NVIDIA on Linux is WAY BETTER than everyone says, but...

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#nvidia #linux #gpu

00:00 Intro
00:46 Sponsor: Free report on cybersecurity with the MITRE ATT&CK framework
01:26 Nvidia Drivers
03:27 Screen Tearing
06:04 Multi Monitor support
07:34 Hybrid graphics
10:10 Wayland Support
11:48 Power Management
13:04 It's not the whole story
14:09 Why would anyone pick Nvidia, though?
15:26 Sponsor: Get a PC that runs Linux perfectly, from Tuxedo
16:19 Support the channel

Drivers are a one click install from the graphical app store. DO NOT install them manually from the nvidia website, and don't mess with kernels that your distro doesn't officially pack.

So, a first big issue people report with nvidia drivers is Screen tearing. I plugged my desktop's RTX 3070 into a basic 1080p monitor. That desktop uses X11, and tearing just isn't a thing here.

Now, if I launch a game to see how well things go, for example Darktide, with v sync off, we can clearly see some big tearing happening. With vsync on, it disappears.

If you still have tearing, you can auto start a command when your computer starts, with the following command line:

nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"

Add that command to your startup applications, and you're done.

But how about multi monitor support? I plugged my laptop running Wayland, into the same external monitor, the basic 1080p one, using the hdmi port that's connected to the nvidia dedicated GPU.
Nothing to say here, it just works.

I also plugged in 2 displays onto my desktop, the 1080p one, and my usual 1440p ultrawide, straight into the RTX3070.

No problems here, both displays are detected immediately. Same experience with KDE Plasma, no issues to report here, multi monitor support works normally.

Now, another thing people tend to hold against nvidia drivers is the hybrid graphics support, as in you have a laptop with a dedicated GPU from Nvidia, and an AMD integrated chip, or an Intel one.

On Wayland, it seems that hybrid mode is the default, and the only mode you can use, I could not find a way to move it back to the intel GPU only, or Nvidia only. Hybrid mode works perfectly.

On X11, the experience is pretty much the same. Hybrid mode is the default, and you do get a bunch more options in the nvidia control panel.

Nvidia has the reputation of not working with Wayland, but that's not true anymore. Everything works as it would on a normal wayland session: touchpad gestures, no screen tearing, fractional scaling support, screen sharing and recording, and running any application. Same experience on KDE with Wayland, it just works.

On my laptop, closing the lid will suspend the laptop. But very regularly, opening the lid doesn't wake the laptop back up, and I get a black screen.

I can get out of it by just getting into a TTY, then moving back to TTY1, and I'm good, but it's not what I'd call a smooth experience.

On my desktop, running Fedora also but with X11, suspend works perfectly, and resuming also happens without any issues.

All my tests are done using the latest nvidia drivers available on Fedora 37 with GNOME, and on Ubuntu 22.10 with KDE 5.25, and all these devices have relatively recent Nvidia GPUs. So it's only 2 distros, 2 desktop environments, and 3 different cards from the same generation.

Support for older GPUs, like the RTX10 series, or older ones, might not be as good, and might require you to use older legacy drivers, which very probably won't support Wayland, and might have more issues.

[roccociccone]

I went through nvidia driver hell first hand. The incredible thing is that once I moved to AMD literally every single issue I had just disappeared. My biggest issue was multi monitor setups with x11. At the time nvidia had literally no support for wayland.

[Simte]

Everytime I think about Nvidia I just remember Linus' flip off.

While there's been improvements, I think you are entitled to have an optimal computing experience given the prices Nvidia deals with.

[PlatinumLucario]

You forgot about virtualisation! The proprietary NVIDIA drivers don't support OpenGL 3D acceleration using virtio in virt-manager. But the Nouveau drivers work with 3D acceleration using virtio in virt-manager. Which is the only issue.

[mirage]

Nvidia on Linux has gotten a long way in recent years. Proper Wayland support is a great thing. A big leg up that AMD and Intel have is the hassle free nature of running them. Getting those proprietary Nvidia drivers installed can be a pain. Luckily some distros (namely Pop) make this painless.

I'm hoping Nvidia's GPUs will work hassle free, out of the box one day. An Nvidia RADV equivalent would be a dream and a benefit for everyone.

[Dawes]

The biggest issue with NVIDIA on Linux for me after my full switch a few years ago was how poor the legacy drivers worked. Had the system "brick" two times due to this when kernal updates were pushed.

As for screen tearing, it is more common on older cards (5 years or more).

[rohitrajak]

The nvidia-settings application needs to be run as sudo, and after checking the box, we need to save the config file so that it persists after reboots

[dalea]

Switching from a Nvidia 1060 to an AMD RX 6600 in 2021 fixed the random lockups I would have every couple months, and the need to unplug and plug the hdmi cable to get the picture back sometimes. I could also re-enable power saving. This was on Mint.

