0x1f5/0x250
[ 8427.367690]  [<ffffffff814765e9>] schedule+0x29/0x70
[ 8427.367691]  [<ffffffff81477697>] rt_spin_lock_slowlock+0x15f/0x278
[ 8427.367791]  [<ffffffffa03518eb>] ? _nv011768rm+0x9/0xb [nvidia]
[ 8427.367792]  [<ffffffff81477d56>] rt_spin_lock+0x26/0x30
[ 8427.367793]  [<ffffffff8107a906>] __wake_up+0x36/0x70
[ 8427.367831]  [<ffffffffa07f4b08>] nv_post_event+0x108/0x160 [nvidia]
[ 8427.367869]  [<ffffffffa07cfe89>] _nv011912rm+0xf2/0x149 [nvidia]
[ 8427.367935]  [<ffffffffa0535a98>] ? _nv004839rm+0xc6/0xef [nvidia]
[ 8427.368001]  [<ffffffffa0535d72>] ? _nv011159rm+0xdf/0xf8 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368066]  [<ffffffffa0535cf2>] ? _nv011159rm+0x5f/0xf8 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368138]  [<ffffffffa065a349>] ? _nv008849rm+0xad1/0xce8 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368209]  [<ffffffffa065a361>] ? _nv008849rm+0xae9/0xce8 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368265]  [<ffffffffa06cb128>] ? _nv010663rm+0x482/0x684 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368321]  [<ffffffffa06c98ec>] ? _nv000979rm+0x25c/0x2ef [nvidia]
[ 8427.368376]  [<ffffffffa06c9cd0>] ? _nv010680rm+0x46/0x1a9 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368419]  [<ffffffffa03518eb>] ? _nv011768rm+0x9/0xb [nvidia]
[ 8427.368474]  [<ffffffffa06d0a45>] ? _nv010660rm+0x65/0x8f [nvidia]
[ 8427.368510]  [<ffffffffa07d2170>] ? _nv000789rm+0x123/0x18d [nvidia]
[ 8427.368547]  [<ffffffffa07d67d3>] ? rm_isr_bh+0x23/0x73 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368586]  [<ffffffffa07f2a14>] ? nv_kern_isr_bh+0x44/0x70 [nvidia]
[ 8427.368588]  [<ffffffff8104cc41>] ? __tasklet_action.isra.10+0x71/0x150
[ 8427.368589]  [<ffffffff8104ce15>] ? tasklet_action+0x85/0xa0
[ 8427.368591]  [<ffffffff8104bf93>] ? do_current_softirqs+0x1c3/0x360
[ 8427.368593]  [<ffffffff810c1fc0>] ? irq_thread_fn+0x50/0x50
[ 8427.368594]  [<ffffffff8104c486>] ? local_bh_enable+0x66/0x80
[ 8427.368595]  [<ffffffff810c2009>] ? irq_forced_thread_fn+0x49/0x70
[ 8427.368596]  [<ffffffff810c1d37>] ? irq_thread+0x127/0x1b0
[ 8427.368597]  [<ffffffff810c1eb0>] ? irq_finalize_oneshot+0xf0/0xf0
[ 8427.368598]  [<ffffffff810c1c10>] ? wake_threads_waitq+0x50/0x50
[ 8427.368600]  [<ffffffff81068953>] ? kthread+0x93/0xa0
[ 8427.368601]  [<ffffffff81075d46>] ? finish_task_switch+0x56/0xd0
[ 8427.368603]  [<ffffffff81480904>] ? kernel_thread_helper+0x4/0x10
[ 8427.368605]  [<ffffffff810688c0>] ? __init_kthread_worker+0x60/0x60
[ 8427.368606]  [<ffffffff81480900>] ? gs_change+0x13/0x13

but it doesn't crash my system, nor cause any noticable issues. (that was from last 313.09 driver ~ i haven't had anything show up with 313.18 yet.) I believe it is vdpau + flash in my browser that causes this and i did collect info for nvidia on the matter / reported it. but that was several releases back and i still see this ( unless this release changes that - but probably not )

does anyone know how to enable NVreg_EnablePCIeGen3 ?

On my Archlinux system(s) the config you are looking for is here:

/etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

..and you would enable that feature by adding this, to your configuration file;

options nvidia NVreg_EnablePCIeGen3=1

I'm not sure what distro you are using, but i am assuming you should have something similar, somewhere on your system

[Awesomeness]

Problem with working out of the box is that the radeon drivers have ass performance. Nobody will switch to Linux if their 3 screen 7970 setup doesn't still run insert-high-end-game-supporting-linux (Half Life 3?) at ultra settings.

