NVIDIA releases new proprietary driver version 555.58

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NVIDIA Company published stable release of a new branch of the proprietary driver NVIDIA 555.58. The driver is available for Linux (ARM64, x86_64), FreeBSD (x86_64) and Solaris (x86_64). NVIDIA 550.x became the seventh stable branch after NVIDIA open-sourced its kernel-level components. The sources for the kernel modules nvidia.ko, nvidia-drm.ko (Direct Rendering Manager), nvidia-modeset.ko and nvidia-uvm.ko (Unified Video Memory) from the new NVIDIA branch, as well as the common components they use that are not tied to the operating system, posted on GitHub. The firmware and libraries used in user space, such as CUDA, OpenGL and Vulkan stacks, remain proprietary.

Basic changes:

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  • On systems with Turing-based GPUs (GeForce GTX 1600 and RTX 2000) and newer microarchitectures equipped with a GSP (GPU System Processor) microcontroller that handles GPU initialization and management, the default code is to use firmware calls to the GSP. To disable the use of the GSP firmware, you can use the “NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0” parameter in the kernel module.
  • Added support for Waland protocol linux-drm-syncobj-v1which provides tools for explicit buffer synchronization using DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) synchronization objects. The protocol makes it possible to ensure that the rendering operation to a buffer is completed before the composite manager displays the buffer. From a practical standpoint, the implementation of the protocol allows the use of the “explicit sync“, which makes it possible to reduce delays, eliminate artifacts and eliminate freezes when outputting graphics on systems with NVIDIA GPUs and enabled Wayland support.
  • The minimum supported Linux kernel version has been increased from 3.10 to 4.15.
  • The Vulkan Wayland WSI (Window System Integration) adds support for immediate presentation mode, which allows content output by applications to be rendered without the compositing manager having to wait for the vertical blanking pulse to complete, which can lead to tearing during output.
  • HDMI support with 10 bits per color channel is enabled by default (can be disabled via the “hdmi_deepcolor=0” parameter).
  • The nvidia-installer installer provides a prompt that allows you to choose between open source and proprietary Linux kernel modules on systems that support them. In NVIDIA driver version 560, open modules are planned to be enabled by default.
  • Provided the ability to use EGL instead of GLX as the OpenGL ICD (Installable Client Driver) driver for the NvFBC (NVIDIA Frame Buffer Capture) screen capture API.
  • Support for the OpenGL extension GLX_EXT_buffer_age extension for Xwayland is temporarily disabled due to a bug that causes rendering to break.
  • Support for Base Mosaic mode has been removed, which was previously only available for some GPUs and was limited to supporting no more than 5 screens.

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