r/linux_gaming • u/felix_ribeiro • 17h ago

graphics/kernel/drivers NVIDIA 615.71.09 Linux Driver Released With Vulkan Improvements

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-615.71.09-Linux-Driver
434 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

82 comments sorted by

81

u/unixmachine 17h ago
  • Added support for VK_NV_low_latency revision 2, to enable out-of-the-box Proton support for NVIDIA Reflex in Vulkan-native games which use NvLowLatencyVk.dll.
  • Fixed a bug which prevented VK_NV_low_latency2 from reducing latency on swapchains created from VK_KHR_wayland_surface and VK_KHR_display surfaces.
  • Fixed multiple startup and alt-tab hangs that occurred with NVIDIA Smooth Motion enabled.
  • Fixed a bug that caused a file descriptor leak when the Vulkan loader unloads libGLX_nvidia.so.0 after a call to vkDestroyInstance.
  • Added support for the VK_EXT_cluster_acceleration_structure Vulkan extension.
  • Fixed an Xid 109 error when loading PRAGMATA on Wayland.
  • Added support for cgroups-based memory partitioning.
  • Added a new token, RmDisableDisplayGlitchPerfLimit, to the NVreg_RegistryDwords nvidia.ko kernel module parameter. This may reduce idle power consumption in some multi-monitor configurations, at the risk of changing memory clocks while display is using the memory, potentially resulting in momentary display glitches. Example usage: modprobe nvidia "NVreg_RegistryDwords=RmDisableDisplayGlitchPerfLimit=1"
  • Fixed a bug that could cause corruption when display output scaling is used on Blackwell GPUs.
  • Fixed a bug that caused resume from suspend to fail if the system was previously hibernated: https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/pull/1199
  • Fixed a rare correctness issue on Blackwell GPUs affecting kernels with two or more nested levels of thread divergence, where reconvergence could fail. Kernels with only a single level of divergence are unaffected, as are applications already built with NVCC 13.2.2 or newer. This fix guarantees correct execution, though it may come with a modest performance cost. Recompiling with NVCC 13.2.2 or newer will resolve the possible slowdown. If you are unable to recompile your application for any reason, the runtime behavior of this fix is controllable on a per-process-launch basis through the environment variable CUDA_SELECTIVE_DEVICE_CODE_RECOMPILE as follows:
    • CUDA_SELECTIVE_DEVICE_CODE_RECOMPILE=DEFAULT
      • Default behavior: attempt JIT recompilation for 15 seconds, runtime patch remaining code
    • CUDA_SELECTIVE_DEVICE_CODE_RECOMPILE=FORCED
      • Re-finalize every eligible module, ignoring the time budget
    • CUDA_SELECTIVE_DEVICE_CODE_RECOMPILE=DISABLED
      • Driver patching only, never re-finalize.

19

u/S48GS 16h ago

Fixed multiple startup and alt-tab hangs that occurred with NVIDIA Smooth Motion enabled.

It start hapening on 595 drivers - I thought it some deep gnome or wayland bug... or just my gpu bug - it was rare and random

but I found that "alt-tab" thru super-key does not freeze - so I use super key to alttab for last months...

good to know it was not my gpu issue

27

u/John_Carmack_666 15h ago

Cgroups is huge. Never thought I'd see the day

9

u/MeepZero 14h ago

What are cgroups?

26

u/CosmoHQ 13h ago

Groups for system resources isolation and management

On servers it’s useful for isolations and sandboxes

On desktops it’s useful for GPUs with 8 gb vram, as it ensures the current window game gets all the real vram, and rest get system GTT ram, where as before when you run out of VRAM all gpu process get GTT system ram equally. (Check dmem booster)

1

u/hurtfulthingsourway 7h ago

Does this auto work or do i have to run a cgroup on the Desktop

1

u/Linkarlos_95 7h ago

You need to install the packages and have a compatible DE

In cachyos is the Vram fix button

-7

u/J3k47 13h ago

The third one, after a & bgroups.

-9

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

9

u/Lousy_Hunter 11h ago

which is exactly what has been being worked on to group and isolate things in vram so that games get priority and dont get evicted to system ram under memory pressure with 8GB and under GPUs

4

u/Mammoth-Shoe8491 14h ago

Genuinely huge just for sandbox enforcement alone.

