You are not logged in.

#1 2020-10-03 09:49:19

Rijndael
Member
Registered: 2020-10-03
Posts: 1

Why is the NVIDIA BETA driver used as the main 'nvidia' Extra package?

Why is the NVIDIA BETA driver used for the main Extra package?

The current 'nvidia' package is based off the 455.23.04 driver from NVIDIA. But that driver is clearly marked as BETA:
List of NVIDIA Quadro Pascal drivers
General NVIDIA driver finder

The latest NVIDIA certified driver is the 450.80.02 version.

Driver 455.23.04 has a serious bug, that causes the xorg server of many users to randomly freeze very often.

The issue has been reported in several places on this forum, for instance here.

It is also known by NVIDIA (see for instance here), and is being worked on, according to them. It is related to a memory allocation problem.

I do not experience any problems with driver 450.80.02 .

To install it, I had to adapt the 'nvidia-beta' and 'nvidia-utils-beta' AUR packages to work with this driver version.

--------------

So my question is, why is the beta driver used for the main 'nvidia' package, instead of the latest NVIDIA certified driver?

Shouldn't the beta drivers only be made available through the AUR 'nvidia-beta' package, or another separate 'Extra' package, while reserving the 'nvidia' package for the latest available NVIDIA certified driver?

Last edited by Rijndael (2020-10-03 09:56:05)

Offline

#2 2020-10-03 10:21:01

V1del
Forum Moderator
Registered: 2012-10-16
Posts: 21,410

Re: Why is the NVIDIA BETA driver used as the main 'nvidia' Extra package?

It is at the same time the latest certified driver for 30xx cards that went on sale, so I'd assume that to be the reasoning for the bump so that these people can actually use their cards.

It seems to be a bit of strange versioning on nvidia's part to label it as beta for older generations but as stable for their latest cards

Offline

#3 2020-10-04 17:45:19

namtabmai
Member
Registered: 2013-01-08
Posts: 1

Re: Why is the NVIDIA BETA driver used as the main 'nvidia' Extra package?

I found exactly the same thing. Looking through nvidias site if I search for my card (1660) for the latest non beta driver it points me at 450, searching for the 30xx it returns 455.

I raised a bug for this, but it was closed as not a bug. I can see why that might be argued but it's a fair assumption that the majority of people using arch don't have a 30xx card so now all of them are using a driver that nvidia considers beta for their card.

Offline

#4 2020-10-04 19:02:00

progandy
Member
Registered: 2012-05-17
Posts: 5,184

Re: Why is the NVIDIA BETA driver used as the main 'nvidia' Extra package?

V1del wrote:

It seems to be a bit of strange versioning on nvidia's part to label it as beta for older generations but as stable for their latest cards

That basically means, the new driver was only tested extensively with the newer cards. Older generations should(tm) work, but there isn't enough profit made by performing rigorous tests.


| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |

Offline

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB