NVIDIA brings Vista-esque graphics to Linux

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 8th November 2006
Comments (22) Stumble
NVIDIA brings Vista-esque graphics to Linux

The Beryl project adds OpenGL desktop rendering to Linux.

NVIDIA has officially released a Linux driver that supports a compatible version of the AIGLX instruction set.

The new driver, which was released yesterday and comes in at 12MB, adds a whole host of other features for users of the open source OS, including GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, a better display control panel and even support for Quad SLI.

The introduction of AIGLX-compatible instructions means that Linux users now have what is essentially a turnkey solution for Vista-level graphics. The latest build of Ubuntu, a consumer-oriented Linux distro, introduces desktop rendering with 3D hardware by combining the with Beryl window manager, in the same way that Vista does through the Aero glass interface.

Getting this desktop acceleration to work previous required some hackery, but now NVIDIA is providing the functionality for GeForce users in a far easier way.

This means that Linux joins Apple OSX on the list of operating systems supporting 3D hardware acceleration before Vista, which will finally join the fray on November 30 for business users and January 30 for consumers.

The increased stability and featureset will also be a bonus to those Linux users who have previously bemoaned NVIDIA's approach to the platform.

You can pick up the drivers here - if you do so, be sure to let us know how you get on with them over in the News Discussion forum.
Quote DougEdey 8th November 2006, 11:43
Doesn't beat XGL :P
Quote ST8 8th November 2006, 11:57
This is what most people think of as xgl. XGL just provides a gl x server, the program that does all the flash stuff is compiz (beryl is a compiz fork) which is a composite window manager. Ive been running the 9625 drivers for a couple of weeks now and with the latest xorg server (7.1) there is no need for xgl at all, as they provide they provide their own GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap implementation.

For any of you on debian, compiz is available as an official package in unstable

EDIT: looks like the 9625s were the betas for 9629, in which case theyve been working fine for the last few weeks :)
Quote Da Dego 8th November 2006, 14:21
wow. This might make another reason to turn to linux. Honestly, the only thing that's really holding me off right now is software support and DirectX. :(
Quote Techno-Dann 8th November 2006, 15:32
Wow. I may have to switch GPUs. I've always been an ATI guy, but this could persuade me to change. (But yes, we need a DirectX emulator for Linux. If I could play ex-Windows games on Linux, I'd switch.)
Quote hitman012 8th November 2006, 15:44
Quote:
Originally Posted by DougEdey
Doesn't beat XGL :P
AIGLX runs a fair bit faster for me (on the NVIDIA beta from before this release); plus, it's integrated into Ubuntu Edgy so the installation is a lot less fuss. Unfortunately, neither support indirect hardware rendering so you have to CPU-render all your videos (and the fix is a bit of a bodge). IMO that's the single biggest problem with both of them :(

Having used both, Vista seems a lot more polished to me. Beryl is fun to play with though :D
Quote Tyinsar 8th November 2006, 15:49
Nvidia

And here I was thinking of switching to ATI

Games - if only Linux had the games...
Quote wafflesomd 8th November 2006, 19:00
Quote:
Originally Posted by Techno-Dann
Wow. I may have to switch GPUs. I've always been an ATI guy, but this could persuade me to change. (But yes, we need a DirectX emulator for Linux. If I could play ex-Windows games on Linux, I'd switch.)

ATI/Nvidia Drivers are already coded in opengl, directx is a layer overtop. It's like a useless layer to slow things down :)

If opengl were adopted by comanies, it would be a hell of alot faster and could easily look just as good, if not better.
Quote koola 8th November 2006, 20:05
Quote:
Originally Posted by wafflesomd
If opengl were adopted by comanies, it would be a hell of alot faster and could easily look just as good, if not better.
Quote Kipman725 8th November 2006, 20:07
titles abit miselading seen as linux had 3d rendered desktops years before vista was announced. They have only recently took off though.
Quote speedfreek 8th November 2006, 22:28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyinsar
Nvidia

And here I was thinking of switching to ATI

Games - if only Linux had the games...
Same here, I figure I will just run vista inside of linux for those dx10 games and the few windows only programs.
Quote wafflesomd 8th November 2006, 22:59
Quote:
Originally Posted by speedfreek
Same here, I figure I will just run vista inside of linux for those dx10 games and the few windows only programs.

Nah.

See, we need to send emails like hail stones at dev's.