The FOSS AMD drivers are absolutely OK for normal desktop use cases and GNU/Linux is a completely crappy gaming platform because most games simply don't exist on GNU/Linux.

Any game in his/her right mind has a PS3/Xbox360 and not a gaming PC running Linux!

Really? So gamers don't mind spending big €€€ or $$$ or whatever in a new graphics card, only to have the same performance as their 4-year-old graphics card because the drivers are still not optimized for the new one?
Lol, we must not be talking about the same planet.

I am definitively NOT talking about gamers because 90–95% of gaming takes place on consoles and smartphones and that's a fact. (Google it yourself if you don't believe me!)

Ur

I'm so amazed by your use of “ur” instead of “your”. You're soooooooooo cool and it really makes your arguments more serious and believable.

Yeah its ok to use OSS drivers on a desktop, but most ppl use mobile solutions and need things battery and powermanagement.

No, most people are using desktops with three screens and high-end games with Ultra setting. zanny said so and he must be right…

Normal users who care about performance, power consumption, stability, picture quality(AA, etc.), video acceleration and so on would be way better of with Nvidia hardware.

If that were true, nobody would use NVidia on Linux because to this day NVidia drivers can't play back videos without tearing! I also de facto have no video decoding acceleration because VLC only supports VAAPI (not VDPAU) and the VAAPI to VDPAU wrapper simply doesn't work! I also can't adjust the screen brightness with my NVidia GPU (a well known bug with certain BIOSes but no fix because NVidia simply doesn't care!) … so much for power saving…

NVidia is not the flawless Linux supporter as you people claim NVidia was. There are many problems under Linux and with a FOSS driver at least people can use their GPUs almost forever and not be subject to some exec who decides that old GPUs are no longer supported.

[ninez]

...snip....

Awesomeness, go start your own thread about how crappy nvidia is and why you think everyone should use Radeon, INSTEAD of polluting this *Nvidia thread* with nonsense that in reality no Nvidia (binary) user gives a crap about... Seriously.

People come into these nvidia threads to get information about the Nvidia driver and possibly get help / ask the odd question.

While i find your passion admirable, it would seem to me, your time could be better spent doing something else (ie: trolling / derailing an Nvidia thread, doesn't help your cause - it's just annoying).

cheerz

[smitty3268]

Awesomeness, go start your own thread about how crappy nvidia is and why you think everyone should use Radeon, INSTEAD of polluting this *Nvidia thread* with nonsense that in reality no Nvidia (binary) user gives a crap about... Seriously.

People come into these nvidia threads to get information about the Nvidia driver and possibly get help / ask the odd question.

While i find your passion admirable, it would seem to me, your time could be better spent doing something else (ie: trolling / derailing an Nvidia thread, doesn't help your cause - it's just annoying).

cheerz

Well, the very first comment here was someone taking a potshot at radeon, so it's not like awesomeness started this trolling session. But yeah, at some point somebody has to decide to end it or you end up with 1000 comments of crap.

[ninez]

Well, the very first comment here was someone taking a potshot at radeon, so it's not like awesomeness started this trolling session. But yeah, at some point somebody has to decide to end it or you end up with 1000 comments of crap.

fair enough

I didn't even see that comment. just one or two of awesomeness' other comments - plus this last one, which is just stupid, going on about people's use of 'ur' instead of 'your' - i mean WTF? lol.

anyway, hopefully this nvidia thread doesn't turn into yet another "nvidia sucks" thread / or someone preaching "you should be using a FOSS driver"...

cheerz

[cliff]

So did any one notice any performance gain or major bugs? I have not decided to download and install it as my old driver "310.19" is working awesome.
Enough with the tribal mentality of my team a is better than your team b!!

[ninez]

So did any one notice any performance gain or major bugs? I have not decided to download and install it as my old driver "310.19" is working awesome.
Enough with the tribal mentality of my team a is better than your team b!!

lol.

In my case, i have been steadily updating on every (beta) release. In my opinion the 313.xx series is probably better, but at the same time, i haven't noticed huge performance gains either (aside from compiz - which did have a performance gain because the changes in compiz to use some newer nvidia changes). by the same token, i have not seen any regressions either.

I'd say give it a try!

[Jarrod558]

Problem with working out of the box is that the radeon drivers have ass performance.