Are Open Source graphics drivers better than proprietary drivers in certain applications?

Question

I have an elderly laptop with a GeForce 9300M graphics chip. I don't game on it, but I want a smooth desktop experience with Unity. In my situation specifically, are the open source drivers better than the proprietary Nvidia ones? Or is the only reason for the open source drivers to exist them being open source? I'm also writing OpenCL applications. Can I use my GeForces stream processors for OpenCL with the open source drivers?

Update: by better, I mean in terms of reliability, energy efficiency and performance on the Desktop, in GPU computing, and out of curiosity also in gaming.

Solution 1

Most of the open source drivers you'll find may produce better graphical output than the proprietary do. Sometimes you won't even notice a difference. And sometimes an open source driver works much worse than the proprietary one. I will not make a general recommendation on which to use, but here are some cases, in which certain drivers are better than others:

• If you have a nVidia card with Optimus, you should install the open source driver from the Bumblebee Project. This is the only driver supporting Optimus on Linux. you should either install the open source driver from the Bumblebee Project, or any nVidia proprietary driver, but not the Xorg driver, as it currently doesn't support discrete graphics.
• If you want to use CUDA (nVidia's stuff for executing functions on the GPU), you should use the proprietary driver.
• If you want to use OpenCL (something like CUDA, developed by Khronos), you have to use the proprietary driver.

If none of these applies to you, it's up to you which driver you use. If you don't have any problems with the current driver, I wouldn't change it. You never know whether another one will even work at all. However, if you want to take the risk, try the drivers suggested in Software & Updates → Additional Drivers and find out which one works best.

Solution 2

My understanding is that the nVidia drivers are significantly better at 3D acceleration and shading, but are about the same as the open source drivers for 2D applications.

See this comparison for some concrete benchmarks. Proprietary (usually) beats open source in terms of performance. That being said, upgrading is significantly easier and more streamlined using the open source.

See the nouveau Feature Matrix for more specific information (your card would use the "NV50" family of drivers). According to that table, OpenCL support for your card is "Stalled".

Comments

[Charles Green]

This is a tough question as it asks for opinions rather than straight facts. I use open source drivers, although not the ones from Canonical, and find them quite dependable. I believe that the proprietary drivers may be faster and more power efficient, but I have seen several questions related to the proprietary drivers breaking during upgrades.

[Andreas Hartmann]

I updated the question so that it doesn't feel like an opinion question anymore. Feel free to edit it if you think it can be improved further.

[Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com]

Related: askubuntu.com/questions/164782/…

[Kaz Wolfe]

Gamng will show a difference, though.

[terdon]

This is useful info, +1. Could you add a reference for your claims?

[Peter Teoh]

This is very useful: APU claims in particular. I have APU for sometime, but don't even know there is any performance improvement potential. As I have tried fglrx before, but failed miserably: ending with reinstalling entire OS again. will try again :-).

[webduvet]

my rather oldish thinkad works much better with open source driver than with the one from nvidia. I don't know about raw performance in 3D, but generally it feels more stable and reliable when it comes to day to day tasks like close/open lid, sleep/wake up, run VM etc.