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gen2arch

Member

Registered: 2013-05-16

Posts: 182

SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

Hi,

I have a simple question:

is the nouveau driver in the linux kernel capable of displaying 3840x2160 video @ 60Hz via displayport?

I am thinking of buying a notebook with dedicated (nvidia) and intel graphics, but where external monitor support is unfortunately hardwired to nvidia graphics only and I don't want to use the nividia driver because it so often and irritatingly blocks kernel updates, as the driver is bound to a particular version of the linux kernel.

So can I use nouveau for a 4k display?

Thanks for your help.

Last edited by gen2arch (2017-03-09 14:33:59)

xvzf

Member

Registered: 2014-05-18

Posts: 86

Re: SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

Yes, that should be supported.

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V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,723

Re: SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

You are asking the wrong question. The resolution should in theory not be a problem. However, depending on what the actual graphics chip is, there's a good chance that nouveau will not support it properly (Rule of thumb as of now: Pascal based cards are likely to not work, anything earlier should work, but there might be some problems getting full performance for Maxwell). So as you seemingly have already decided on a specific model, why do you not mention what it is exactly that you are going to buy?

Soukyuu

Member

Registered: 2014-04-08

Posts: 854

Re: SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

I don't want to use the nividia driver because it so often and irritatingly blocks kernel updates, as the driver is bound to a particular version of the linux kernel.

What are you basing this on? I've been using a 260GTX with the proprietary driver until recently, and I always could update as soon as a new kernel version was in the repos.

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[ Arch x86_64 | linux | Framework 13 | AMD Ryzen™ 5 7640U | 32GB RAM | KDE Plasma Wayland ]

gen2arch

Member

Registered: 2013-05-16

Posts: 182

Re: SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

Thanks everyone for their input!

@V1del: I see, thanks for this clarification wrt different nvidia models. The machine I was almost about to buy was the 17" Lenovo p70 Thinkpad with 4K display and up top 64G of RAM (or the 15" p50). Eventually I was put off when I learned that it is impossible to use only the built-in intel graphics (as was possible before with thinkpads). Both have different graphics options.

@Soukyuu I frequently build my own kernel, but also -- a couple of years ago (I was using gentoo) -- nvidia always lagged behind! that was truly annoying.

gen2arch

Member

Registered: 2013-05-16

Posts: 182

Re: SOLVED: Can the nouveau driver serve a 4k display: 3840x2160 @ 60Hz?

Just to bring this to an end:

the notebook I've been able to test now for a couple of days is a Lenovo Thinkpad P50; it has a Maxwell chip based graphics adapter NVIDIA Quadro M2000M; I Installed nouveau and and plugged in an external 4k display; it worked flawlessly! The performance of the driver is not as good as the prorietary nvidia when I was playing 4k video on Youtube with firefox (here I experienced some lag). But otherwise the experience was pleasant. And BTW the P50 is a great machine for Linux: has a fantastic internal 4k display, up to 64 gigs of RAM and a fast Xeon processor.