[jamesclow]

For years, I've had very little issue with proprietary drivers on linux. The issues have been more related to certain distros either making acquiring them complicated or not providing recent driver versions. Arch based distros seem be a breeze to install the latest nvidia-dkms drivers, so I'm happy. The only exception was with Wayland not so long ago but thankfully the major issues seem to be ironed out.

[jcugnoni]

I have been using Nvidia GPUs in Linux since 2008 at least... And it just worked. But before the distros packaged the non free drivers it was a pain. Now it is so much easier, completely trivial, and the performance / feature set is close to Windows driver.

[JoelJosephReji]

During the LTT Linux challenge, Linus did mention that the settings for the drivers were limited but I don't know how the same is in AMD side.

[anonymunsichtbar]

Nvidia Controlcenter on Linux is just a mess. It often doesn't save your config because the permissions are set wrong, and often it doesn't load the config, because the Desktop Environment just overwrites it and you have to disable this manually.

[TheJackiMonster]

I encountered multiple issues with Nvidia already. Especially as graphics developer it is hands down a bad platform because you don't get reliable output from debug and validation layers to make sure your software will be cross-compatible.

If Nvidia GPUs would allow open-source drivers similar to RADV which do not leave performance behind because of some proprietary firmware limitations, this would be solvable. But currently AMD gpus provide a much better experience, especially with open-source projects.

[ErrorMessageNotFound]

I used a 1060 with various distros for years mostly with out issues. I even overclocked it, ran a custom fan profile, and maxed out the power limit. I used "Green with Envy" for that. (Needed to squeeze a little more life out of it because of ridiculous GPU prices.)

[Tracing]

One interesting bug is that Electron on XWayland and Nvidia (like VSCode and Heroic) seems to have an input lag. I type and there is a slight, but very annoying latency between pressing the keys and things happening. This does not happen on new Electron versions running under Wayland, but many apps won't upgrade. Also, Discord is a nightmare, unless you use it via the browser.

[emilymarriott]

Just a few months ago Wayland was a huge problem on a mobile NVIDIA GPU for me. The biggest thing was flickering of elements in XWayland (As far as I could find, this was entirely an NVIDIA driver problem.) Between moving to a laptop that has NVIDIA Optimus instead of just the NVIDIA GPU and the software updates since then, everything is working basically flawlessly now. That said, I don't know how much of that is because of things going through the Intel GPU thanks to Optimus, but I'm pretty happy to not switch to fully-discrete mode to test at the moment.

[rolaca]

There are way more "edge cases" that are way too common to still be a problem. X11 has basically no multi-refresh-rate setup to speak of (it defaults to the highest common denominator). But I can't switch to wayland, because suddenly the whole system becomes clunky: Discord has issues with mistimed frames: during typing a message parts of the message disappear, and reappear inconsistently. Why do I need to set an environment variable in a hidden file for e.g. firefox to work normally? Also, I need to delete it, when I inevitably have enough of wayland and want to use x11 again. It's just a pain to try to use a multi-monitor setup with today's linux versions

[arvindhn]

Recently I switched to a 30 series laptop and has to say I was pretty surprised that everything worked out of the box without any tinkering (on wayland!! as I switched exclusively to wayland for some time). Other than the driver I just installed Nvidia Prime to easily run apps on dedicated gpu. As somebody who's been using linux for more than 10 years on mostly nvidia laptops this is a welcome change. I'm eagerly waiting for the Nvidia Open GPU Kernel drivers as it supposedly going to support Advanced Optimus out of the box

[tgheretford]

I generally have had no issue with NVidia drivers that I have used on Linux with one recent exception. Gaming using Wayland causes glitching to happen when scrolling and moving around in a game. The glitching is less prominent and improved with the latest 530 driver but it is still noticeable. Very recent laptop. No issues using Xorg.

[tutubi]

My Nvidia experience (admittedly with an older card) did worsen a lot when I upgraded to a dual-monitor setup. Just because of how bad multi-monitor issues were in Linux with my Nvidia card, both in X and in Wayland, I started using Windows again for a while where multi-monitor just worked. Getting an AMD card all my Linux dual-monitor issues were istantly solved. I think you should do a new addendum video dedicated to multi-monitor support, for me at least it's been night and day. There's just a few issues left when I'm in Wayland (in another distro) on dual screen in a few apps, but Wayland's multi-monitor compatibility is getting better by the month.

[oualead]

Aaah the good old NVIDIA :)
the moment you think everything is just going to work
it doesn't :)