Hardware support.. Why no Nvidia 304.131 moving forward?

1st Official Post

    Do you want to see driver 304.131 added back into LibreElecs next build? 16

    1. Yes I want my Geforce series 6 & 7 cards supported! (8) 50%
    2. No I believe a 512mb DDR3 is trash and needs to go to the landfill. (8) 50%

    Upgrade now to Nvidia 340.96“Fixed a bug that could cause texture corruption in some OpenGL applications when video memory is exhausted by a combination of simultaneously running graphical and compute workloads,” the official changelog reads.Moreover, support has been added for X.Org xserver ABI 20 (xorg-server 1.18), and this is the most important new feature. It’s worth pointing out that Nvidia also released legacy drivers on the same day for the GeForce 6 and 7 series, and those are marked with the 304.131 version. The changelog is identical with the 340.96 driver mentioned above.
    Why is 340.96 included in LIbreElec moving forward but 304.131 not going to be. If Nvidia releases the same update for Series 6,7,8 & 9 cards just under 2 different drivers why cant both be supported moving forward?

    I want to see if others users would like to see support for geforce series 6 & 7 cards moving forward.

    Edited once, last by madhits (August 1, 2016 at 4:32 AM).

    • Official Post

    Over time the definition of "current" and "legacy" needs to move forwards and the decision to bump legacy to 340.xx was deliberated by the team for a long time (we postponed it for 7.0 but agreed on 8.0). The change impacts our support for cards that are typically a decade (or more) old as the newer cards supported by 304.xx are also supported by 340.xx. The decision will stand regardless of your poll and if you are determined to use your ancient card (and need RAID support in the kernel) the solution is to self-build an LE image with the bits you need; as nVidia maintains their drivers aganst new kernels it's a fairly simple change to revert.

    If there are a group of users that need 304.xx support the solution is for you to group together and support each other; someone can build an image using the older driver and share it to the group. This is what happened when a group of ION users wanted 340.xx support to solve some graphical images at the time we still used 304.xx. If someone wants to step up/forward as that builder we're quite happy to support the effort with some hosting space to publish the builds from, if that's easier than sharing via dropbox/mega/etc.

    Quote from chewitt


    Over time the definition of "current" and "legacy" needs to move forwards and the decision to bump legacy to 340.xx was deliberated by the team for a long time (we postponed it for 7.0 but agreed on 8.0). The change impacts our support for cards that are typically a decade (or more) old as the newer cards supported by 304.xx are also supported by 340.xx. The decision will stand regardless of your poll and if you are determined to use your ancient card (and need RAID support in the kernel) the solution is to self-build an LE image with the bits you need; as nVidia maintains their drivers aganst new kernels it's a fairly simple change to revert.

    If there are a group of users that need 304.xx support the solution is for you to group together and support each other; someone can build an image using the older driver and share it to the group. This is what happened when a group of ION users wanted 340.xx support to solve some graphical images at the time we still used 304.xx. If someone wants to step up/forward as that builder we're quite happy to support the effort with some hosting space to publish the builds from, if that's easier than sharing via dropbox/mega/etc.

    This greatly effects me as I have 3 HTPC running kodi 7.0.2 with Geforce 7 series hardware and all can play 1080p video with 5.1 dobly digital output. Now I understand the need to drop support for older cards but what I dont understand is nvidia updated both of these drivers on the same day and both are current newly patched legacy drivers. So its a shame to see a new driver regardless if its for a particular hardware dropped from support. I will make my own builds I guess but I think this is really a shame. A 512mb DDR3 gefroce card is Not junk..

    Edited once, last by madhits (August 1, 2016 at 6:43 AM).

    • Official Post

    It is technically possible to embed multiple legacy nVidia drivers into the LE image, but this bloats the LE image and is something we have always made a strenuous effort to avoid. From memory ~75% of the cards supported by 304.xx are below GeForce 8xxx which (launched in summer 2007) was the first generation to support VDPAU hardware acceleration, and ~10% of the cards above that threshold still work with the 340.xx driver.

    NB: The raid card driver change has been reverted, because if it's only used by one user and that user needs to self-build an image to get old nVidia support, it's another one-line change for the user and we don't need it in the core image.

    Quote from madhits

    This greatly effects me as I have 3 HTPC running kodi 7.0.2 with Geforce 7 series hardware and all can play 1080p video with 5.1 dobly digital output.

    This does not greatly effects you if you stay on the current version. You say it runs, then what is the problem? Why do you need a newer version of LE?

    It is your choice. You can not have it all unless you or someone else in the community makes their own build. You can not expect this group of LE volunteers to support all available hardware that is out there. All software eventually needs new hardware.

    Quote from Nailig

    This does not greatly effects you if you stay on the current version. You say it runs, then what is the problem? Why do you need a newer version of LE?

    It is your choice. You can not have it all unless you or someone else in the community makes their own build. You can not expect this group of LE volunteers to support all available hardware that is out there. All software eventually needs new hardware.

    I hear you but I just think its unfair when the changelog 304.131 = 340.96. The only difference is hardware names and the fact that Nvidea for some reason has them in 2 different driver release files. If they were in 1 file we would not be having this discustion. I and the others who are affected are more a victum of circumstance (nvidias 2 files vs 1) then anything else.

    As for not needing the newest release you are right I do not. However I need another driver as chewett mentioned above so I am trying to learn how to build it in myself. This has been a 3 week process and I have to thank Milhouse for showing me how he does the test builds. Almost got it built as soon as I can resolve this curl error.

    Quote from madhits

    I hear you but I just think its unfair when the changelog 304.131 = 340.96. The only difference is hardware names and the fact that Nvidea for some reason has them in 2 different driver release files. If they were in 1 file we would not be having this discustion. I and the others who are affected are more a victum of circumstance (nvidias 2 files vs 1) then anything else.

    As for not needing the newest release you are right I do not. However I need another driver as chewett mentioned above so I am trying to learn how to build it in myself. This has been a 3 week process and I have to thank Milhouse for showing me how he does the test builds. Almost got it built as soon as I can resolve this curl error.

    why dont you ask for the files used in a link and a tut to build teh image yourself with teh included files and post it ?

    Just Sayin ;)

    Hello,

    there are differences in the two driver versions. They are noticable on the ION/ION2 chipsets and there has been an ongoing discussion about this:

    LibreELEC (with links back to the discussion on the openelec forum)

    FWIW, nouveau works well enough on my revo ION1 box, most issues crop up with live tv, progressive scan content works without problems.


    Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

    Quote from chewitt

    Do you have the nouveau changes in a git repo anywhere?

    Yes, but it's not running LE, so pointing you to GitHub - koenkooi/meta-kodi: The official OpenEmbedded/Yocto Project layer for Kodi would not help much. It's linux 4.7.1 + mesa 12.0.1 + xorg 1.18.4 + xf86-video-nouveau from git and the matching firmwares. I disabled the "prefer vdpau mixer" in kodi as well. From a quick look at the LE git tree it's only missing a package.mk for the xorg driver and the firmware.