NVIDIA 340.17 Linux Beta Driver Brings Initial G-SYNC Support

The first beta driver in NVIDIA's forthcoming "Release 340" driver series for blob-using Linux users is now available.

NVIDIA shipped the 340.17 beta display driver this morning as their first public release in the 340.xx series. The main feature with this new driver is initial support for G-SYNC monitors, NVIDIA's preferred method for having an adaptive/dynamic monitor refresh rate for reducing tearing, etc. G-SYNC requires special hardware support and goes head-to-head against AMD FreeSync and the VESA-backed Adaptive-Sync for pursuing the same display goals.

Besides bringing initial G-SYNC support to Linux, the NVIDIA 340.17 Beta Linux driver improves the KHR_debug and ARB_debug_output extensions, numerous bug-fixes, updates to NVIDIA-Settings, allows controlling FXAA via __GL_ALLOW_FXAA_USAGE and GLAllowFXAAUsage, and other smaller changes.

More details on the NVIDIA 340.17 Beta driver release for Linux users can be found via the official change-log at NVIDIA.com. As reminded this morning, pre-Fermi support will be dropped with the NVIDIA 343.xx driver.