Dedicated Nvidia GPU
Having a dedicated graphics processing unit ( GPU or graphics card ), boosts graphics performance significantly, especially when playing 3d games. Nvidia GPUs are very popular on desktop computers and they work very well on linux, as drivers are available from Nvidia.
It is necessary to install the right drivers to ensure proper utilisation GPU. Otherwise the performance would be limited, or totally unused.
Nouveau - the default driver
For Nvidia GPUs, the Nouveau driver becomes active by default. Nouveau is the open source driver for Nvidia GPUs.
Check it with the lspci command.
$ lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller : NVIDIA Corporation GT218 (rev a2) (prog-if 00 )
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable)
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable)
I/O ports at 2000
Expansion ROM at e3080000
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
The last line indicates the kernel driver in use, which is nouveau over here. However with the Nouveau driver the gpu cannot perform to its full potential and features like hardware 3d acceleration would be unavailable or limited.
The official nvidia drivers would make...
Read full post here
How to install the latest Nvidia drivers on Linux Mint 16 Petra
Having a dedicated graphics processing unit ( GPU or graphics card ), boosts graphics performance significantly, especially when playing 3d games. Nvidia GPUs are very popular on desktop computers and they work very well on linux, as drivers are available from Nvidia.
It is necessary to install the right drivers to ensure proper utilisation GPU. Otherwise the performance would be limited, or totally unused.
Nouveau - the default driver
For Nvidia GPUs, the Nouveau driver becomes active by default. Nouveau is the open source driver for Nvidia GPUs.
Check it with the lspci command.
$ lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller : NVIDIA Corporation GT218 (rev a2) (prog-if 00 )
Subsystem: ZOTAC International (MCO) Ltd. Device
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable)
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable)
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable)
I/O ports at 2000
Expansion ROM at e3080000
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
The last line indicates the kernel driver in use, which is nouveau over here. However with the Nouveau driver the gpu cannot perform to its full potential and features like hardware 3d acceleration would be unavailable or limited.
The official nvidia drivers would make...
Read full post here
How to install the latest Nvidia drivers on Linux Mint 16 Petra