The standard needs to be opengl, not this useless overlayer they call Directx.
Quote Cthippo 9th November 2006, 00:33
The Devs have to realize that they are depriving themselves of a small, but potentially lucrative, market by not being able to run under Mac and *nix. Perhaps with OpenGL support in Vista that will change :D
Quote Shagbag 9th November 2006, 14:09
Quote:
Originally Posted by speedfreek
Same here, I figure I will just run vista inside of linux for those dx10 games and the few windows only programs.
That won't work. Xen, VMware and Parallels don't allow direct rendering so your CPU utilisation is going to skyrocket. Even with Vanderbelt/Pacifica there will still be a noticable performance lag. Your frame rates are going to be unplayable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyinsar
Games - if only Linux had the games...
It does. Many DirectX games run on linux via WINE, CrossOver and/or Cedega. Not everyone does, of course, as M$ don't want you to run anything but Windoze. Hence, the lucrative cash (and other) incentives they give to game developers to get them to code using DirectX APIs rather than OpenGL. M$ is a gaming platform. Period. Take away their games and you have no reason to buy Windoze (or Vista). M$ don't want this (obviously).
Quote Cthippo 9th November 2006, 14:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shagbag
It does. Many DirectX games run on linux via WINE, CrossOver and/or Cedega. Not everyone does, of course, as M$ don't want you to run anything but Windoze. Hence, the lucrative cash (and other) incentives they give to game developers to get them to code using DirectX APIs rather than OpenGL. M$ is a gaming platform. Period. Take away their games and you have no reason to buy Windoze (or Vista). M$ don't want this (obviously).

MS is a gaming platform??? :|

If anything, MS is a business platform, the gaming is just a nice side effect.
Quote DougEdey 9th November 2006, 14:16
MS is a software gaming platform in effect, if you were just given hardware and a game you couldn't play anything, even consoles have an OS that they use to allow interaction.
Quote Cthippo 9th November 2006, 14:32
Yes, but...

You're technically correct that Windows is a platform on which we play games, however, my point is that it is not predominantly designed to be a gaming platform nor is it optimized as a gaming platform nor is it marketed as a gaming platform. In the great series of trade-offs that is the product development process gaming suitability comes in on the bottom third of the list of attributes long after "easy to use" and "great for business apps" and "Media friendly".
Quote DougEdey 9th November 2006, 15:12
It is now marketed as a gaming platform, games can now be marked with a Games for Microsoft Windows sticker, this is normally done by the manufacturer, and styles of boxes are designed to be similar to those for consoles with "Windows" down the side.
Quote Brooxy 9th November 2006, 17:01
So if you have an ATI card, doe that mean it doesn't work?

looks nice tho, if it does work on ATI, then I'm going to make the switch permanent I think.
Quote Tyinsar 9th November 2006, 18:16
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyinsar
...
Games - if only Linux had the games...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shagbag
...
It does. Many DirectX games run on linux via WINE, CrossOver and/or Cedega. Not everyone does, of course, as M$ don't want you to run anything but Windoze. Hence, the lucrative cash (and other) incentives they give to game developers to get them to code using DirectX APIs rather than OpenGL. M$ is a gaming platform. Period. Take away their games and you have no reason to buy Windoze (or Vista). M$ don't want this (obviously).

I'm not a fan of Ziff-Davis & co but ExtremeTech had an interesting article on this: (link) The article also points to an earlier article about WOW on Linux. It and a select FEW games work great in Linux but generally you're way better off running the OS the games were made for.
Quote BjD 9th November 2006, 20:42
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brooxy
So if you have an ATI card, doe that mean it doesn't work?

No, you just have to use XGL or AIGLX, which achieve the same effects but at the Xorg server level instead of in the drivers.

At least thats how I understand it :) Going to emerge the new drivers over the weekend and have a play.
Quote Shagbag 10th November 2006, 11:50
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyinsar
generally you're way better off running the OS the games were made for.
I totally agree and I believe that's why M$ invests such a lot of resources making it easier for game developers to use their proprietary DirectX rather than OpenGL.

@Brooxy/BjD:
It's more a driver issue than the card itself. The proprietary (binary-only) ATi linux driver works fine with XGL - provided your card is supported by this binary driver. I believe the problem is with the binary ATi driver and AIGLX, ie. the binary ATi driver doesn't work with AIGLX. The open source ATi ('radeon') driver, however, works fine with AIGLX provided you don't use any transparency as transparency is rendered in software by the open source driver, which will probably make things painfully slow - unless you have a really fast CPU! However, not all ATi cards are supported by the open source radeon driver (I believe only the R100 to R400 series GPUs are, ie. Radeon 7000 through to Radeon X850).

You'll probably need to re-read the above a few times to understand what I'm saying, but basically, nVidia is far more user-friendly on linux. nVidia drivers - both proprietary (binary-only) and open source - work on AIGLX as well as XGL. Again, the same 'transparency' caveat applies to the open source nVidia driver.

If you want to see if your ATi card 'works', try the Fedora Project, OpenSuSE or Gentoo Wiki pages as a start. If it's not listed, you'll have to try it for yourself and see if your card works!

Also, if you want to use AIGLX, make sure you're running Xorg7.1 ;)
Quote BjD 10th November 2006, 19:11
Just grabbed these drivers, sorted out xfce4 with beryl and have to say it rocks
No doubt I'll run into some teething issues but the eye-candy will hopefully make up for it. Off to play with some settings now... ;)
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