On Sat, Dec 6, 2025 at 2:15 PM Tomoaki AOKI <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi. > > As some may noticed, there is new Beta Branch of nvidia drivers > 590.44.01 upstream. > > https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/258753/ > > This version itself would not hit the ports tree, as -devel variant > of our nvidia driver ports are for New Feature Branch (NFB). > Whichever newer version of NFB or Productuon Branch (PB) of drivers > sits there, not Beta. > > What's noticabully important is that this new Beta drops a singinifcant > amount of old GPUs, predate Turing generation of architectures which > don't have GSP (GPU System Processor) in them. And in its README, > > > https://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/FreeBSD-x86_64/590.44.01/README/supportedchips.html > > 580 series are noted as legacy driver, means, it would be kept on > maintained at least for a while like 470 series, without new GPU > supports / features added. > > https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142 > > https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/legacy-gpu/ > > > And some may already noticed, 3xx series of legacy drivers are already > EoL'ed upstream since the end of Dec., 2022. > Why we still have 3xx variants of child ports in-tree is just because > > *upstream tarballs are still available and buildable, > > *no CVEs stating "wouldn't be fixed" cannot be found for them, > > *and these are the last versions that supports i386. > > > Our current plan is as follows. > > 1. Once NFB based on 590 series or later is released, upgrade > -devel variant of child (slave) ports for it. > > 2. Once PB based on 590 series or later is released, upgrade > master ports and create new legacy variant of child ports. -580. > > 3. Once upstream tarball dissappears or CVEs that wouldn't be fixed > arises, relevant legacy port would be removed from ports tree. > > Step 1 could be skipped, if nvidia releases PB without releasing NFB > first. (NFB prior to PB is NOT promised!) > > Step 3 could be done immediately both on latest (aka main) and > on quarterly at once if the reason is "security". > > But as we cannot know when 3xx series of drivers dissappear, > no DEPRECATED are set. > > > So, > For users running 580 series with pre-Turing GPUs: > Prepare for transition to upcoming -580 legacy branch. > Don't attempt to test 590.44.01 by overriding version. > > For users running any of -304, -340 or -390 slave ports: > Consider replacing your GPUs to anything to-be-supportted > or transitioning to gneeric x11-drivers/xf86-video-scfb > (for UEFI boots) or x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa (for legacy BIOS > boots). > are adviced. > > > Note that new Beta is the trigger for us to start investigating > for future upgrades on NFB and/or PB drivers. > > Currently, confirmed that 590.44.01 can be built / packaged > sanely by overriding version as usual. > Running fine on Minisforum MS-01 with RTX A400 with iGPU disabled. > (Xorg only, not tested on Wayland, using nvidia-drm-66-kmod-devel). > > Would investigate further if there are additional components > to be installed or not. > > Regards. > > -- > Tomoaki AOKI <[email protected]>
Thank you TA for heads up and really amazing support of the nvidia drivers packages and all related ports!! :-) Hopefully the 590 will finally bring CUDA support to RTX50 series (I noticed they mark RTX5070 as RTX50 series 5000 is for some older cards) :-P Regarding this new driver I noticed on windoze one problem - when PCI-E is set to x8 and Gen5 there is a problem with that driver the screen gets blank on driver load. I am using another part of x8 PCI-e Gen5 route for nvme controller. This may affect someone on the BSD so I am sharing my experience already. After several reboots my mobo (TUF GAMING Z890-PRO WIFI) detected a problem and brought back PCI-E to Gen3 that helped. Then I set Gen4 and all works. On Gen5 does not. I have reinstalled windoze and this problem got back here but only after nvidia driver install. I have also upgraded mobo bios 2006 -> 2207 -> 2401. On FreeBSD I am using nvidia-driver-devel-580.105.08.1403000 and the problems was not here, so this seems closely related to the new driver, maybe they know it already and will fix soon. Regarding the older 300 series drivers maybe it would be good to place source packages somewhere on our local mirror so the older cards are still supported instead of deprecating working hardware? I have some small old nvidia card in my local server it works really great for local activities (much better than scfb) :-) Thank you again! :-) Tomek -- CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info
