How is driver support for the Nvidia GT 940/940MX?

[Count_Fuzzball]

Getting a laptop on Friday with a GT 940 or 940MX (shop hasn't been 100% clear). Thinking of taking windows off of it and installing linux.

[Zyro]

Nvidia driver support is the best GPU support you'll get on Linux, but not as good as on Windows. Your card will not impose a special problem, as it's not too old or the like. You should use the proorietary Nvidia driver of your distribution (do not download it manually).
People do have priblems with CPU internal and the external GPU on Linux, though.

I would propose to make a dual-boot system in the beginning.

[x_wing]

Never see benchs of those specific cards, but Nvidia driver tends to give the same performance in Linux as in Windows on OpenGL and Vulkan APIS. For example, here you can see some benchs of OpenGL on both platforms: 1080Ti Ubuntu vs Windows [www.phoronix.com]

Anyway, remember that games usually are designed for DirectX, leaving "other APIs" as extras. This means that you won't get the best performance on Linux as in Windows for an specific games as they were not designed with the same API for both platforms. Games in Win10 vs Ubuntu[www.phoronix.com].

If you're really interested on Linux (not only for gaming, I mean), your best option is to install a distro you like and get your own conclusions. Maybe you get the performance you need on your favorite games so no need to dual boot :P.

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Nvidia driver support for Linux is on par with Windows. Why are you claiming it isn't as good?

Where should I start? E.g. there 's no (official) G-Sync support...

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by Maleko:

edit: I forgot about SLI and Optimus, I think those features are currently better on Windows. Although, many Windows games do not support SLI either. What I should've said was, "performance-wise, they are on par."

With highly optimized Linux ports, the performance may be similar with an equal driver. But we've seen plenty of benchmarks that show that some Linux ports are shoddy and many use wrapper technology (compile time or runtime) that lead to lower framerate than on Windows with the Nvidia drivers. Furthermore, if someone resorts to Wine to play a game not ported, the performance disparity will be even higher.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by SAS_RSM_Master:

Getting a laptop on Friday with a GT 940 or 940MX (shop hasn't been 100% clear). Thinking of taking windows off of it and installing linux.

You might want to look at the games you want to play before deciding on fully wiping off Windows. Linux has a lot of great Indie games but only a handful of the hottest AAA titles and attempting to play games not ported in Wine will generally result in a major performance decline and compatibility issues compared to playing them on Windows.

A dual-boot might be a better starting point for you, so that you can test and see if Linux on your new computer is a good fit.

Alternatively, you can replace the Windows 10 shell with a Linux distribution and have the benefit of being able to play all Windows-only games at full-speed and full-compatibility while still working within a Linux desktop environment and using Linux productivity software and FOSS games. I'm currently uploading the software and installer I wrote onto my OneDrive account and will then share it. It's a 1.8GB download but the installer automatically downloads & installs all the necessary VM software and includes the Linux image, based on Antergos + GNOME 3 w/ my interop scripts pre-loaded.

This is what the default installation looks like while playing Windows games on it:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1140366769

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Originally posted by Zyro:

Where should I start? E.g. there 's no (official) G-Sync support...

Initial G-Sync support was added in 340.17 and the current driver is 384.90: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/751890

That's why I wrote "official support". According to Nvidia, system requirement for G-Sync is Windows:

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/g-sync/system-requirements

Do you know how good it actually works? I don't want to buy my next monitor and GPU without such a technology (and I think we'll wonder some day how we could ever play without)...

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Originally posted by Zyro:

Nvidia driver support is the best GPU support you'll get on Linux, but not as good as on Windows.

Nvidia driver support for Linux is on par with Windows. Why are you claiming it isn't as good?

Another one: As far as I ( and GoL[www.gamingonlinux.com]) am aware, there's no possibility to limit the frame rate exposed by nvidia (there's libstrangle, though). For Windows, there is: http://i.imgur.com/B25DE.jpg

[Mohandevir]

Optimus (Prime on Linux) is terrible on Ubuntu Laptops. Got two of these for my work. One was running a GTX 980m and the other a Quadro M2200. The 980m was having terrible tearing issues and the Quadro M2200 required me to do a suspend/resume to get the reclocking/3D acceleration to work and it had tearing issues too.

Fortunately I found a fix that worked both times:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2365449&p=13663158&viewfull=1#post13663158

I can say, as of today, that tearing and sluggish performances are gone. I'm having a great time with my MSI WS60-7RJ. In fact there's even less tearing on Ubuntu than Windows, atm.

Hope it helps.

[Mohandevir]

Thanks for the informations. Interresting read.

Personnally, with the new 14nm GPU generation I wonder if the whole concept of "switchable graphics" hasn't become obsolete, anyway.

CyberPower builds complete desktop pcs with full desktop grade parts and fits a GTX 1060 with a 250W psu... Take a look at the Steam series and it's minimum required psu, you'll understand. Why use the iGPU in this case?!