Feature Request: Option to disable GPU driver detection or at least disable warning

[Darksoul71]

Hi there,

thanks for bringing Steam and many of my favourite games to Linux.

Please add an option to disable the detection of the GPU driver version. I run Xubuntu 12.04 x64 here with a NVidia GeForce 9500GT and the 304-experimental driver. Steam annoys me to install nvidia-experimental-310.

I want to have an option to disable this (or did I just not see it ?).

I tried to install nvidia-experimental-310 which resulted in a driver issue and no working Xorg. Thus I switched back to 304.

It is perfectly reasonable if Valve want to keep Steam as gaming platform under Linux as homogen as possible (similar Linux distro, similar driver versions). For those who understand the implications it should be possible to disable those warnings.

A bit OT:
While I can accept that Valve suggests using a specific driver version for the best possible experience, I can NOT accept that Valve tries to force me to use a specific driver (e.g. Steam does not start at all when you do not use nvidia-experimental-304). Just for elaboration: GNU Linux is about choice. GNU Linux is about freedom. If something wants to tells me to install a certain version of a certain software and, even worse, wants to enforce me to install it, then its the most likely way to get cleaned off my HDD very soon....

Second concern / thought: While it is great that Valve invests time & money to optimize all those Source-based game for Linux, there is something puzzling me.
L4D for example is often rated gold or platinum in Wines AppDB. This means: Runs pretty flawlessly on a variety of GPU with various driver versions. Why on earth would I need to install the latest (and greatest ?) version of NVidias Linux driver to run games like this ?

For Serious Sam 3 I can accept this but not for game which is now over 3 years old. Valve, please....rather than caring about L4D2 running faster than on Windows with the latest and greatest driver / NVidia GPU, I would hope you concentrate on making Source-based game as compatible as possible for older cards / drivers or even open-source drivers. I mean like eliminating renderer parts which rely on more demanding OpenGL feature sets and instead implementing less demanding fall-back functions.

Graphically demanding games like UT2k3 or UT2k4 run fine inside WINE on radeon with decent legacy hardware (e.g. AMD HD4670) and I would expect all Source-engines to do the same.

Just for reference:
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

They used an Intel Core i7 3930k and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680. In the end L4D2 under Linux was running at 315 FPS..I mean...impressive..but who cares ?

In the end we should be more happy about a Source engine which is less GPU / driver agnostic rather than raving about something which runs at > 300 FPS.

Or how a guy said over at the faster-zombies page at his comment:
...
There’s a point at which more horsepower just isn’t necessary for a given game. 60fps on decent quality settings is all anyone really needs. Beyond that, the only purpose of bigger numbers is to give geeks a hard-on.
...

Just my two cents,
D$

[instabilis]

Just remove steamdeps

sudo rm /usr/bin/steamdeps

This is a script that checks dependencies each time you start Steam.

If you're having problems updating your graphics driver then file a bug report with the package maintainer.

Edit: Also, you seem to have missed the entire point of the "Faster Zombies!" blog post, it was a comparison of Direct3D vs OpenGL, and Windows 7 vs Ubuntu 12.04. Not a demo of how well the GeForce GTX 680 plays Left 4 Dead 2.

[arc| Gps]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Darksoul71:

Hi there,


They used an Intel Core i7 3930k and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680. In the end L4D2 under Linux was running at 315 FPS..I mean...impressive..but who cares ?

In the end we should be more happy about a Source engine which is less GPU / driver agnostic rather than raving about something which runs at > 300 FPS.

just my two cents,
D$

If any game on that hard ware gets more fps because of optimization, it will also get more fps on less powefull hardware.

I think instabilis is right.
The article was a comparison, and to their surprise, linux was faster after some tweaking then W7.
They were suprised because allot more effort and time is spend on the windows drivers.

[Darksoul71]

Thanks for your replies folks !

Unfortunately removing steamdeps did not help ! Steam still bugs me about my "outdated" driver. Keep in mind that both nvidia 304 and 310 are flagged as experimental inisde Ubuntu. And Ubuntu is not very conservative about stability as for example Debian is.
If Ubuntu 12.04 is the targeted platform, then Steam should not bug me about installing anything but the vanilla NVidia current driver, right ?

May be I was a bit wrong about the article I referenced but my point still stands:
L4D2 runs fine under WINE even with older drivers. So it is hardly understandable to me why I earth I need to install anything like NVidia 304 / 310 to play games like HL or CS:CZ.

[instabilis]

I've been running Steam on Fedora 17/18 64-bit with the Nvidia 304.64 driver (RPM Fusion repo) and GeForce GT 240M, with no such message. Apparently Steam requires at least the 304.22 driver.

I guess you'll have to figure out why the 310 package is causing problems, or try installing the manual driver from the Nvidia website.

[Darksoul71]

Thanks for the info ! Well, here on Xubuntu with the vanilla NVidia driver you have from a fresh install (the one previous to expreimental-304) Steam simply closed telling me that I "must" install at least 304 (which I have now with version 304.64 as well). Somehow Steam still detects that there is a newer driver and bugs me to update. But 310 does not play nicely with my system...alas...here am I setting with driver 304, everything runs smooth so far bug Steam tells me to update. :(

[lame_hit]

Hi there,

I also want to disable the "New Driver Package Avaiable" POPUP because its pretty annoying. I use steam on my htpc with a gamepad on lubuntu 12.04 LTS and the proprietary amd catalyst drivers. My actual driver version is 12.10 and steam wants me to install fglrx-experimental-12, version 2:12. I primary use my htpc as mediacenter with xbmc. The problem with the experimental driver is that xbmc has an idle load off 100% and above (about 20-30% with 12.10 idle). So if i start a steam game from xbmc with my gamepad, i wont (and even can not with only a gamepad) click the popup away. Removing steamdeps didn't work.

So can you please provide an option to disable the warning. A commandline option would be awesome (-silent won*t work).

[Spacepiss F4rtBl4st]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Darksoul71:

Thanks for your replies folks !

Unfortunately removing steamdeps did not help ! Steam still bugs me about my "outdated" driver. Keep in mind that both nvidia 304 and 310 are flagged as experimental inisde Ubuntu. And Ubuntu is not very conservative about stability as for example Debian is.
If Ubuntu 12.04 is the targeted platform, then Steam should not bug me about installing anything but the vanilla NVidia current driver, right ?

May be I was a bit wrong about the article I referenced but my point still stands:
L4D2 runs fine under WINE even with older drivers. So it is hardly understandable to me why I earth I need to install anything like NVidia 304 / 310 to play games like HL or CS:CZ.

I guess that depends on your idea of "fine". It's only able to use one core on your CPU and assuredly gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥ FPS compared to a native port. Those ratings typically just signify the game runs without crashing or artifacting but really has nothing to do with the performance. I'll take my L4D2 with multi-core rendering and triple digit FPS over single-core rendering and double digit FPS any day.

[Kidlike]

I found a workaround that should work on any Linux:

sudo chmod o-x `which jockey-text`

[R&B (Ruwet & Mbulet)]

Hmm.. when I starting steam client, I run in the terminal
$ top
I see there are activities with jockey-backend, so I remove jockey-common and jockey-gtk.
restart computer, start steam client again, and that will be not annoying again.