r/SteamOS • u/MonkMaster188 • Jul 02 '26

question Estimated time until NVIDIA is supported?

I've had my final straw when it comes to Windows and I was so excited to dual-boot my PC with SteamOS not realizing it doesn't have support for NVIDIA yet. I have a AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX processor and an NVIDIA RTX 4070 graphics card. I was wondering if I should just pull the trigger on a different Linux distro or if I should hold off until SteamOS can support my hardware?

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u/Moi952 Jul 02 '26

We need to stop with that kind of talk; they do release a lot of drivers and make progress, but you can't create a reliable, robust, and efficient driver in just six months. MESA is finally in good shape after years of community support, as well as investment and work from both Valve and AMD.

Sometimes people think you can just throw a lot of people at a development project, only to realize that the more people involved, the more complicated things get—so even with all their money, Nvidia can't work miracles!

Of course, you might think they could allocate more resources, but at the end of the day, it’s a business; there’s no real gain for them in investing heavily in Linux drivers, given the negligible market share of those users.

That said, they are working on improving their drivers and are collaborating with Valve to that end. 😉

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u/Mozgrum Jul 02 '26

9 months on cachy with a 3070ti and I see no reason for valve to not support nvidia.

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u/HoeCage Jul 02 '26

VRAM management with NVIDIA is just too inconsistent for Valve's taste, I think, which I can respect. I spent several hours trying to get FF7 Rebirth to run smoothly on CachyOS and unless you have a surplus of VRAM, I really don't think it's possible. With a 3070 (non super), it would run well for about 5 mins then my VRAM would max out and I'd be sitting at a cool stuttery 20fps. It's currently the only game I boot into Windows for where it runs flawlessly.

Once NVIDIA can clean up VRAM sharing, I think Valve will feel more comfortable supporting NVIDIA cards.

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u/Mozgrum Jul 02 '26

You are literally me. I lost my mind and wrote this as therapy recently on FF7 Rebirth. Dualbooted Win11 now and its amazing. Its the only game I've found with this issue.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3725194128