Nouveau News Archives

Mesa's NVK open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver now has mesh shader support as another significant step forward for this driver in being able to handle modern Linux gaming and other workloads.

Sent out today was the last drm-misc-next pull request ahead of the Linux 7.2 merge window getting underway in June. As part of this last batch of small Direct Rendering Manager graphics/accelerator driver changes is finally enabling the NVIDIA GA100 within the Nouveau driver.

While the AMDGPU open-source driver has struggled with HDMI 2.1 support due to the HDMI Forum blocking open-source implementations, HDMI Fixed Rate Link (FRL) as a feature of the HDMI 2.1 specification is enjoying success now with the open-source Nouveau graphics driver on Linux for NVIDIA GPUs.

Merged yesterday to Mesa 26.1 for the open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver "NVK" is ZCULL support for more efficient rendering and bringing some small performance gains to this open-source NVIDIA driver stack.

The Linux 6.19 merge window had introduced support for larger pages and compression with the Nouveau kernel driver, which ultimately should help provide a performance win to this open-source NVIDIA driver. The Mesa NVK driver was ready to make use of that new kernel driver functionality but then it ended up being disabled due to bugs. Fortunately, for the Linux 6.20~7.0 kernel those issues should be resolved so then the Mesa NVK usage of the larger pages / compression support could be restored.

Upstreamed to the Nouveau open-source kernel driver in Linux 6.19 was support for larger pages and with that compression support available with the larger page sizes. Subsequently the Mesa NVK open-source Vulkan driver began making use of the larger pages and compressed image support dependent upon the larger page sizes as it should help with performance. But for now it's being temporarily disabled due to a discovered issue.

In addition to the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver in Mesa merging compression support for big performance wins, another performance optimization was merged earlier in the week that stand to benefit GeForce RTX 20 "Turing" graphics processors.

Merged today to the Mesa 26.0-devel code for the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver is compression support for helping to deliver better performance.

Along with getting the NVIDIA GSP fully booted and initialized for Ampere GPUs with the Nova driver code coming to Linux 6.19, this next kernel version is also beginning to make preparations for eyeing next-generation NVIDIA GPU support on this open-source driver.

In addition to the RADV driver status update shared recently in Vienna at XDC2025, there was also a presentation on the current status of the NVK driver as the open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver within Mesa that currently targets the Nouveau kernel driver and the Rust-based Nova kernel driver in the future.

Karol Herbst at Red Hat who has been a longtime open-source NVIDIA driver contributor as well as Rusticl developer presented at XDC2025 on the NVK Vulkan driver's cooperatrive matrix extension support. It turns out this Vulkan extension for machine learning / AI is proving fairly competitive with the open-source NVK driver compared to NVIDIA's official driver stack.

While the "Nova" driver continues to be developed as a modern Rust-written, open-source and in-kernel NVIDIA graphics driver for Linux, for the time being Nouveau is what's working for end-users for those wanting a mainline open-source NVIDIA graphics driver for gaming and other workloads. With Linux 6.19 the Nouveau driver is picking up support for handling larger pages as well as compression support.

Just days ago Valve developer Autumn Ashton announced initial NVIDIA DLSS upscaling for the open-source Mesa NVK driver. One of those needed Vulkan extensions, VK_NVX_image_view_handle, is already merged to Mesa Git.

A patch series posted today for Nouveau, the open-source NVIDIA kernel driver within the mainline Linux tree, can help overcome some performance obstacles currently observed with the Mesa NVK Vulkan driver.

As a follow-up to the article last week around the open-source NVIDIA Linux driver "Nouveau" about to become much more reliable following fixes, that code was merged on Friday for Linux 6.17.

For those using the upstream open-source NVIDIA Linux driver "Nouveau", with a pending fix coming for Linux 6.17 and existing kernel releases it should be a much more stable and reliable experience.

Nearly a decade after the Tegra X2 SoC shipped in the likes of the Jetson TX2, the Pascal-based GP10B GPU has received a patch for allowing GPU re-clocking within the open-source Nouveau driver.

A change queued in drm-misc-next for DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.18 kernel cycle later this year is promoting the Nouveau driver for open-source NVIDIA GPU support to be using the GSP firmware by default. This reflects the reality that using the NVIDIA GPU System Processor "GSP" firmware with Turing and Ampere GPUs should provide a better experience than the older firmware alternative with Nouveau.

For Linux 6.17 in addition to Intel enabling SR-IOV for Battlemage graphics cards and many other big Intel Xe kernel graphics cards and then more AMD graphics driver features too, the NOVA driver for modern open-source NVIDIA driver support is continuing to be further built out in this next kernel version.

