NVIDIA vs. Nouveau Drivers On Ubuntu 14.10

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA vs. Nouveau Drivers On Ubuntu 14.10

Over the weekend I began posting Ubuntu 14.04 LTS vs. 14.10 benchmarks of the open-source Radeon Gallium3D drivers to show how their software stack has advanced. With our NVIDIA graphics testing it's slightly different since the performance state of Nouveau hasn't changed a lot in the past six months since the re-clocking support overall is still in quite inadequate shape for end-users. However, for some new open-source NVIDIA Linux benchmarks to share today is a look at the open-source NVIDIA (Nouveau) driver performance out-of-the-box on Ubuntu 14.10, then with the Oibaf PPA enabled plus the Linux 3.17 stable kernel, and lastly when using Ubuntu 14.10's supplied NVIDIA proprietary driver.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=21083

[stqn]

"for Linux gamers with NVIDIA hardware their proprietary driver is really the only suitable choice"

This doesn?t look entirely true as 3 out of the 4 benchmarked games seem perfectly playable in full HD. I suppose 2D games also work well?

Of course it would be interesting to know how more recent/popular games perform with Nouveau.

[schmidtbag]

"for Linux gamers with NVIDIA hardware their proprietary driver is really the only suitable choice"

This doesn?t look entirely true as 3 out of the 4 benchmarked games seem perfectly playable in full HD. I suppose 2D games also work well?

Of course it would be interesting to know how more recent/popular games perform with Nouveau.

True, but relatively speaking the performance was abysmal. Anyone who owns one of these GPUs and decides to use the open source drivers for gaming is an idiot. I'm not bashing the open source drivers, but they're really only good for lower-end GPUs in environments that aren't graphics intensive. On my work PC I have a GT 520 and I use the nouveau drivers. Works great.

[imirkin]

Is this a surprise to anyone?

Is it actually interesting to anyone to see comparisons of nouveau to the blob driver when they're running at vastly different clock speeds? Isn't it kind of a given that way lower clocks -> way lower performance? It does seem like there's usually a negative slant against nouveau in most articles here... Sure, it runs at lower clocks for most recent boards, but that's no surprise and there are no claims anywhere to the contrary.

What's more interesting, I would think, is whether the thing works, has rendering issues, etc. There's no mention of any issues in those departments, so I guess it must all be perfect then in both drivers.

[rikkinho]

no powersave

"for Linux gamers with NVIDIA hardware their proprietary driver is really the only suitable choice"

This doesn?t look entirely true as 3 out of the 4 benchmarked games seem perfectly playable in full HD. I suppose 2D games also work well?

Of course it would be interesting to know how more recent/popular games perform with Nouveau.

no powersave,... your card will die soon

[The Walking Glitch]

no powersave,... your card will die soon

Please educate yourself before you go spouting B.S. As long as it's kept within spec, there is no reason it won't run at 100% for the next 20 years.

[_SXX_]

Please educate yourself before you go spouting B.S. As long as it's kept within spec, there is no reason it won't run at 100% for the next 20 years.

Actually it's even "better" in case of Nouveau on any new GPU.
There is no reclocking enabled, so both GPU and memory is always on lowest clocks so it's just can't heat.

[Sonadow]

Kepler? Seriously?

We are already on Maxwell and Kepler is chosen for benching?

Please do one on Maxwell soon. At least, if only just to confirm whether they will even light up and provide a proper desktop on Nouveau.

[Michael]

Kepler? Seriously?

We are already on Maxwell and Kepler is chosen for benching?

Please do one on Maxwell soon. At least, if only just to confirm whether they will even light up and provide a proper desktop on Nouveau.

Maxwell requires extracting the firmware dumps after first initializing the hardware with the NVIDIA binary blob. Last time I did that on the GTX 750, was still running into issues with Nouveau.

There's also no support in Nouveau for the GTX 970/980 -- the screen won't even light.

Maxwell also has zero support for re-clocking where at least Kepler is making some progress so that will be working before Maxwell.

Thus, yes, seriously, that's why Kepler is chosen for benchmarks -- and has been covered in other Phoronix articles.

[drSeehas]

Linux 3.6.0-23-generic x86_64 kernel?

"Linux 3.6.0-23-generic x86_64 kernel"
Why using such an old and EOLd kernel?