NVIDIA has released the 594.45 beta Linux display driver for 64-bit systems, introducing Vulkan enhancements, improved power management, and various bug fixes.
This update adds support for the VK_EXT_descriptor_heap and VK_EXT_present_timing Vulkan extensions, expanding functionality for developers and applications. NVIDIA has also improved Vulkan swapchain recreation performance to reduce stuttering when resizing application windows.
This release also addresses gaming stability. It resolves a bug that caused GPU hangs and Xid errors in Black Myth: Wukong, and fixes an issue where Vulkan swapchains stopped presenting new frames on X11.
On top of that, the driver now supports DRI3 version 1.2 and enables the nvidia-drm kernel module’s modeset=1 parameter by default. The update also raises the minimum supported Wayland version to 1.20 and glibc to 2.27.
This release includes improvements to system suspend and power management. With NVIDIA’s open kernel modules and the NVreg_UseKernelSuspendNotifiers=1 parameter enabled, the nvidia.ko module now manages video memory preservation directly. For proprietary kernel modules, suspend and resume notifications continue to use the /proc/driver/nvidia/suspend interface.
Other notable changes include a new CudaNoStablePerfLimit application profile, which allows CUDA workloads to reach the P0 performance state. The update also enables nvidia-smi to reset GPUs while the nvidia-drm module is loaded with modesetting enabled, as long as no processes are using the GPU.
Finally, the release resolves several desktop-related issues, including a bug that prevented the PowerMizer preferred mode dropdown in nvidia-settings from working on Wayland, and an issue that could cause adaptive sync displays to go blank when connected through active USB-C-to-HDMI adapters.
The NVIDIA 595.45.04 beta driver is now available for 64-bit Linux systems and can be downloaded from the official NVIDIA driver page. Visit the release notes for a complete list of changes and downloads. While NVIDIA recommends keeping drivers up to date, users should note that this is a beta version and thus may not be suited for production environments.