Yet more feature code continues piling in for the Mesa 25.2 release due out next month and days ahead of the feature freeze. Hitting Mesa Git this evening is now treating NVIDIA Kepler GPUs as Vulkan 1.2 conformant following the Vulkan 1.2 CTS passing with the NVK open-source driver paired with the Nouveau kernel driver.

Merged today to the open-source NVIDIA "NAK" compiler code within Mesa 25.2 is Kepler instruction scheduling. This real instruction scheduling support for GeForce GTX 600/700 "Kepler" graphics processors can provide some significant performance benefits in select workloads.

Merged for the current Linux 6.16 cycle was initial NVIDIA Blackwell GPU support with the Nouveau open-source driver. NVIDIA Blackwell GPU support was tacked onto the existing Nouveau kernel driver rather than having to wait for the new "NOVA" driver and like prior generations continuing to leverage the GSP firmware. For going along with that Nouveau support, the Mesa NVK Vulkan driver support for Blackwell continues being put together too.

The NOVA-Core driver as the basis for a modern, Rust-written open-source NVIDIA GPU driver for the upstream Linux kernel and eventual successor to the reverse-engineered Nouveau DRM driver has a new co-maintainer.

In addition to the Nouveau driver set to see NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper GPU support with the upcoming Linux 6.16 cycle, the modern, Rust-based Nova driver for future open-source NVIDIA GPU support is set to become a bit more full with this next kernel release.

Coming somewhat as a surprise is the Nouveau driver patches for enabling NVIDIA Blackwell and Hopper GPUs has now been queued to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.16 merge window. So barring any surprises, this next version of the Linux kernel will feature preliminary open-source mainline kernel driver support for these newer NVIDIA GPUs.

NVIDIA has supplied updated GPU System Processor (GSP) firmware derived from their R570 driver series to the upstream linux-firmware.git repository.

At the end of April was the open-source surprise of NVIDIA posting Nouveau Linux driver patches for their Hopper and Blackwell GPUs. This comes to complement their official (open-source but out of tree) kernel driver support for these newer NVIDIA GPUs and in the absence of the modern Rust-based NOVA Linux kernel driver not being in working shape yet on the mainline kernel. An updated version of these Nouveau driver patches for NVIDIA Hopper and Blackwell GPUs were posted overnight.

Ben Skeggs formerly of Red Hat who had been the maintainer of the Nouveau Linux kernel driver for reverse-engineered open-source NVIDIA driver support had joined NVIDIA last year and continued his engagements with the open-source Linux community. For ending out April there's a big surprise... The NVIDIA engineer posted a set of 60 patches enabling support for NVIDIA Hopper and Blackwell GPUs atop the open-source Nouveau kernel driver.

Set to be merged for the Linux 6.15 kernel is the very initial NOVA driver core code that will be incrementally built up over time in succeeding kernel versions. For Linux 6.15, this open-source NVIDIA kernel driver isn't of any use for end-users as it's just the very preliminary pieces to begin crafting the foundation for the driver that is leveraging the NVIDIA GSP found with Turing and newer hardware. In preparation for future kernel cycles, the NOVA skeleton driver pieces were posted for review yesterday to begin fleshing out more of the driver's design.

NVIDIA has published new Vulkan beta driver builds for Windows and Linux that introduce VK_KHR_shader_bfloat16 for BFloat16 "BF16" support within shaders.

As a sign of the times for both the NVK open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver within Mesa and the generic Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan code, with next quarter's Mesa 25.1 release when using a NVIDIA Turing GPU or newer with the Nouveau driver stack it will now default to using Zink atop NVK for OpenGL rather than the existing NVC0 Gallium3D driver.

Karol Herbst has been a Nouveau driver developer for over a decade working on this open-source, reverse-engineered NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. He went on to become employed by Red Hat. While he's known more these days for his work on Mesa and the Rusticl OpenCL driver for it, he's still remained a maintainer of the Nouveau kernel driver. But today he announced he's resigning as a Nouveau driver maintainer due to differences with the upstream Linux kernel developer community.

Red Hat engineers have been working on Nova as an open-source driver successor to the Nouveau driver for upstream NVIDIA GPU support within the Linux kernel that can be used with the Mesa OpenGL/Vulkan drivers. Unlike the prior larger RFC patch series, sent out to the Linux kernel mailing list today were some small patches for introducing "NOVA-Core" that would serve as the initial base for this modern NVIDIA Linux kernel DRM driver. Over time and succeeding kernel releases, the NOVA code would be built up until ultimately becoming a usable state for end-users.

