Sadly, I no longer have that computer, nor the Index.
Yay burglary!
But disregarding that… Nvidia, at least in the past, the timeframe I built that PC in and before… just tended to not work as well on Linux, because AMD has always open sourced… almost all? literally all? … of their driver code… and has done so for far longer and to a greater degree than Nvidia has.
That means it can much more rapidly be integrated into working well with the Linux kernel and various GPU driver libraries… where as with Nvidia, a lot of their drivers were closed source for quote a long time, and only work at their max efficiency/performancr on proprietary OS’s… untill someone working on Linux driver compatibility reverse engineered some new feature or optimization in a new driver/hardware design paradigm.
However, it does seem that more recently, as in, basically 6 months after I built that PC…, Nvidia is better supporting Linux with more open source code, though the opensource Nvidia drivers still don’t seem to have the backwards compatibility with many older or more niche Nvidia GPUs.
I’ve been dabbling with linux and gaming on linux for… a little over a decade, and for the vast majority of that time, before Proton was a thing, you basically only had WINE, or VMs, and you had to install a proprietary, closed source Nvidia Linux kernel, and drivers, to get an Nvidia GPU to do basically anything 3d on Linux … and uh whew, nothing like fucking up a kernel migration to teach you how little you actually understand about computers, lol.
Either way, I am genuinely glad Nvidia + Linux is generally working well for you and totally understand the expense of any new GPU not being justifiable right now… yay tariffs and supply shortages and third party mfgs hiking up specs and prices, yay scalpers, etc etc…
… though yes it is odd that VR isn’t working as well, that could possibly be from … some Linux Nvidia driver feature that hasn’t yet been implemented or optimized… or it could possibly be the drivers for your VR headset itself? Or maybe just the game you’re trying to run in Linux needs a patch, or Proton needs to catch up to it?
Could be a bunch of things.
…
As to the AMD CPU + GPU synergy… I’m not sure how it could really qualify for an antitrust lawsuit… but either way:
Smart Access Memory has evolved since this article, but it explains a bit about CPU GPU synergy:
And then just here’s a bunch of AMDs own brief descriptions of many other ‘Smart’ features, though many of these are geared toward AMD laptops… though some of them also help with making even desktops a bit more power (as in wattage draw) efficient, as well as helping to better manage heat, and thus also fan noise, and thus also OC capabilities.
All these things together do have admittedly fairly minor improvements vs say an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system, or Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU system of approximately equivalent cost… but they can become significant factors if you are trying to squeeze the absolute max performance out of a strict budget limit, or smaller form factor, or maximize something like ‘fps in a given game at given graphical settings per watt draw’ or ‘per dollar spent’.
Sadly, I no longer have that computer, nor the Index.
Yay burglary!
But disregarding that… Nvidia, at least in the past, the timeframe I built that PC in and before… just tended to not work as well on Linux, because AMD has always open sourced… almost all? literally all? … of their driver code… and has done so for far longer and to a greater degree than Nvidia has.
That means it can much more rapidly be integrated into working well with the Linux kernel and various GPU driver libraries… where as with Nvidia, a lot of their drivers were closed source for quote a long time, and only work at their max efficiency/performancr on proprietary OS’s… untill someone working on Linux driver compatibility reverse engineered some new feature or optimization in a new driver/hardware design paradigm.
However, it does seem that more recently, as in, basically 6 months after I built that PC…, Nvidia is better supporting Linux with more open source code, though the opensource Nvidia drivers still don’t seem to have the backwards compatibility with many older or more niche Nvidia GPUs.
https://www.howtogeek.com/805004/nvidia-releases-open-source-linux-gpu-drivers-with-a-catch/
https://www.guru3d.com/story/nvidia-announces-transition-to-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
I’ve been dabbling with linux and gaming on linux for… a little over a decade, and for the vast majority of that time, before Proton was a thing, you basically only had WINE, or VMs, and you had to install a proprietary, closed source Nvidia Linux kernel, and drivers, to get an Nvidia GPU to do basically anything 3d on Linux … and uh whew, nothing like fucking up a kernel migration to teach you how little you actually understand about computers, lol.
Either way, I am genuinely glad Nvidia + Linux is generally working well for you and totally understand the expense of any new GPU not being justifiable right now… yay tariffs and supply shortages and third party mfgs hiking up specs and prices, yay scalpers, etc etc…
… though yes it is odd that VR isn’t working as well, that could possibly be from … some Linux Nvidia driver feature that hasn’t yet been implemented or optimized… or it could possibly be the drivers for your VR headset itself? Or maybe just the game you’re trying to run in Linux needs a patch, or Proton needs to catch up to it?
Could be a bunch of things.
…
As to the AMD CPU + GPU synergy… I’m not sure how it could really qualify for an antitrust lawsuit… but either way:
Smart Access Memory has evolved since this article, but it explains a bit about CPU GPU synergy:
https://graphicsreport.com/smart-access-memory/
And then just here’s a bunch of AMDs own brief descriptions of many other ‘Smart’ features, though many of these are geared toward AMD laptops… though some of them also help with making even desktops a bit more power (as in wattage draw) efficient, as well as helping to better manage heat, and thus also fan noise, and thus also OC capabilities.
https://www.amd.com/en/gaming/technologies/smart-technologies.html
All these things together do have admittedly fairly minor improvements vs say an AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU system, or Intel CPU + Nvidia GPU system of approximately equivalent cost… but they can become significant factors if you are trying to squeeze the absolute max performance out of a strict budget limit, or smaller form factor, or maximize something like ‘fps in a given game at given graphical settings per watt draw’ or ‘per dollar spent’.