Nvidia drivers are a joke

[Scott Deagan]

It's now 2018, and I agree with the OP - Nvidia drivers on Linux are pretty bad. I'm not talking about the number of pixels an Nvidia card can push to the screen per second. I'm talking more about just every day desktop usage. With Nvidia proprietary drivers, animations stutter, scrolling in browsers isn't "pixel-perfect" smooth. It's as though the Nvidia drivers are glitchy - either that, or my GTX 1070 is glitchy.

I have an z97 motherboard with an Intel i7-4790, which has the HD 4600 iGPU. Most of the time, I'm using the iGPU instead of the dGPU (the GTX 1070) because the iGPU feels so much more responsive and smooth.

Here's a simple test:

1. Open Firefox.
2. Go to Google and click on the "Images" link.
3. Do an image search for something (e.g. "Linux").
4. Click down on the middle mouse button to enable auto-scroll.
5. Move the mouse cursor about 1cm below the circle that appears.
6. Let go of the mouse and observe as the page scrolls downwards.

When using the Nvidia GPU, it "stutters" (janks) every now and then. I call these "micro-stutters". It really ruins the user experience.

When using the Intel GPU, repeating the same test results in super smooth scrolling.

If I'm doing anything CUDA related ("deep learning" etc) or if I need to record at 60 frames per second, I'll switch to the Nvidia drivers (using: sudo prime-select nvidia and then rebooting). For every day use though, I'll always use the Intel integrated GPU because it makes for a much better experience.

[VMC]

My older PC now can't use nvidia. It stopped right after the end of last year December 2017. So is nouveau or nothing. I had to adjust. I know what programs to watch out for, which ones I can change settings so my PC won't freeze.
It all started after kernel 15. I have an older legacy nvidia chip. Its just that technology moves on. I'm very glad that nouveau works as good as it does.

So I tend to agree that bellyaching isn't going to help. Find a solution, a work around.