NVIDIA Making Progress On Server-Side GLVND: Different Drivers For Different X Screens

Written by Michael Larabel in NVIDIA on 23 September 2017 at 05:55 PM EDT. 28 Comments
NVIDIA
While NVIDIA isn't doing much to help out Nouveau, at least the company is contributing to the open-source Linux graphics ecosystem in other ways. In addition to presenting at XDC2017 this week on the Unix device memory allocator API and DeepColor / HDR support, they also presented on server-side GLVND.

Server-side GLVND is separate from the client-side GLVND (OpenGL Vendor Neutral Dispatch Library) that evolved over the past few years and with modern Linux systems is supported both by Mesa and the NVIDIA binary driver. Server-side GLVND can help PRIME laptops and other use-cases like XWayland where potentially dealing with multiple GPU drivers touching X.

Back in July is when NVIDIA published its server-side GLVND implementation. Kyle Brenneman presented on their latest efforts for server-side GLVND to allow for different drivers on different screens while still properly dealing with GLX. Right now the code is in proof-of-concept stage and direct/indirect rendering is working across two screens from different drivers and not needing any client library changes.

There is some hope of seeing server-side GLVND come together for X.Org Server 1.20 in early 2018. Those wanting to see more can check out this PDF slide deck.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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