Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

[Csányi Pál]

Hi,

I'm currently use GeForce 7600 GT with nouveau driver.
This is a very old graphic card without OpenGL support.

I want to use nouveau driver in the future too.

So I'm in doubt in that that whether to buy
GeForce GT730
or
GTX 750 Ti card?

I don't want to run super 3D game applications but only:
games-adventure/pioneer <http://pioneerspacesim.net/> sometimes
and
SweetHome3D more often
or
GoogleSketchUp ( by using PlayOnLinux ); although this last ( GSkUP )
has never been usable at all ( garbage on screen).

So, does nouveau support these cards?

Should I choose GTX 750 Ti or GT 730 or neither of them?

Is that true that GTX 750 Ti is Maxwell and may work with
xf86-video-nouveau v1.0.11, but the next v1.0.12 removed the GM10x
support?

So should I buy instead the GT 730 card?

-- 
Best, Pali
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Re: Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

[Ilia Mirkin]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Csányi Pál <csanyipal@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm currently use GeForce 7600 GT with nouveau driver.
> This is a very old graphic card without OpenGL support.

Well, I wouldn't say *without* but... crappy :) The nv30 driver leaves
a lot to be desired, and it doesn't handle some fairly common cases in
more recent software.

>
> I want to use nouveau driver in the future too.
>
> So I'm in doubt in that that whether to buy
> GeForce GT730
> or
> GTX 750 Ti card?
>
> I don't want to run super 3D game applications but only:
> games-adventure/pioneer <http://pioneerspacesim.net/> sometimes
> and
> SweetHome3D more often
> or
> GoogleSketchUp ( by using PlayOnLinux ); although this last ( GSkUP )
> has never been usable at all ( garbage on screen).
>
> So, does nouveau support these cards?
>
> Should I choose GTX 750 Ti or GT 730 or neither of them?
>
> Is that true that GTX 750 Ti is Maxwell and may work with
> xf86-video-nouveau v1.0.11, but the next v1.0.12 removed the GM10x
> support?

In effect nothing was removed, only fixed. Anything you read to the
contrary is incorrect. GM10x is driven just fine by
xf86-video-modesetting, much better than it ever was by
xf86-video-nouveau (for example you get functioning DRI2 support,
ability to create core contexts, etc). However GLAMOR triggers some
bug in mesa which causes wild misrendering all over. I have a shotgun
fix to this, but it's not upstreamable. See
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93373 for more
information. AFAIK this is not maxwell-specific, but there is
currently not (nor has there ever been) EXA support in
xf86-video-nouveau for it, which means only Maxwell users are hitting
it. I have a patch for EXA support for Maxwell which is about 90% done
but I haven't had the {time,will,caring} to complete it. I also have
no Maxwell GPU, which makes testing a lot more painful.

>
> So should I buy instead the GT 730 card?

I would very much recommend a GT 730 over a GTX 750 Ti in terms of
nouveau support, although they are not comparable in price or
performance (GT 730 will be cheaper and slower). But on the bright
side you should be able to reclock a GT 730, so perhaps with nouveau
it really will be faster.

Among other things, Maxwell doesn't support tessellation, and you can
be sure that as new features become supported, maxwell support will
come second. (Again, not for any real reason other than that I don't
have one.) You can expect this to change once nouveau gains the
ability to accelerate on GM20x GPUs, but who knows when this will
happen.

Oh, one last thought, I know NVIDIA loves to rebrand marketing
names... make sure you don't get a GT 730 that's really a Fermi -- if
it says 48 or 96 cores, it's probably a Fermi. If it says 192 or 384
cores then it will almost certainly be a Kepler (which is what you
want).

For the best open-source support, I recommend sticking with an
on-board Intel GPU, or if that's insufficient (esp recent stuff has
been getting pretty speedy), getting something from AMD.

Cheers,

  -ilia
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Re: Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

[Csányi Pál]

2016-01-03 19:32 GMT+01:00 Ilia Mirkin <imirkin@alum.mit.edu>:
> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Csányi Pál <csanyipal@gmail.com> wrote:

>> I want to use nouveau driver in the future too.
>>
>> So I'm in doubt in that that whether to buy
>> GeForce GT730

>> So, does nouveau support these cards?
>>
>> Should I choose GTX 750 Ti or GT 730 or neither of them?
>>
>> Is that true that GTX 750 Ti is Maxwell and may work with
>> xf86-video-nouveau v1.0.11, but the next v1.0.12 removed the GM10x
>> support?

>> So should I buy instead the GT 730 card?
>
> I would very much recommend a GT 730 over a GTX 750 Ti in terms of
> nouveau support, although they are not comparable in price or
> performance (GT 730 will be cheaper and slower). But on the bright
> side you should be able to reclock a GT 730, so perhaps with nouveau
> it really will be faster.

> Oh, one last thought, I know NVIDIA loves to rebrand marketing
> names... make sure you don't get a GT 730 that's really a Fermi -- if
> it says 48 or 96 cores, it's probably a Fermi. If it says 192 or 384
> cores then it will almost certainly be a Kepler (which is what you
> want).

I can't know without buying it whether is it Fermi or Kepler, right?
I get only these informations from that card:
VGA GIGABYTE NVIDIA GEFORCE GT730, GV-N730D5-2GI, 2GB DDR5,
902/5000MHz, HDMI, DVI-D, D-sub

Is this a Fermi or a Kepler card?

