The Bazzite FAQ states:
Graphics driver performance is also a mixed bag. AMD GPUs are objectively better on Bazzite versus Windows, but Nvidia GPUs are objectively worse.
Where is the data that quantifies “objectively better” and “objectively worse”?
How much is “better”? How much is “worse”?
To which version of Windows was this comparison made? Which version of Bazzite was used for the comparison?
Nvidia has closed source drivers on Linux, and yes they’re also closed source on Windows too (while AMD and Intel GPU drivers have open source ones on Linux). Nvidia drivers and Wayland do not get along and only have recently improved. Nvidia cannot use Waydroid, Steam Gaming Mode, and has unique issues with each driver release. I’m not going to say regressions don’t happen on AMD GPUs, but it seems every Nvidia driver release fixes one issue and introduces other issues.
I sincerely feel that AMD is worse on Windows (especially since Windows Update has a habit of uninstalling their drivers) and much better on Linux. Nvidia’s drivers seem to be intended for machine learning and labs as their only focus while desktop users are put to the backburner. There’s an initiative to reverse engineer Nvidia’s drivers which is funded by a ton of Linux friendly corporations including Red Hat and Valve.
Latest stable versions for both. Windows 11 (23H2) and Bazzite “3.7.0” (40.20240914).
Edit: So my data is based on my own experience owning both newer AMD GPUs and Nvidia GPUs and using the Linux desktop, and the reports from our users where the issues were traced to drivers.
Thanks. You mentioned that Nvidia and Wayland do not get along and only have recently improved. Doesn’t Bazzite use Wayland? If so, is Bazzite reliable with Nvidia cards? How can it be with Nvidia and Wayland not getting along?
For Nvidia systems, is it better to just use Fedora with Gnome, which uses X11, instead of using Bazzite? Will this be even more the case with Fedora 41 now making Nvidia driver installation so easy?
BTW, I was using Fedora 40 KDE Plasma, and I found it crashed all the time, likely due to Wayland. I then carefully followed instructions to install the closed-source Nvidia drivers, and crash problems surprisingly got worse.
I’m using Wayland with an Nvidia GPU and KDE Plasma with great success.
You can choose either Wayland or X11 for your session on the login screen.
Thanks for the feedback. Which Nvidia GPU are you using with Bazzite?