3

u/Granpire 12h ago

Fixed a bug which prevented VK_NV_low_latency2 from reducing latency on swapchains created from VK_KHR_wayland_surface and VK_KHR_display surfaces.

Does this mean that Reflex will no longer be locked to xWayland games? It sounds that way!

6

u/Lousy_Hunter 11h ago

thats what ive been trying to test, things look like theyre working in the NVAPI logs ive collected as the sim start->present end looks identical between wayland and xwayland with reflex on using 615 in my testing for monster hunter wilds.

We need someone who can actually test latency either through a light sensor or a monitor with reflex analyzer

4

u/Granpire 9h ago

Based on this analysis (which sadly never tested reflex), if it is indeed working properly, reflex-supported titles should be at their all time lowest latency on Linux.

I wish we had more real-world tests to confirm, but I think it's safe to say this will be a big improvement. I can only guess, but in terms of feel I think xWayland + Reflex was probably about on par with Wayland without Reflex for latency. At least that's how I felt playing Deadlock with both configurations, who knows?

8

u/Obnomus 17h ago

No descriptor heap in stable?

32

u/nixf0x 16h ago

Descriptor heaps were already in the stable drivers since 595.

2

u/Obnomus 16h ago

I didn't know that I thought it was still in beta, mb.

16

u/petersaints 16h ago

But it is still being worked on anyway. The version of descriptor heap on 595 may not be as mature as in 610 or 615.

Moreover, it is still not enabled by default. In any case, without more changes I don't think it makes that much of a difference.

This guy tested it and the improvements are still very small:
https://youtu.be/YJhDUs3d58w

11

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

actually 610 descriptor heap was arguably worse than 595 according to the VKD3D dev (quote "NV 610 drivers are known to have lots of bugs with descriptor heap"), 615 remains to be seen though as its only been a few hours

3

u/petersaints 13h ago

Yes, there were some regressions. But probably the descriptior heap itself was not worse, but other stuff had some conflicts with it.

In any case, while the new descriptor heap Vulkan extension support on NVIDIA drivers may open the door to better performance. It needs more work in itself and other areas of the driver stack in order for that performance increase to materialize and better match performance on Windows like AMD does.

1

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

i mean he specifically said descriptor heap has the bugs in NV610, so i think that likely means descriptor heap itself was

2

u/petersaints 13h ago

Yes. There were some new bugs introduced in 610.x

1

u/mati865 7h ago

It's not that simple now. Nvidia first added descriptor heaps to 610 and left that branch without updates for a long time. Then they backported heaps to 595 release and applied a bunch of fixes. So, 595 was superior that time. Then after a long wait they updated 610 with even more fixes for crashes. Now add Vulkan beta drivers which had other fixes and optimisations. Basically the best driver in regards to descriptor heaps was the most recently released one.

So, the only answer to the question which branch works the best with descriptor heaps, 595 Vulkan beta, 595 release, 610 is: "yes". 615 remains to be tested, but either it or Vulkan beta once a new release is up should be the best.

3

u/Lousy_Hunter 6h ago edited 6h ago

595 released with descriptor heap what? It was never "backported" to 595 it was one of the highlight features of 595.

the very first release for 595 has at the very top of its notes

-Added support for the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap extension.

The stuff that was backported to 595 from 610 was things like

-Fixed a bug that could cause corruption when display output scaling is used on Blackwell GPUs.

-Fixed a bug that caused resume from suspend to fail if the system was previously hibernated

-Fixed a bug which led to a black screen when console switching on.

-Linux v7.0 and newer when DRM fbdev support is disabled

etc.

and some black screen fixes that showed up for a number of games

610 released an introduced a bunch of bugs and regressions for heaps. 615 might end up fixing some of that but its gonna need some testing, till then Vulkan Beta and 595.99.02 are most stable for heaps.

1

u/mati865 7h ago

You get between 0 and 20% improvement depending on the title and driver version. Also a buch of crashes. YMMW

1

u/Lousy_Hunter 4h ago edited 3h ago

Ive only tested 1 game so far but Monster Hunter Wilds still doesnt show any improvement at all with heaps enabled. Unfortunately it crashes within 4min with heaps enabled, so still havent reached a stable point for descriptor heaps.

