nVidia Linux Display Driver is the OpenGL nVidia support for graphic cards on Linux operating systems.

Installation:

Type "sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-177.82-pkg1.run" to install the driver. NVIDIA now provides a utility to assist you with configuration of your X config file.

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

Added support for the following GPUs:

· GeForce G102M
· GeForce GT 220
· GeForce G210
· GeForce G210M
· GeForce GT 230M
· GeForce GT 240M
· GeForce GTS 250M
· GeForce GTS 260M

· Added support for OpenGL 3.2.
· Updated the NVIDIA X driver to allow, on GeForce 8 or greater GPUs, more modes to validate on digital display devices whose EDIDs report very constrained HorizSync or VertRefresh ranges.
· Fixed a randomly occurring X server crash caused by the PixmapCache option.
· Increased the allowed amount of overscan compensation from 100 to 200.
· On GPUs with VDPAU feature set B, VDPAU's handling of some corrupted or incorrectly formatted H.264 and MPEG streams has been improved.
· Fixed a memory allocation problem with pre-GeForce 8 GPUs that caused GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap clients (e.g., Compiz, KDE 4) to display incorrect contents.
· Added support for X.Org xserver 1.6.99.901 (also known as 1.7.0 RC1). Add a new OverscanCompensation NV-CONTROL attribute, available on GeForce 8 and higher. This option specifies the amount of overscan compensation to apply to the current mode. It is measured in raster pixels, i.e. pixels as specified in the current mode's backend timings.
· Added GLX support for OpenGL 3.2 context profiles through the extension
· GLX_ARB_create_context_profile.
· Added support for IgnoreEDIDChecksum X configuration option, which can be used to force the X driver to accept the EDID of a display device even when the checksum is invalid. Please see the README IgnoreEDIDChecksum description for a caution and details of use.
· Added support for configuring the GPU's fan speed; see the "Coolbits" X configuration option in the README.
· Fixed a bug in VDPAU that could cause visible corruption near the bottom edge of the picture when decoding VC-1 simple/main profile clips whose heights are not exact multiples of 16 pixels, on GPUs with VDPAU feature set A.
· On GPUs with VDPAU feature set C, VDPAU now supports decoding MPEG-4 Part 2, DivX 4, and DivX 5 video. The VDPAU API has been enhanced to expose this feature.
· On GPUs with VDPAU feature set C, VDPAU now supports a higher quality video scaling algorithm. The VDPAU API has been enhanced to expose this feature.
· Added code to reject screen modes based on available DisplayPort link bandwidth. Fixes display corruption caused by allowing high bandwidth modes on display devices that can't handle them, such as certain DisplayPort-to-VGA adapters that only support 2 DisplayPort lanes.
· Fixed an initialization problem on some mobile GPUs.
· Worked around X.Org X server Bugzilla bug #22804. This bug allows X clients to send invalid XGetImage requests to the hardware, leading to screen corruption or hangs. This was most commonly triggered by running JDownloader in KDE 4.
· Fixed a crash in nvidia-settings displaying GPU information when in Xinerama.
Added GLX protocol support (i.e., for GLX indirect rendering) for the following OpenGL extensions:

· GL_ARB_draw_buffers
· GL_EXT_Cg_shader
· GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters
· GL_NV_fragment_program
· GL_NV_gpu_program4
· GL_NV_register_combiners
· GL_NV_vertex_program1_1
· GL_NV_vertex_program2

Added unofficial GLX protocol support (i.e., for GLX indirect rendering) for the following OpenGL extensions:

· GL_ARB_geometry_shader4
· GL_ARB_shader_objects
· GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
· GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
· GL_ARB_vertex_shader
· GL_EXT_bindable_uniform
· GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
· GL_EXT_geometry_shader4
· GL_EXT_gpu_shader4
· GL_EXT_texture_buffer_object
· GL_NV_geometry_program4
· GL_NV_vertex_program
· GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object
· GL_NV_vertex_program4

· GLX protocol for GL_EXT_vertex_array was also updated to incorporate rendering using GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object. Use of these extensions with GLX indirect rendering requires the AllowUnofficialGLXProtocol X configuration option and the __GL_ALLOW_UNOFFICIAL_PROTOCOL environment variable.
· Fixed glXQueryVersion to report GLX version 1.4. NVIDIA's GLX version has been 1.4 for several releases, and was already reported as 1.4 in the GLX client and GLX server version strings.
· Fixed a problem that caused window border corruption when the screen is rotated.
· Added support for configuring the GPU PowerMizer Mode on GeForce 8 or later GPUs with multiple performance levels via nvidia-settings and NV-CONTROL.
· Added support for NVIDIA Quadro SDI Capture, part of the Quadro Digital Video Pipeline.
· Updated nvidia-installer to detect newer Debian distributions that use /usr/lib32 instead of /emul/ia32-linux as the 32-bit library path.