[Lunar-commits] r26853 - in moonbase/trunk/x11: NVIDIA NVIDIA-beta

[Zbigniew Luszpinski]

Tuesday 20 of November 2007 07:44:54 samuel wrote:
> I thought NVIDIA-beta was for beta's.....

That's right. But for beta in other meaning: build script is beta.
The NVIDIA module uses binary installer blob and NVIDIA-beta uses our own, 
open source installer written by me (no binary blob at all :) ). This build 
script is beta because I did not tested it with xorg6 or other less popular 
environments (64bit). After testing it can be merged to NVIDIA and then 
NVIDIA-beta might be deleted.
Thanks to our own open source installer an user is not forced to exit X when 
NVIDIA is lined (as it happens with binary blob).

Now driver update:
There is no difference between beta and production version of Nvidia driver 
from technical point of view (both kinds of release is the same level buggy 
or not). When something cool appears which makes users say wow! the beta is 
released to speed up release (official releases must wait for VIP decision, 
long testing, betas not). In this case there are few important features:
    * Added support for GeForce 8800 GT.
    * Improved modesetting support on Quadro/GeForce 8 series GPUs.
    * Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 8 series GPUs.
    * Fixed stability problems with some GeForce 6200/7200/7300 GPUs 
multi-core/SMP systems.
    * Improved hotkey switching support for some Lenovo notebooks.
    * Fixed a problem with Compiz after VT-switching.
    * Improved RENDER performance.
    * Improved interaction with Barco and Chi Mei 56" DFPs, as well as with 
some Gateway 19" DFPs.
    * Added an interface to monitor PowerMizer state information.
    * Fixed rendering corruption in Maya's Graph Editor.
    * Improved interaction between SLI AFR and swap groups on certain Quadro 
FX GPUs.
    * Fixed a bug that caused corruption with redirected XV on GPUs without 
TurboCache support.
    * Improved display device detection on GeForce 8 series GPUs.
    * Improved usability of NVIDIA-settings at lower resolutions like 1024x768 
and 800x600.
    * Improved GLX visual consolidation when using Xinerama with 
Quadro/GeForce 8 series and older GPUs.
    * Added experimental support for running the X server at Depth 30 (10 bits 
per component) on Quadro G8x and later GPUs.
    * Worked around a Linux kernel/toolchain bug that caused soft lockup 
errors when suspending on some Intel systems.

Due to massive improvements and support for new hardware I decided to bump 
both modules. As I said this beta is rock solid (tested since 4 days: 
2D,3D,XRender,Xv,XvMC) so risk is very low and support for the most new GPUs 
might be important to some users (not mentioning improved desktop comfort 
thanks to real XRender accel).

BTW: 100.14.23 version is also unofficial beta. If you want to have official 
release you have to revert to 100.14.19. Check nvidia.com site :-)

I hope this clears the confusion about beta difference.
zbiggy