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Submitted via IRC for takyon
Continuing on from the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 expectations on Linux shared earlier this week, here's a list of ten reasons why Linux gamers might want to pass on these soon-to-launch graphics cards from NVIDIA.
The list are various reasons you may want to think twice on these graphics cards -- at least not for pre-ordering any of them right away. Not all of them are specific to the Turing GPUs per se but also some NVIDIA Linux infrastructure problems or general Linux gaming challenges, but here's the list for those curious. And, yes, a list is coming out soon with reasons Linux users may want to consider the RTX 20 series -- well, mostly for developers / content creators it may make sense.
Here is the list:
- Lack of open-source driver support
- It will be a while before seeing RTX/ray-tracing Linux games
- Turing appears to be a fairly incremental upgrade outside of RTX
- The GeForce GTX 1080 series already runs very well
- Poor Wayland support
- The Linux driver support for Turing is unclear
- These graphics cards are incredibly expensive
- SLI is next to worthless on Linux
- VR Linux support is still in rough shape
- Pascal prices will almost surely drop
That's the quick list outside of my detailed pre-launch Linux analysis. A similar list of the pros for the RTX 20 series on Linux will be coming out shortly. It will certainly be interesting to see after 20 September how the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 20 series works on Linux.
Source: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=10-Reasons-Pass-RTX-20-Linux
Previously: Nvidia Announces RTX 2080 Ti, 2080, and 2070 GPUs, Claims 25x Increase in Ray-Tracing Performance
(Score: 5, Informative) by qzm on Wednesday September 12 2018, @05:56AM (5 children)
Because you want OpenGL drivers that work, CUDA support, and the best performance per dollar?
Yes, I get exactly that you love free and open software, but some of use are actually doing work with tools we call computers, rather than trying to progress a political position.
And Intel, AMD, etal pretty much suck for anything other than the basics, unfortunately.
If you think they are at all feature complete, reliable, and fast then you are NOT running software that actually needs such cards, sorry.
And no, 'wayland' is not an example of software that needs a high end graphics card, even slightly.
Face it, ANY graphics card (hell, these days, a damn frame buffer) is more than enough for basic GUI work.
The rubber hits the road in other applications these days - you know, the types of things where dropping $1k+ on a video card actual makes sense.
And for those, NVidia delivers by FAR the best performance.
Your argument seems to be 'I dont want a drivers license, so no one should EVER buy a Ferrari, because I dont like having to have a drivers license!, you all should use pushbikes'
And you are dead wrong. Stop confusing politics with technical merit.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:29AM
Very well stated - thank you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:30AM
Note the article is directed towards gamers and even in the submission...
So with these caveats I agree with you, the article author may well agree with you too ;) I guess the argument could be summarized as "professional gamers aren't running linux and these cards are too expensive for casuals leaving the market as industrial / academic users and idiots"?
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:04PM
Doesn't matter how good the performance is if the drivers are such garbage that they can't actually run the applications that you want to run.
I spent a hell of a long time with my laptop trying to get shit working with the piece of garbage NVidia card. I install proprietary drivers, and I get error messages that the app crashed and I should be using the Nouveau drivers. So I switch to the Nouveau drivers, and apps that were working fine with the proprietary drivers no longer work. So then every time you get a new game or other graphically demanding app, you try it, and then if it doesn't work you go through the whole process of reinstalling your graphics drivers and praying that fixes it...and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes you're just screwed.
Never had an issue with my AMD cards though. I literally don't even know which drivers I have installed, because I haven't needed to. It just works. Everything I throw at it just works. Maybe the performance isn't quite as good, but I don't care because all the performance in the world isn't worth shit if I can't actually use any of it.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @10:18PM (1 child)
Freedom is more important than technical merit. Until people understand that, our world is going to continue to be filled with proprietary black boxes that abuse, spy on, and restrict users. And those are not avoidable even to people like Richard Stallman, since any businesses he deals with probably use such abusive black boxes.
(Score: 2) by qzm on Thursday September 13 2018, @06:16AM
Great, could you please give me your home address and a copy of the keys to your front door?
After all, Freedom!
Oh, you meant freedom for YOU, I see...