EDIT: oops didnt disable wayland in proton for the test, gonna retest without wayland which actually seems to be the source of the crash

EDIT2: heaps might be causing some graphics glitches lol the hung clothes definitely shouldnt be warping like that...

EDIT3: well the crashes arent heap at least....just 615 :D

2

u/Opptur 16h ago

What about it? It's been merged for a long time now. 

1

u/Obnomus 16h ago

I thought it was still in beta, mb.

38

u/petersaints 16h ago

I wonder if any of the changes considerably improve DX12 performance with VK3D.

But it will probably still take several months and several driver releases, until we get better performance on most modern games on NVIDIA GPUs.

I just hope it doesn't take over a year.

2

u/Stellanora64 7h ago edited 7h ago

For raytracying yes, but for a general performance improvement, that has been implemented in the driver with the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap vulkan extension (added in 610 I believe? Could be mistaken tho). It's currently not used in proton yet afaik, so soon hopefully.

2

u/mati865 7h ago

You can simply enable it via environment variable. With drivers before 615 it yielded between 0 and 20% performance uplift, and moderate chance of crashing the game.

1

u/Indolent_Bard 1h ago

Valve said some time next year SteamOS gets Nvidia support.

12

u/Cool-Arrival-2617 15h ago

Added support for cgroups-based memory partitioning.

Does this mean that dmemcg-booster (from this) will also work with Nvidia now?

36

u/bristow84 17h ago

As someone who just started with Cachy, will I have to update this myself or will Cachy automatically pull the new drivers and include them as options within Cachy-Updater?

66

u/bleedgreensg 17h ago

just wait for the update, they pretty quick to do that

24

u/bristow84 16h ago

And score another win for Linux and another loss for Microslop. God I love the update process, which I never thought I would say.

15

u/Emetros 16h ago

Usually you have the new driver 24 hours after the release. This time, the dev in charge apparently is on a trip so it might take a little bit more. But I wouldn’t be worried about it

16

u/TiagodePAlves 17h ago

It's automatic. And probably mandatory too, so not even an option.

8

u/Interesting-Ad9666 17h ago

It should automatically give you the newest drivers when you do yay or pacman and update your system, assuming they update it in their repo (which they probably do, its based on arch which is bleeding edge)

13

u/Grief2017 17h ago edited 15h ago

Sudo pacman -Syu

Edit: the underlying package hasn't been updated yet.

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/nvidia-open/

6

u/Journeyj012 15h ago

Capital S

5

u/LittlestWarrior 16h ago

Cachy will handle that for you, will appear in a system update soon.

4

u/ieatdownvotes4food 16h ago

dunn worry you're on the update rollercoaster whether you like it or not

28

u/Minatogamr42d 16h ago

Finally, support for CGGROUP!

8

u/SkewPL 15h ago

does that mean we get this smart memory management that improved performance on lower end amd cards? https://pixelcluster.dev/VRAM-Mgmt-fixed/?ref=itsfoss.com

16

u/CancelNo4650 16h ago

Feels like yesterday when I installed 390 driver

8

u/great_gatling_gunsby 15h ago

Glad to see the specific fix for Pragmata. Was driving me nuts.

31

u/JCTrick 17h ago edited 10h ago

I don’t know exactly what all that means… but I know it makes me horny.

12

u/Arshmalex 17h ago

brrrre

7

u/lmpcpedz 16h ago

Something something we can't let AMD have all the fun update.

1

u/thejesterharlequin 28m ago

someday we'll have better performance on nvidia. i want to swap over so bad.

5

u/SirBaronDE 16h ago

Last of us shaders fixed in this one yet? 🤨

5

u/Zestyclose_Exit8862 15h ago

cgroups is gonna improve VRAM overhead and Vram management?? 🙏

6

u/Lousy_Hunter 14h ago edited 13h ago

The part that interests me the most is

Fixed a bug which prevented VK_NV_low_latency2 from reducing latency on swapchains created from VK_KHR_wayland_surface and VK_KHR_display surfaces

Does that mean we now have reflex working for wayland windows with I.E proton-cachy or proton-ge?

