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How Nvidia's Open-Source Drivers Will Impact Linux Gamers

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 15, 2022

A year of using a FreeBSD laptop without a GUI

Debuginfod is coming to Ubuntu

Nvidia's new R515 driver will provide an open-source driver for the community for the first time, hopefully giving the Linux community a way to more easily use Nvidia graphics cards in their systems, and Nvidia providing more open-source technology standards has many benefits. Unfortunately, open-sourcing software has not been a staple with Nvidia and, as such, has caused a bit of an uproar in their community. But with the new R515 driver, this may be changing for the better.

People have been begging Nvidia to be more open with their driver software, similar to companies like Intel and AMD, which provide open-source drivers for their products. But Nvidia has, until now, been closed-source with their drivers, which doesn't cause too many issues for Windows users, but for the Linux community, it has made using Nvidia GPUs more challenging to optimize. Since Nvidia drivers are not open-sourced, developers are unable to look at the source code of a driver and develop their software with the full knowledge of how the drivers were coded, unlike with an AMD driver, for example, which is open-source, allowing for developers to see how the drivers were coded completely.

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Overall, the announcement of officially providing open-source Nvidia drivers is a huge boon. This will give developers much more information about the drivers they are developing software and games for, as well as provide the community to help develop new drivers since they are now open-source. The Linux community will also benefit over time as Linux has a good chance of becoming more compatible and reliable with Nvidia GPUs as they are with AMD and Intel, which will help with performance and efficiency, as well as with gaming. With Nvidia going open-source, it may continue to put more pressure on other tech companies to be more open about their technologies which will also help support a more free and open technological future.

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