Slackware-current (2011-01-31) - Nouveau Driver - What do people think?
 

I've just started playing with the newly incorporated nouveau driver instead of the proprietary nvidia drivers. Nouveau seems to be doing quite well for me (I don't run compiz or KDE).

I'm curious what other nvidia users think about nouveau as it is now.

Nouveau driver
 

The driver works, but there's no 3-d acceleration. For special graphic effects (and the better nvidia cards) you still need the driver from nvidia. So for 3-d gamers the nouveau is still sh*t.

Not true, gallium3D for nouveau is enabled in 'mesa' Slackware package for -current.

With a nVidia Corporation Quadro NVS 140M (rev a1) under fluxbox, glxgears gives around 540 FPS

Nouveau with gallium is certainly very far to be as fast as the proprietary driver for the gamers but otherwise it's pretty good IMHO.

I have been using Nouveau for months now, and am very satisfied.

For people wanting to compare 3D performances (Nouveau vs nVidia) Phoronix is usually the best source, see for instance here

You're overselling the current status of Nouveau.

According to them:
Nouveau project website wiki.

The linked Phoronix tests are not relevant for current as they are built around the 2.6.38 kernel, which is still a release candidate, and is not representative of the 2.6.37 kernel. More noteworthy I'd think is their statements of:

&

as a representation of the current state of things. Once 2.6.38 comes out in March(ish) the situation should dramatically improve, but 2.6.37 is not 2.6.38 and 2.6.38 is not a stable kernel currently.

Nouveau draws the display and fonts just fine with an nv440go. My Girlfriend hasn't noticed any ill effects with flash rendering. The binary blob for this GPU has suspend / hibernate issues. I wouldn't dream of running nouveau (in it's current state) on any of our 9x00 nor GT2x0 cards. We do far too much gaming, and rely on VDPAU for our MythTV frontends.
For what nouveau is capable of doing, with the resources they've been given, it's outstanding.

@Jebe: OK, I'm running 2.6.38-rc3 right now.

But still 3D is working, though too slow for most 3D games (as I have already stated, by the way).

We all know that gallium is *theroretically* not supported by the Nouveau developpers, but this don't prevent it to work.

In fact I recently had quick and nice support on the #nouveau channel on IRC ;)

FYI:

glxheads: exercise multiple GLX connections (any key = exit)
Usage:
glxheads xdisplayname ...
Example:
glxheads :0 mars:0 venus:1
Name: :0.0
Display: 0x805e008
Window: 0x2200002
Context: 0x8079a90
GL_VERSION: 2.1 Mesa 7.10.1-devel
GL_VENDOR: nouveau
GL_RENDERER: Gallium 0.4 on NV86

This is with the mesa package shipped with -current, with --enable-gallium-nouveau as indicated in Slackware's changelog.

The nouveau driver is far more capable than the nv driver, which I think is the comparison point that should be used.
For high end graphics and even general desktop work, I find the proprietary nVidia driver much better but the nouveau driver does work and supports most KDE desktop effects.

On a server, using a GUI occasionally to run a file manager or web browser, I would prefer to run the nouveau driver. KMS is great in this context for fast switching between a GUI and a terminal.

I buy Nvidia cards because of Nvidia's terrific Linux support. I have no use for nouveau, and while I did try it when it was first available to -current, I quickly gave up and blacklisted nouveau within minutes.

Please don't misunderstand - I'm not bashing nouveau, nor its efforts to create a great driver. It just doesn't yet work well enough for me to consider using. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do play a few graphics intensive games.

Please correct me here if I am wrong, but it seems from most of the comments that the main complaint about the nouveau driver is a lack of 3D support, which was my understanding from the beginning. I have a GeForce 8400GSm in a 4 year old Dell laptop. The card has never done well with 3D effects under compiz, KDE, or even aero under Windows, but I always installed the nvidia driver because it provided great 2D support for my card (and was brain dead easy to install).

From a purely 2D, no special effect, no gaming perspective, has anyone run into any problems or issues? Has anyone gone back to the nvidia driver for a reason other than needing 3D / gaming support?

Make sure power management works with your chipset. With some chipsets (IIRC) nouveau does not support proper power management, and lead to fans being too high, not high enough, suspend, resume problems......
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/PowerManagement

For me, in init 4, I can not always switch VTs, and either must ssh in and reboot, or hard reset. The PM functions do not work correctly. Fans do not always work at the correct levels for correct amount of time. The heat generated is much higher than that generated by the binary blob.

I'm right now using the driver with the primal time. So far this worked in kde ...

I have always used Nvidia drivers but I think maybe going forward, I will not
most need it ...

ps: do not use Linux for games.

I've been using it for awhile now. Works good if your not in to composting, which I am not. I have it disabled.

That said, with the new 1/31/2011 -current update broke on my 64-bit machine with a GeForce 6150SE nForce 430. Was working nicely. I went back to NVidia's drivers until I can get around to TS'n why the nouveau quit working.

My 32-bit machine works just fine with this update.

Not much to go on, but I just installed -current on a friend's pc, and with the nouveau driver window movement in fluxbox was horrible (jittery, time-consuming...delayed), though it was fine in kde.

I installed the blob, and all is well.

Just adding to the conversation; sorry I didn't investigate further to determine possible solutions....

cheers,

If possible it would be interesting to investigate a little further, as one would expect the opposite.

I'll have the pc for another day or two, so is there anything specific you'd like me to do, or point me in the right investigative direction...?

cheers,

I think I'll try it when they support it, and when the performance is not so horrendous. I don't need lots of FPS for the games that I play, but I need some.

Just fire up a terminal, type 'glxgears' and stop it after, say, 10 results.

Please do that under Fluxbox and under KDE and give the maximum result (number of FPS or frames per second) in both cases.

Thanks in advance,

I typed 'glxgears' in KDE and I had to reset the machine ... Everything froze!
My video card is a 9500 GT.
I went back to nvidia drivers on my main OS, but I realize that
Nouveau driver he has a future .

edited:
Under the same command using nvidia drivers, more specifically

NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-260.19.36.run

I'm not sure if the information is for something, but there it is! :-)

I reverted to proprietary nvidia drivers after 5 minutes with nouveau. Nouveau is great for 2D but I could not get 3D/GLX working (unsupported as of yet) which I need for a few applications. Once nouveau has 3D support I'll be ready to switch! Until then, NVIDIA continues to provide great linux support. :)

This pretty much sums it up for me too. I'd happily switch to the open source driver in a heart beat if it could match the binary blob for performance. Until then I'm stoked for any support Nvidia throws me. :)

For laughs, I get 12000 FPS in glxgears with the binary driver lol.

To sum it up YMMV, mostly depending on the GPU model and the DE/WM you are using.

People wanting to get help can stop by #nouveau on IRC.

People wanting to help enhancing Nouveau can register @ http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/Nouveau

People having problems in KDE and not needing 3D acceleration can change the renderer or disable compositing in ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc, or use another DE/WM

3D games addicts, better stick to the blob for now.

Here's an interesting video from the recent Linux conference in Brisbane AU featuring Keith Packard about the feature of X, who at some point at the end responding to a question says (after expaining many of the changes the X stack will go through): "we dont dont care about the blobs, they will have to play along with open source".

Hopefully nvidia will start cooperating into the production of a decent open source driver soon.

That was actually a really interesting watch, though I didn't understand a whole lot of it. It really is amazing how much is taken for granted and is going on behind the scenes, reminds me of this comic [XKCD].

The last comment of playing hardball with the graphics card companies has me a little worried though, I'd hate to see a step back in performance.