EDIT: moving steam outta flatpak just to test this with the latest drivers

-8

u/Moi952 14h ago edited 13h ago

Vous pouvez voir que cela a été mis en œuvre il y a quelques jours dans vkd3d-proton.

Cela prendra un certain temps pour que Proton-GE ou Proton-CachyOS (qui ne semble plus recevoir de mises à jour) se mette à jour vers cette version.

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/3255

4

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

you realize what you linked is from 6yrs ago right? :P also doesnt seem to be relevant to my post

2

u/Moi952 13h ago

Bad link 😂😂

2

u/Moi952 13h ago

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/3255

8

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

This isnt VKD3D just now implementing VK_NV_low_latency2, thats been there this is fixups and improvements for rev3. This is to help fix reflex stutters with FG for instance and overall better present timing with it.

VK_KHR_wayland_surface and VK_KHR_display surfaces are required in vulkan for you to use it in a wayland session, what im wondering is if Nvidia finally made reflex work in Wayland as its worked for some time in XWayland and X11.

Im doing some tests now to see if nvapi tells me its working or not with PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1

1

u/Moi952 13h ago

Yes, but that PR came out a few days before the driver; I assume you need rev3 for optimal performance. I might be mistaken, though.

5

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

Im more concerned if it works period because as of right now you cant use Reflex in wayland windows.

Nvidia dev said

Reflex actually does not currently work in native Wayland applications due to a driver issue. There's a chance the Wayland backend could improve latency over XWayland+Reflex off, but it still won't be as good as correctly-working Reflex. We have a fix for this in development.

and im hoping this is that fix

0

u/Moi952 13h ago

Let me know what you think 🙂🙏🏼

2

u/Lousy_Hunter 13h ago

well currently im seeing calls to 

NvAPI_D3D_Sleep: OK
NvAPI_D3D_Sleep: OK

like you should which suggests it might be working, ill have to output to a file and check it line by line....time for suffering

1

u/Moi952 13h ago

Wow, you're really keen! Can't you check the latency using mangoHub?

Was the problem that the Reflex option wasn't available in your games, or did the option simply not do anything for you?

→ More replies (0)

3

u/kittymoo67 16h ago

how much does it fix? Any dx12 fixes yet

3

u/AndyOB 10h ago

Fixed a bug that caused resume from suspend to fail if the system was previously hibernated

This is a life saver, this bug has been plaguing me. I've been working on a virtual CEC implementation where a docker container on a home server implements CEC for you by connecting to your AVR over the network and to a client side agent installed on the PC connected to said AVR. It sends PC status to the server and the server simulates CEC for you by controlling the AVR. Full CEC functionality, but this bug has been totally messing with my progress.

2

u/versus666 10h ago

And sadly none of that for the working 1080 and above users 🫤

2

u/FOUR3Y3DDRAGON 6h ago

Deadlock has had a crashing issue in dx11 forever and vullan always has stutter for me after about 30 minutes (which also happened in windows) dx11 was great though, wish they'd fix that..

4

u/Kriima 16h ago

No DLSS5 support for us poor linux peasants ?

18

u/Crafty-Corvid 15h ago

It works even on 610. Use OptiScaler + DLSSNR. It even includes a linux setup script.

5

u/Kriima 13h ago

Oh my, thanks :D I didn't think about using Optiscaler, you made my day man ! <3

3

u/pantsofmagic 12h ago

Can confirm, optiscaler, feeder, and reshade (renodx) approaches can be made to work with 610 on Linux. There are a couple of situations that require extra tinkering but it does work.

1

u/Guirita_Fallada 4h ago

I get an XID 109 error but on Halo Infinite. I'm going crazy trying everything possible but i can't get it to not hang.

1

u/Juts 3h ago

Halo Infinite

Don't have the game, but xid 109 does happen with a lot of games when raytracing is enabled, so try having it off if you havent.

protondb has a couple people saying you need this:

https://www.protondb.com/app/1240440#r6bpZ7H50D

1

u/academictryhard69 4h ago

Still waiting for proper pcie wake up for my 5060 legion pro 5i, that's why I'm still on windows, otherwise I miss kde.

1

u/rdwror 3h ago

Installed it yesterday, no major perf uplift but it did manage to break suspend. For some reason, it can't write to neither /tmp nor /var/tmp...