> For the best open-source support, I recommend sticking with an
> on-board Intel GPU, or if that's insufficient (esp recent stuff has
> been getting pretty speedy), getting something from AMD.

I don't have on-board Intel GPU on this motherboard.

So there is an AMD card too:
VGA ASUS AMD Radeon R7 240, R7240-2GD3-L, 2GB DDR3, 128bit,
730/1800MHz, HDMI, DVI-D, D-sub

What would be the best choice here:
GEFORCE GT 730
or
AMD Radeon R7 240 ?

-- 
Best, Pali
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Re: Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

[Thomas Martitz]

Am 03.01.2016 um 19:52 schrieb Csányi Pál:
> 2016-01-03 19:32 GMT+01:00 Ilia Mirkin <imirkin@alum.mit.edu>:
>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Csányi Pál <csanyipal@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I want to use nouveau driver in the future too.
>>>
>>> So I'm in doubt in that that whether to buy
>>> GeForce GT730
>>> So, does nouveau support these cards?
>>>
>>> Should I choose GTX 750 Ti or GT 730 or neither of them?
>>>
>>> Is that true that GTX 750 Ti is Maxwell and may work with
>>> xf86-video-nouveau v1.0.11, but the next v1.0.12 removed the GM10x
>>> support?
>>> So should I buy instead the GT 730 card?
>> I would very much recommend a GT 730 over a GTX 750 Ti in terms of
>> nouveau support, although they are not comparable in price or
>> performance (GT 730 will be cheaper and slower). But on the bright
>> side you should be able to reclock a GT 730, so perhaps with nouveau
>> it really will be faster.
>> Oh, one last thought, I know NVIDIA loves to rebrand marketing
>> names... make sure you don't get a GT 730 that's really a Fermi -- if
>> it says 48 or 96 cores, it's probably a Fermi. If it says 192 or 384
>> cores then it will almost certainly be a Kepler (which is what you
>> want).
> I can't know without buying it whether is it Fermi or Kepler, right?
> I get only these informations from that card:
> VGA GIGABYTE NVIDIA GEFORCE GT730, GV-N730D5-2GI, 2GB DDR5,
> 902/5000MHz, HDMI, DVI-D, D-sub
>
> Is this a Fermi or a Kepler card?

In general I'd look out for Kepler-based cards. These are better 
supported by nouveau and there are some cards which outperform (in 
hardware) a 750 Ti (which is maxwell). I've got a 650 Ti which is slower 
(in hardware) than a 750 Ti (but it should be faster than a 730[1]) and 
I'm pretty happy with it.

[1]: 
http://www.pc-specs.com/gpu/comparison-versus/886/875/geforce-gt-730-vs-geforce-gtx-650-ti


Best regards.
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Re: Nouveau support for GeForce GT 730 or GTX 750 Ti?

[Ilia Mirkin]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Csányi Pál <csanyipal@gmail.com> wrote:
> 2016-01-03 19:32 GMT+01:00 Ilia Mirkin <imirkin@alum.mit.edu>:
> I can't know without buying it whether is it Fermi or Kepler, right?
> I get only these informations from that card:
> VGA GIGABYTE NVIDIA GEFORCE GT730, GV-N730D5-2GI, 2GB DDR5,
> 902/5000MHz, HDMI, DVI-D, D-sub
>
> Is this a Fermi or a Kepler card?

Moderately sure this is a GK208 (Kepler2), you can tell because it's
x8 PCIe, not x16, and 28nm process, while Fermi's (and other Keplers)
were higher, and it supports 4k screens, which I don't think Fermi
did. It also matches the last column of

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-730/specifications

which, while not authoritative, does tend to indicate it's a Kepler.
(While if it matched the first column, it'd be a Fermi - note the
higher wattage and lower core count.)

> > For the best open-source support, I recommend sticking with an
> > on-board Intel GPU, or if that's insufficient (esp recent stuff has
> > been getting pretty speedy), getting something from AMD.
>
> I don't have on-board Intel GPU on this motherboard.
>
> So there is an AMD card too:
> VGA ASUS AMD Radeon R7 240, R7240-2GD3-L, 2GB DDR3, 128bit,
> 730/1800MHz, HDMI, DVI-D, D-sub
>
> What would be the best choice here:
> GEFORCE GT 730
> or
> AMD Radeon R7 240 ?

I don't want to recommend one or the other, esp as I'm unaware of the
specifics around exact AMD GPU support. But in general, if things
don't Just Work (tm), AMD has full-time employees (plural) working on
various aspects of the driver, and those employees are armed with
documentation and access to hardware engineers. NVIDIA provides next
to no support for the nouveau team outside of what's applicable to
Tegra (embedded) devices, there's currently one employee at RedHat
who's the maintainer, and another who is currently looking at making
OpenCL a reality on nouveau. And I contribute what I can in my spare
time, along with a few other volunteers. [NVIDIA does, on occasion,
provide extremely helpful bits of info, and we're thankful for them,
but it doesn't compare to having full access to documentation.] If I
were betting on a team, I'd definitely bet on the AMD one :)

OTOH the NVIDIA proprietary driver is what all linux game ports are
developed against, so by using it you're more or less guaranteed to
have something that works. (Not because it conforms to standards -- it
doesn't -- but because the applications expect precisely its level of
non-compliance.) Your call :)

  -ilia
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