Provide runtimes for beta NVidia drivers

[tannisroot]

Since NVidia offers beta drivers with things like new Vulkan extensions, which are sometimes required to run games through DXVK (used in Steam), it would be very nice if Flathub could offer runtimes for these drivers.

[TingPing]

Moving forward I think this is the best solution for beta drivers: https://blog.tingping.se/2018/08/26/flatpak-host-extensions.html

At some point there are just too many versions to package.

[Shished]

Also there is no runtime for the current beta driver (not vulkan dev version) 410.57.

[chui2ch]

To fix the issue on my end I should use FLATPAK_GL_DRIVERS=host? Or do I need to know the path to the drivers on Ubuntu?

[TingPing]

@chui2ch You have to actually package them, it won't just work. See my link above for more details.

[chui2ch]

@TingPing I went to the link, but to be honest I don't understand what I am supposed to do. Would it be possible for you to dumb it down for me?

[TingPing]

Not really, it is a technical detail for packagers, none of this is intended for users.

[chui2ch]

OK, so as a user at this time if I want to use the Beta drivers I should avoid flatpak?

[TingPing]

Sadly we don't have a better answer atm so maybe (for GL using applications).

[chui2ch]

@TingPing Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!

[tannisroot]

Can runtime be added for 415.18.02?
Now, I understand that usually you don't package GL runtime for these dev drivers, but this one contains Vulkan transform feedback extension that is required by DXVK (used in Valve's Proton) to make quite a lot of games function properly, and it is not yet present in mainstream drivers.
So now, users have to either stick to mainstream driver and not be able to play their games, or abandon using Flatpak.
So if it's possible, it would be awesome to make an exception here.

[TingPing]

Seems like the normal download URLs don't work for beta releases: https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/415.18.02/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-415.18.02-no-compat32.run

Perhaps you know of a usable one?

[tannisroot]

@TingPing yeah, this one: https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-beta-4151802-linux

[tannisroot]

@TingPing, heads up, there is a newer one available now, 415.18.04, which fixes a regression in Unity games (also present in regular 415.18).

[TingPing]

I'll change this to patches welcomed.

Somebody needs to update the download script to understand Vulkan beta versions and update it every time a new release comes out.

[nanonyme]

The naive approach would probably be to just add one more retry there with the developer address.

[TingPing]

Beta versions are now published.