Nvidia situation for Maxwell and Pascal GPUs

Support Graphics & Display
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So, first of all: if this post is not allowed, I am sorry. But I believe that it can be a good source of info to owners of Nvidia GPUs from Maxwell and Pascal architectures.

I am using a GTX 1050 Ti currently on 580xx drivers, and my last stable update is dated from 2025-09-26. Tried to keep my system up to date but the latest Nvidia drivers broke my system. And open drivers honestly are NOT a option. I will hurry up to buy a new GPU from AMD, Nvidia support is becoming terrible on Linux, even on Manjaro.

Anyway, looking for some help, I tried a post support, and search for some in this forum

As you can see, even downgrade to 570xx or 575xx still don’t solve the problem for some guys.

And, Nvidia clearly don’t care about give decente support to Linux, and not just that: seems that the support for older cards is getting worse.

So, in this post, if allowed, I like to question how you, user of Pascal/Maxwell GPU is dealing with recent updates, to help another users (like me)…

Honestly I can’t deal with Nvidia anymore. Hope that I can buy a AMD GPU soon. If you can do that, I highly recommend just go for it…

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Interestingly, this article was in my RSS reader when I booted up my PC this morning:

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I just installed 575xx-dkms and it worked like a charm. (Also having a GTX 1050 Ti)

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Yes, I took a look on that.

But right now Manjaro team still on 580xx, not 590xx, and I believe that before that move, users from “old” (a 1xxx it is not really old, but ok) GPUs will have some support from the team.

Shame to Nvidia…

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Man, what procedure do you use?

I tried some thinks but it broke everything.

Are you on what DE? Using Wayland?

Hope this can help me and others.

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I’m on KDE Plasma and wayland yes ofcourse, I’m using Manjaro ‘s flagship :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s late night for me and I’m in bed atm, but I’ll try to help on you cause you seem in a rush, but know this, I’m typing the procedures out my head from my phone, so take package namings with a grain of salt:

So uninstall nvidia driver from manjaro hardware manager (mhwd), if it complains unmet dependencies, you need resolve them manually (it’s different for everyone due to different use cases)… So uninstalled? Ok, dont reboot yet. Now look for header for installed kernel and install it (eg if u use 6.18 kernel then install linux618-header). Now look for package name like nvidia 575xx dkms and install it. Reboot. Profit.

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I just use the nouveau driver. My laptop that has the old nVidia card works just fine, for my use, on Wayland.

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There are two issues:

  1. Manjaro uses mhwd to detect the hardware and installs a driver based on a database. However it won’t recheck if the driver is still supporting the hardware.
  2. in the past each driver series had its own profile and the user had to use mhwd to switch driver series. That meant if you had 570xx drivers and we still supporting them you had to manually remove the driver and explicitly change to 575xx for example. Some users wanted a more rolling Nvidia driver.

So if we put out a fresh ISO in 2026 with 590xx, 575xx driver the maxwell would land on 575xx in that case. And now the bugger: 575xx is not supported by Nvidia, 570xx might for a while.

Concussion: if your card is designed for games no support by Nvidia, cos AI and corporate is the target of the biz now …

In the end Linus might had been right:

For us as distro maintainers it is always a dance on egg shells as people expect solid drivers but new features and longterm support for things might had cost a fortune once. Unless there are real FOSS drivers you might only expect 6 months support, if the driver might leave beta stage at all …

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A list of issues a gnome user posted:

Plasma and XFCE might have additional ones

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For gaming Nouveau is not a option: tried this month and even on light games was Minecraft, for example, it not work great.

Ok, understood.

So, to a user of Gnome/Wayland with a 10xx GPU, the best way right now is move to 575xx and then hope for FOSS drivers or get a AMD GPU, right?

The correct procedure for me, that is 2 stable updates behind (because update just broke my system), is change to 575xx before ou after update?

So, being very direct: even with hard work, Manjaro team is not able to extend the support and usability of a 10xx GPU because Nvidia just screw with us, owners of “old” GPUs, right?

And the best real advice in the end of the day is buy a AMD GPU in the next months, I guess…

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The RAM and AI bubble will hike all prices. Also for GPUs regardless of the manufacturer. In regards of drivers. I’m in contact with AMD engineers via DMs as our products are based on AMD, like the OrangePi Neo. I also see better support and faster help from AMD than NVIDIA. Simply check their issue tracker and when which issue gets fixed: AMD Issue tracker. Also the upcoming Steam Machine is AMD based …

Simply put: NVIDIA doesn’t care about old already sold GPUs and hardware they might need to support to let them still work. Legacy drivers simply stop working and the community is doing NVIDIAs job. Look at 470xx series: joanbm’s gists · GitHub

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My concern is time. I need 2 more months to buy a new AMD GPU. But my fear is that the crisis make the GPU more expensive.

So, I made some question to what driver should I move or how to deal with stable updates delayed. I am not looking for a definitive solution. Just one for the next 2 months.

Really need some help in this.

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i have updated this topic

status 31 december are

470xx serie working X11 but no games ( error DX11 )
570xx and 575xx not working ( no module nvidia build , not loaded )
580xx-dkms can work ( flicking under X11 ) , game ok , not wayland ( mixed screen game with bar control wayland )

other way is nouveau , in this case no good result in game.

