Re: Nvidia steps in it again...

On Mon, 7 Apr 2025 17:41:58 -0000 (UTC), vallor <vallor@cultnix.org>
wrote:

On Mon, 07 Apr 2025 12:15:03 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
>

Well, some good news on this front: Nvidia is open-sourcing the code for
PhysX 32-bit. So even if Nvidia no longer is supporting 32-bit code on
its newest GPUs, it is possible that either an updated 64-bit version
will be created by enterprising hackers, or some sort of shim will be
made that will allow older software to run on the newer hardware. I
suspect, given the raw horsepower on modern GPUs, any slowdown from this
thunking will be minimal.
 
Code available here, if you're the sort who thinks they can do something
with it. (Me, I'm gonna wait on the hacks ;-)
https://github.com/NVIDIA-Omniverse/PhysX/releases/tag/107.0-physx-5.6.0
 
I guess sometimes, despite themselves, Nvidia can do something right.
Now if only they can prevent their GPU power-connectors from melting ;-)

>
They've also been working on opening up the Linux driver:
>
  https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules
>
Currently, the driver lags behind the newer "bleeding-edge"
Linux releases (release candidates, like the newly-released
Linux 6.15-rc1).  But they do support the actual releases,
such as the (newly-released) 6.14.1 with the current drivers.[*]
>
That should all change if/when the NVIDIA drivers end up in
the vanilla kernel.  That would be the most desirable outcome.
>

This is good news, since it would open up many more machines to using
SteamDeckOS, which currently only 'natively' supports AMD GPUs (you
can hack around that limitation, but that's a hack on top of the hack
just to get SteamOS to run on non-SteamDeck hardware to begin with,
and pretty soon the whole thing starts teetering). Having solid
support for Nvidia drivers would make Valve's gaming OS look like a
much more viable alternative to regular gamers.


Then again, given how slipshod recent Nvidia drivers (and hardware!)
have been recently, maybe I should be hoping they DON'T open-source
their stuff just to keep it out of the regular pipeline. ;-)