A month ago NVIDIA had introduced the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) that brought PureVideo-like features to Linux. Our initial benchmarks of this video decoding API within NVIDIA's binary driver were quite favorable as it was able to dramatically cut down on the CPU usage when playing H.264 video files.

Nvidia announced a few days ago, on its forum, a new version of its proprietary driver for the Nvidia graphics cards. Nvidia 195.36.24 adds support for new GPUs, and fixes a few issues. But the most important thing is that Nvidia 195.36.24 has support for X Server 1.8.

It was just two weeks ago that the NVIDIA 180.29 driver was released for Linux and we talked about how NVIDIA had kept pushing out many updates in a short period of time. Well, they didn't stop with the 180.29 release. Available since last night is now the NVIDIA 180.35.

They have even criticized Nvidia specifically for not releasing free drivers. Nvidia responded.

In late August we started asking our readers for any questions they had for NVIDIA about Linux and this graphics company's support of open-source operating systems. Many thanks go out to Andy Ritger for taking the time to answer these questions as well as to NVIDIA's Technical Marketing Manager, Sean Kilbride, for supporting this Q&A.

While there is now DRM support in the Linux 2.6.33 kernel for the Nouveau driver that carries the bits for kernel mode-setting, 2D (EXA) acceleration, and other fundamental functions on NVIDIA graphics processors, the Gallium3D driver still is incomplete. However, a new Mesa DRI driver has emerged for Nouveau that provides *working* 3D support for older NVIDIA hardware.

If you have any (non-tech support) questions about NVIDIA and Linux, ask away! Phoronix will be hosting a Q&A with NVIDIA regarding their Linux graphics driver. If you have any questions to ask, click on the "Comments & Discussion" button below and ask away in our forums. After a few days we will be narrowing down the list of questions before NVIDIA begins answering them.

NVIDIA's open-source Linux efforts as it concerns their GPU support have historically been minimal. The xf86-video-nv driver has been around that provides very basic 2D acceleration and a crippled set of features besides that (no proper RandR 1.2/1.3, KMS, power management, etc) while the code has also been obfuscated to try to protect their intellectual property.

The Nouveau driver has been in development for several years now but with limited developers that are reverse-engineering NVIDIA's GPUs and there being no public documentation or support from NVIDIA, it has taken quite a while to come up with a reputable open-source driver that supports all of NVIDIA's hardware.