Accelerated nVidia Drivers for FreeBSD

zero0w writes "nVidia has released the official OpenGL accelerated driver set for FreeBSD 4.7 STABLE. Check out the nVidia Driver page for more detail. According to the page, this release should be considered as initial beta. So don't count on it to build a day-to-day production system, yet."

Great! But...

[CheeseCow]

...the question is, will my games run faster on FreeBSD?

--
Regards,
CheeseCow

Does BSD for games make sense?

[Max Romantschuk]

I'm the kind of person who likes to run Windows for games and multimedia, and Linux for server stuff.

It has been under my impression that BSD development is even more focused on server side and ultra stable solutions.

Of course drivers make sense to use X on BSD, but what about games? Does it pay off to keep BSD for games, or is it simpler to use Linux/Windows for gaming? Just wondering, I guess :)

Will it work with FreeBSD 5.0 and later?

[Leimy]

I haven't been running FreeBSD now for almost a month because my job is linux related and the more familiar I am with it the better I do.

I wasn't planning to use FreeBSD again until 5.0 got released which I *think* is slated for the end of the month still [whether it makes it or not is a different situation].

Anyway I hope this driver continues to work on later FreeBSDs as it was a major bummer to not have it the last 2 years I ran this OS.

Re:Source code... nVidia...

[Anonymous Coward]

#include
#include

hresult winmain() ...
}

Just try to run /usr/bin/strings on the Linux binary driver... You'll find several registry keys in it (Yes, the windows registry).

Porting 3D apps to FreeBSD

[zero0w]

If the FreeBSD driver proves to be stable and reliable, does it make sense for Aliaswavefront and Softimage to port their 3D packages to FreeBSD? After all FreeBSD is a very stable OS suitable for such task.

License agreement

[Markus Landgren]

They also forgot to port the license agreement to FreeBSD.

2.1.1 Rights. Customer may install and use one copy of the SOFTWARE on a single computer, and except for making one back-up copy of the Software, may not otherwise copy the SOFTWARE. This LICENSE of SOFTWARE may not be shared or used concurrently on different computers.

2.1.2 Linux Exception. Notwithstanding the foregoing terms of Section 2.1.1, SOFTWARE designed exclusively for use on the Linux operating system may be copied and redistributed, provided that the binary files thereof are not modified in any way (except for unzipping of compressed files).

...and no sign of FreeBSD.

Petition

[TJPile]

THANK YOU!
Now I need to wait until November 20th for (hopefully) FreeBSD 5.0 release. That and the nVidia drivers should run well on my dual machine. I guess the petition worked.

Re:FreeBSD drivers instead of for Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read through the readme file I believe you would find the motivation for this development.

"
(app-d) APPENDIX D: CREDITS

The port of the NVIDIA driver to FreeBSD is due in no small part to
the many contributions of Christian Zander
and Matthew M. Dodd ."

There was a grassroots effort to make the drivers without the help of nVidia and they decided to step up to the plate and help.

Way to support the community nVidia! I'll be buying your next gen card. Sorry ATI.

what about other BSDs?

[Hythlodaeus]

I don't know anything about any differences in how the BSDs handle drivers, so I'll ask, how much work would it take to make these nVidia drivers run under NetBSD or OpenBSD?

Re:FreeBSD != Linux

[evilviper]

S3 texture compression is patented and closed source, so no open source drivers can enable it even if they know how

Correction... No GPL'd driver can enable it even if they know how. There's no reason a BSD driver couldn't be released, and simply leave it up to the user to handle the patent/license issues if required in their locale.

But that doesn't really matter much to me. I am quite willing to reject any programs that use patented technologies, or otherwise does not operate on a decent OS.