The GTX 680 On An Open-Source Driver

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Want to know how NVIDIA's GTX 680 performs using an open source driver? Hit the link and let the crew at Phoronix show you!

"Thanks to clean-room reverse-engineering, it is already possible to run the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 "Kepler" graphics card on a fully open-source graphics driver complete with OpenGL acceleration. Here are the first benchmarks of this work-in-progress, community-created open-source GeForce 600 series graphics driver."
Click to expand...
 
Might be interested if it wasn't an order of magnitude slower than the official driver. :p
 
Am I missing something... What's wrong with the drivers nVidia provides? Why would you want to run an open source driver?
 
They're running it on linux, not sure what nvidia's support for linux is like.
 
Concentric said:
Am I missing something... What's wrong with the drivers nVidia provides? Why would you want to run an open source driver?
Click to expand...

Because closed source is for communists! Haven't you heard?

Viva La Revolución!!
 
Azhar said:
Because closed source is for communists! Haven't you heard?

Viva La Revolución!!
Click to expand...

Communists are all about sharing. I think they would prefer open source. Capitalists would like like closed source
 
Concentric said:
Am I missing something... What's wrong with the drivers nVidia provides? Why would you want to run an open source driver?
Click to expand...

If this is a genuine question (not a rhetorical one), you may be interested in this article :
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/coll...cal-advisory-board-tab/linuxdevicedrivermodel

Basically, the idea is that there isnt a fixed API for drivers under linux. Its constantly evolving and kernels are released fairly often. In MS's world, the driver model doesnt change often and when it does, it does in a "new version" of Windows itself. Windows 98 to NT-based (2000,XP) saw a change in model and XP to Vista saw another change.

So Binary drivers that work today may not work tomorrow and people do not install "older linux" like they install "older windows". Having open-source drivers is the first step to get accepted in the main line kernel code, once the code has been accepted, it will be maintained (as programming interfaces change, so will the code of the driver).

The advantage of this method is that once a driver is in, you know the hardware will work on all future versions of the kernel, unlike under windows where your old USR Hardware modem probably doesnt work on Win7.

Both driver model/philosophy have advantages and disadvantages.

And yes, while "Nouveau" is really slow right now, it can only get better over time.
In the best world, nvidia would release it's driver source and it would be reviewed, corrected if needed, and included in the mainline. However, it is understandable from a commercial point of view that they do not want their driver's source to be avail. for competitors to peek at...
 
As to "why" you would want to run them, right now its 100% ideological imho.
I run proprietary drivers myself. I do, however, beleive in the work Nouveau are doing and im only waiting for them to match the proprietary ones to switch.
 
I think it's pretty impressive that they have a functional open source driver period. The performance gap will be closed over time. It will be interesting to see once they start pushing things forward if Nvidia will end up having to play catch up and explain why their driver is slower than the open source one.
 
Kardonxt said:
Communists are all about sharing. I think they would prefer open source. Capitalists would like like closed source
Click to expand...
No it's not.

Communism is where you have two cows. You give them to the Government, and the Government then gives you some milk.

Capitalism is where you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
 
Cerulean said:
No it's not.

Communism is where you have two cows. You give them to the Government, and the Government then gives you some milk.

Capitalism is where you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Click to expand...

A monsanto bull that can only breed cows that give no milk.
 
Cerulean said:
No it's not.

Communism is where you have two cows. You give them to the Government, and the Government then gives you some milk.

Capitalism is where you have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
Click to expand...

Capitalism is where you have two cows. And your Neighbor has three cows for less than your two. And his neighbor has 6 cows for less than three. And his neighbor has 12 cows for less than 6.

Yea , Capitalism is grand alright :rolleyes:
 
Capitalism is when you have a cow, and lose it because you got sick and had to pay for medical bills, and you're still in debt with no milk or bread and live as a bum.
 
nlz242 said:
A monsanto bull that can only breed cows that give no milk.
Click to expand...

But only if you don't buy the special feed. From Monsanto. Then you get mylk(tm).

If you have normal cattle and your neighbors Monsanto bull hops the fence and knocks up your cows, Monsanto then sues you for theft of IP and takes your cows and leavs you with nothing.
 
One word why an open source NVIDIA driver is suddenly very important - Wayland.

NVIDIA have said they have no interest in supporting Wayland with a binary driver.
 
At work I had the choice of using fglrx or the OSS radeon driver. Getting 4 monitors working in a reliable way with decent speed was MUCH easier under the OSS drivers. At home I use the OSS driver as well for the same reason.

On my work laptop (nvidia) I generally use the nvidia driver as there is no multi-monitor & it's faster.

YMMV of course.
 
nlz242 said:
If this is a genuine question (not a rhetorical one), you may be interested in this article :
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/coll...cal-advisory-board-tab/linuxdevicedrivermodel

Basically, the idea is that there isnt a fixed API for drivers under linux. Its constantly evolving and kernels are released fairly often. In MS's world, the driver model doesnt change often and when it does, it does in a "new version" of Windows itself. Windows 98 to NT-based (2000,XP) saw a change in model and XP to Vista saw another change.

So Binary drivers that work today may not work tomorrow and people do not install "older linux" like they install "older windows". Having open-source drivers is the first step to get accepted in the main line kernel code, once the code has been accepted, it will be maintained (as programming interfaces change, so will the code of the driver).

The advantage of this method is that once a driver is in, you know the hardware will work on all future versions of the kernel, unlike under windows where your old USR Hardware modem probably doesnt work on Win7.

Both driver model/philosophy have advantages and disadvantages.

And yes, while "Nouveau" is really slow right now, it can only get better over time.
In the best world, nvidia would release it's driver source and it would be reviewed, corrected if needed, and included in the mainline. However, it is understandable from a commercial point of view that they do not want their driver's source to be avail. for competitors to peek at...
Click to expand...

Yes it was a genuine question - thanks.
 
Lets see, there are no 680's to be found at a retail level. If you find one online is being price gouged. Nvidia Vaporware.

But on the positive side, we have a driver for you to try on your none existant card.
 
I love the idea of open source software, this is a great project, although I lol'd when I saw the test with 1 fps.. :)
 
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