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I think we should focus on the real issue and check if mhwd suggests wrong drivers

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Users with older cards should check if they have the proper drivers installed on their system:

$ sudo pacman -Sy nvidia-driver-assistant
$ nvidia-driver-assistant
Detected GPUs:
  GeForce GT 740A - (pci_id 0x1292)

Detected system:
  Manjaro Linux 

Please copy and paste the following command to install the legacy kernel module flavour:
  sudo pacman -S linux618-nvidia-470xx
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For general use, not gaming:

sudo mhwd -i pci video-nvidia-470xx
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More info on how to participate here: Boot Issue with NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti on Recent Manjaro ISOs - Diagnostic Summary - #19 by philm

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I game on this PC, so 470xx should have some problems.

I probably will go red team, very tired of Nvidia problems.

But it is a way, certainly.

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for mhwd this will be ok

sudo mhwd -d -l
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> PCI Device: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:07:00.0 (0300:10de:13c2)
  Display controller nVidia Corporation GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  > AVAILABLE:

   NAME:	video-nvidia-575xx
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2025.09.29
   INFO:	Closed source NVIDIA 575xx drivers for linux.
   PRIORITY:	6
   FREEDRIVER:	false
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	video*nvidia* 
   CLASSIDS:	0300 0302 
   VENDORIDS:	10de 

   NAME:	video-nvidia-570xx
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2025.09.29
   INFO:	Closed source NVIDIA 570xx drivers for linux.
   PRIORITY:	5
   FREEDRIVER:	false
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	video*nvidia* 
   CLASSIDS:	0300 0302 
   VENDORIDS:	10de 

   NAME:	video-nvidia-470xx
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2023.03.23
   INFO:	Closed source NVIDIA drivers for linux.
   PRIORITY:	4
   FREEDRIVER:	false
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	video*nvidia* 
   CLASSIDS:	0300 0302 
   VENDORIDS:	10de 

   NAME:	video-nvidia-390xx
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2023.03.23
   INFO:	Closed source NVIDIA drivers for linux.
   PRIORITY:	3
   FREEDRIVER:	false
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	video*nvidia* 
   CLASSIDS:	0300 0302 
   VENDORIDS:	10de 

   NAME:	video-linux
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2024.05.06
   INFO:	Standard open source drivers.
   PRIORITY:	2
   FREEDRIVER:	true
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	-
   CLASSIDS:	0300 0380 0302 
   VENDORIDS:	1002 8086 10de 

   NAME:	video-modesetting
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2020.01.13
   INFO:	X.org modesetting video driver.
   PRIORITY:	1
   FREEDRIVER:	true
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	-
   CLASSIDS:	0300 
   VENDORIDS:	* 

   NAME:	video-vesa
   ATTACHED:	PCI
   VERSION:	2017.03.12
   INFO:	X.org vesa video driver.
   PRIORITY:	0
   FREEDRIVER:	true
   DEPENDS:	-
   CONFLICTS:	-
   CLASSIDS:	0300 
   VENDORIDS:	*

for nvidia driver assistant

nvidia-driver-assistant 
Detected GPUs:
  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 - (pci_id 0x13C2)

Detected system:
  Manjaro Linux 

Please copy and paste the following command to install the legacy kernel module flavour:
  sudo pacman -S linux618-nvidia-580xx

i dont see any legacy 580xx by nvidia

report hwinfo with 580xx-dkms

hwinfo --gfxcard
22: PCI 700.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)             
  [Created at pci.395]
  Unique ID: aK5u.pd+v0+LPvs6
  Parent ID: w+J7.mexhps_MX6B
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.1/0000:07:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:07:00.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "nVidia GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]"
  Vendor: pci 0x10de "nVidia Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x13c2 "GM204 [GeForce GTX 970]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x3842 "eVga.com. Corp."
  SubDevice: pci 0x3975 
  Revision: 0xa1
  Driver: "nvidia"
  Driver Modules: "nvidia"
  Memory Range: 0xfb000000-0xfbffffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xe0000000-0xe1ffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xe000-0xe07f (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xfc000000-0xfc07ffff (ro,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 108 (265361 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v000010DEd000013C2sv00003842sd00003975bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: nouveau is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nouveau"
  Driver Info #1:
    Driver Status: nova_core is not active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nova_core"
  Driver Info #2:
    Driver Status: nvidia_drm is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia_drm"
  Driver Info #3:
    Driver Status: nvidia is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe nvidia"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #7 (PCI bridge)

Primary display adapter: #22
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So, I did NOT mark any response was the solution, because there ir no solution.

If you have a Nvidia GPU from 10xx or older, you are basically by your own. 470xx driver it is too old, nouveau is terrible for gaming.

So, made yourself a favor: buy a damn AMD gpu (or Intel if you have the guts).

Manjaro team basically can’t do anything (I am not being rude, but that’s the true), and the only part that could do anything is Nvidia. But they won’t.

That’s all folks. Thanks Manjaro team for the work, but in this situation there is nothing to be done.

From myself: I will delay December and January stable updates, put my hand on some AMD card and then update, hoping don’t braking everything.

Happy 2026 to everyone.

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