Now, here we go again
nouveau SUCKS for a lot of people and a lot of cards
I happen to own one of those cards, the intermediate freeze's and total lockups where only a hard reboot is a must every 5 minutes is not what I call a good experience. (it has got better, it doesn't happen every 5 minutes, but still happens) This was even before I attempted to start a game or something simple like firefox, konqueror.
Don't tell me to buy Intel, AMD, or use nouveau, because after all, linux is about choice, not what others preach and this is also the year 2019.
I chose nvidia because I was a ati guy before, but, in the late 90's, ati drivers sucked in linux, as years went by they got even worse for gaming. I am a father/grandfather who does not own a xbox/playstation and don't plan on it in the future, I also won't boot to windows.
A search engine shows (years 2018/2019) what I am saying here is spot on about nouveau.
The times I have been thanked on IRC for having people install the "dreaded nvidia drivers" because their computers freeze and lockup is also proof.
I am all for free software, but, if the developers of "operating systems" can't get some things right, people will move on, maybe move right back to windows or a version of linux that supports proprietary drivers and don't shove the free ones that don't work as good as the proprietary ones down peoples throats .
In time, this will get worse with free drivers (gpu) (linux is on 3-4 % of the world, it doesn't matter)
I, myself would rather use proprietary drivers than going back to windows or buy a card like Intel that can't be used for gaming, the benchmarks (yes, benchmarks are useless) as of today AMD still don't cut it for "gaming" against nvidia and some modern games have problems that nvidia just doesn't have.
You go to any gaming site recently (by the way 2028 is a long ways off, you need to search what that means if you don't already know for graphics cards)
The battle between Nvidia and AMD continue, I know a lot of these guys and I trust the guys that own both cards (the most recent expensive)
Here is detailed explanation
As someone that recently used an AMD card and Nvidia card in the same machine, they aren't wrong.
There are still lots of "Oh, this doesn't work on Mesa yet" or "You need to try doing all these workarounds if you're on Mesa" issues on the open source AMD drivers which isn't an issue on Nvidia.
It's 95% the way there, but that 5% of issues with games simply doesn't exist on the Nvidia side of things. This will disappear in time, but to pretend it doesn't exist right now is misleading people (and me, which really pissed me off when I found all these issues that everyone was silent about on Reddit).
I'm referring purely to gaming here, nothing else.
With ATI, if you pass an invalid arg, or call a method at the wrong time, they will generate the correct error. This sadly leads to a situation where a developer uses an NVidia card for development, ships, and then it won't run on ATI or Intel cards. The upshot is that people incorrectly assume that ATI drivers suck. They don't. Nvidia drivers are the ones that suck!"
The problem is that if you don't have an Nvidia gpu you have games that break now. Forget about 2028. That's all speculation. The fact is you still have games that need workarounds with AMD. There are some people who are willing to accept that but there also those that will not, which is why I think /u/RussianNeuroMancer's post is being needlessly elitist by assuming that everyone using Linux is masochistic enough to buy GPUs that may or may not run the games that they purchase.
I just can't buy a GPU that I am not even sure will work or not. It's a lot of money.
Everyone here is saying we should blindly support AMD even though functionality doesn't work. But that's like backing a Kickstarter.
In the final end, it's all about choice, in my own experience, in everything I have read/researched/followed in todays modern linux, proprietary drivers will always win over free drivers, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
