For NVIDIA users with GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs (e.g., 4060, 4090), it finally supports Smooth Motion frame generation for better gaming performance in Linux.

NVIDIA Smooth Motion is a feature designed for games without native DLSS support. It uses AI to generate additional frames between two rendered frames for overall smoothness of game-play.

The feature was initially added for Linux via NVIDIA 575 driver series, but only for RTX 50 series GPUs. Now with NVIDIA 580.82.07, the feature also works for RTX 40 GPUs. While, Windows users will probably get it in 590 driver series.

As the latest production branch driver, NVIDIA 580 also added fifo-v1 protocol support to reduce visual inconsistencies and potential stuttering for apps/games running in Wayland with Vulkan backend.

It as well enabled RMIntrLockingMode feature by default, which can help reduce stutter especially when using virtual reality (VR).

There are as well new “OutputBitsPerComponent” MetaMode attribute, allowing to control the number of bits per color component transmitted via a display connector in Xorg with multiple displays.

Other changes in NVIDIA 580 so far include:

• Feature to reduce time spent in the interrupt top half for low latency display interrupts by deferring the work until later.
• Update GPU clock value reporting in nvidia-settings, NVML, and nvidia-smi to show clocks before thermal and idle slowdowns.
• Fix Bigscreen Beyond Head Mounted Displays compatibility.
• And various bug-fixes.

How to Install NVIDIA 580.82.07

The official package and release note for NVIDIA 580.82.07 is available at the link below:

For Ubuntu, it’s HIGHLY recommended to wait the Ubuntu’s official package, though it’s still in proposed testing at the moment.

Or, use either the popular “Graphics Drivers” team PPA (contains NVIDIA 580.76.05 so far) or “Canonical Kernel Team” team PPA (contains 580.82.07)

To add the Canonical Kernel Team PPA, open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-kernel-team/nvidia-graphics2

Then, you may either use “Additional Drivers” (graphical tool) to install nvidia-580 for desktop, or nvidia-580-server for server computing use.

Or run one of the commands below instead in terminal to install the driver:

sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:580

sudo ubuntu-drivers install --gpgpu nvidia:580-server