[15.04] Upgrading to nvidia drivers from nvidia itself recommended?

[jorritTyb]

Hi, I have a question. Is it a good idea to update to the latest nvidia drivers from nvidia itself? What are the pros and cons of doing that?

I am currently using 304.125 but I have some sluggish window updates. 3D performance seems to be fine but swapping between windows is visually slow (i.e. you can almost see the window updating from top to bottom). I have a GTX 460 btw which should be powerful enough to do fast window updates and I didn't have this problem with kubuntu 13.04

Another problem I have is with chrome. Sometimes chrome 'seems' unresponsive but it appears to be just the window isn't refreshing. All works fine but I can't see anything changing. Even switching tabs doesn't help. What I have to do when this happens is minimize the window and then restore it again. Then it will be fine for some time.

Any suggestions on what I can do?

Thanks,

[Vladlenin5000]

Your question about nvidia drivers has been discussed here and thousands of tutorials over and over again...
Specifically, the cons about installing it directly with the nvidia script are
a) way more difficult to install comparing to other (recommended) methods; and
b) you'll have to do it all over again whenever there's a kernel update.

A few comments;
1. GTX460, according to nvidia, requires 346.59 or later. Your issues are most probably related to the old version (304) you're running.
2. Ubuntu 15.04 can provide out of the box up the 346.xx version (Obs.: the 304 version shouldn't be offered in Ubuntu 15.04, so, how exactly have you managed to install it? -> You may need to reverse what you did before proceeding).
Accessing System Settings > Software & Updates > Additional drivers is the preferred method to install proprietary nvidia drivers. However...
3. If you need or want to try a newer version then the second best choice is adding a PPA to your software sources, do sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get upgrade, before installing the desired version.


Your issue with Chrome is also related (probably) therefore, at the moment, I see no point in troubleshooting that before having the proper nvidia driver running.

[jorritTyb]

The 304 was offered by default on my kubuntu install. I didn't have to do anything to install it. Just select it (because the free xorg driver was selected by default).

I will check your other advice. Thanks for that

I upgraded to 345.59 which was an option I could select and so far all seems ok. I will let you know if further problems come up. Thanks