Adding to the growing set of features for NVK as this open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver within Mesa, the VK_KHR_fragment_shading_rate fragment shading rate extension is now supported.

Collabora's Faith Ekstrand provided a status update yesterday at XDC 2024 Montreal around the state of the Nouveau kernel driver with the Mesa NVK Vulkan driver as a means of open-source Vulkan API support on NVIDIA GPUs.

Faith Ekstrand has merged another two dozen patches for the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver with next quarter's Mesa 24.3.

Here's how an exciting message from a NVIDIA engineer that just hit the mailing list begins: "NVIDIA has been exploring ways to better support the effort for an upstream kernel mode driver for GPUs that are capable of running GSP-RM firmware, since the introduction to Nova."

Merged for Linux 6.10 is DRM_Panic as a kernel panic screen for situations akin to Windows' well known "Blue Screen of Death". This is a kernel-based panic screen as an alternative to systemd's recent systemd-bsod. Patches have been posted by Red Hat for allowing the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" Direct Rendering Manager driver to work with DRM Panic.

Red Hat engineers have been developing Nova as a new, Rust-written open-source NVIDIA kernel graphics driver as the eventual successor to the Nouveau kernel driver and is designed around NVIDIA's GPU System Processor (GSP) thus making the driver relevant for RTX 20 / Turing GPUs and newer. Today they posted a request for comments (RFC) patch series of the Nova driver and Rust DRM abstractions.

After the 22 patches were under review for the past eight months, merged today is the NVK Vulkan driver support for the VK_EXT_image_drm_format_modifier extension for handling DRM format modifiers.

In addition to all of the contributions Valve graphics engineers have been making to the open-source Radeon "RADV" Vulkan driver, they have also begun investing in improvements to the open-source Mesa NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver too. With pending patches there is now explicit GPU synchronization support working for the NVK driver in conjunction with their Gamescope compositor.

Adding to the impressive number of features to be found in this quarter's Mesa 24.1 release is now the open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver supporting implicit pipeline caching.

Following last year Nouveau receiving support for running with the NVIDIA GSP firmware and initial GeForce RTX 40 series accelerated support, Ben Skeggs of Red Hat unexpectedly resigned as the Nouveau kernel driver maintainer. It turns out this longtime open-source Nouveau driver developer is now employed by NVIDIA Corp and continuing to work on the open-source Linux graphics driver.

In addition to working on NOVA as a Rust-based, GSP-focused NVIDIA open-source kernel graphics driver being developed as the eventual successor to the existing Nouveau DRM kernel driver, over in user-space Mesa developers have begun landing a portion of their Nouveau/NVK driver library code rewritten in Rust.

An earlier fix to the Nouveau open-source NVIDIA kernel graphics driver with the new GPU System Processor (GSP) code path had fixed RTX 20 "Turing" GPU support but inadvertently broke the RTX 30 "Ampere" support. David Airlie sent out an urgent new fix today for addressing that regression in the NVIDIA GSP display code.

Red Hat's display driver team has recently been devising plans for Nova, a new to-be-developed Linux DRM kernel driver written in Rust for open-source NVIDIA graphics support as the successor/replacement to Nouveau for newer NVIDIA GPU generations supporting the GPU System Processor (GSP). Making this effort all the more involved is being written in Rust at a time when various kernel abstractions are still being devised and not yet upstreamed.

Mesa's NVK Vulkan driver for open-source NVIDIA support has merged sparse memory support. This is a big milestone as it's needed for running a number of newer games under Linux.

While there is a lot of frustration from the news last week of the HDMI Forum rejecting AMD's open-source HDMI 2.1 driver support plans, the open-source NVIDIA "Nouveau" driver won't hopefully have too challenging of an experience in enabling HDMI 2.1 functionality since much of the display handling there is left up to NVIDIA's (closed-source) firmware binaries.

It's a big day today in the open-source NVIDIA Nouveau/NVK space... The Mesa NVK driver is now officially declared a Vulkan 1.3 conformant implementation by the Khronos Group! In turn the NVK driver is no longer considered experimental and with Mesa 24.1 will build by default for x86/x86_64-based installations.

The open-source NVIDIA "NVK" Vulkan driver within the Mesa codebase has merged support for the important VK_EXT_shader_object and VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library extensions. Additionally, as part of supporting these new extensions, this introduces the code for a common Vulkan runtime to Mesa.