Nvidia intro
Latest update: 12-jan-2026
As most newer cards will work with the latest drivers, older cards are no longer supported by the latest drivers. Nvidia is sorting out older GPU to legacy branch this cards are not supported by the latest driver.
nvidia-open: open source NVIDIA kernel modules package best for all cards up from 16xx
The first thing you should do is get knowledge about your card and supported driver:
NVIDIA Turing GPU, GTX 16xx RTX 20xx and newer.
These are supported by the main nvidia packages nvidia–open, nvidia-open-lts and nvidia-open-dkms
You always need at minimum nvidia-open and nvidia-utils packages installed, in addition you may need lib32 support packages for Gaming on Steam or Wine: lib32-nvidia-utils per example.
If these packages do not work, nvidia-betaAUR may have a newer driver version that offers support.
For older Legacy Devices, read here: about-legacy-gpu on Nvidia Website.
Overview over the legacy branches:
(unsupported means no package for driver at the repositories)
| GPU family | Driver | Nvidia (proprietary) Status |
|---|---|---|
| Blackwell (GBXXX) and newer | nvidia-open (linux) nvidia-open-lts (linux-lts) nvidia-open-dkms (any kernel) | Recommended by upstream Current, supported |
| Turing (NV160/TUxxx) and newer * GTX 1650 and newer | nvidia-open (linux) nvidia-open-lts (linux-lts) nvidia-open-dkms (any kernel) Also supported by: nvidia-580xx-dkmsAUR (prperietary) Alternative open source Nouveau NVK: vulkan-nouveau | Recommended by upstream Current, supported No RTD3 power management on Turing Crashes on some laptops nvidia-open has no RTD3 Power Management on Turing, possible crashes on Ampere-equiped laptops. |
| Maxwell (NV110/GMxxx) * GTX 745, GTX 970 | nvidia-580xx-dkms (AUR) Alternative: open-source nouveau | Legacy, supported |
| Kepler (NVE0/GKxxx) * GTX 660, Quadro K6000 | nvidia-470xx-dkms (AUR) Alternative: open-source nouveau | Legacy, unsupported |
| Fermi (NVC0/GF1xx) * GTX 465, Quadro NVS 4200M | nvidia-390xx-dkms (AUR) Alternative: open-source nouveau | Legacy, unsupported |
| Tesla (NV50/G80–90–GT2xx) * 8300 GS, Quadro FX 4600 | nvidia-340xx-dkms (AUR) Alternative: open-source nouveau | Legacy, unsupported |
| Curie (NV40/G70) and older * GT 6800, Quadro FX 1400 | No longer packaged, open-source nouveau | Legacy, unsupported |
You will need the related nvidia-580xx-utils [AUR] (example branch) package installed in addition to got the driver working.
In case you also may want lib32 support packages for Gaming (steam/wine) lib32-nvidia-580xx-utils [AUR] (example branch), and you also need the same version of nvidia-settings if you want that installed: nvidia-580xx-settings [AUR]
Find your Cards Codenames here: https://nouveau.freedesktop.org/CodeNames.html
The EndeavourOS tool for Nvidia Drivers: nvidia-installer (nvidia-inst) only supports the latest driver
To see what driver version support your card go here:
Put in the info for your card, and choose Linux-64bit as OS.
Or see here main Nvidia packages supported card list: https://www.nvidia.com/
For GeForce it seems to show all drivers only on this page:
You can also use our tool to check your card:
nvidia-inst --test
This will show info about your GPU, related installed packages, and gives the commands to install Nvidia packages, but will not actually change anything itself, usefull in case you have no clue to show someone helping you.
If you have PC with a dedicated card plugged in you can use nvidia-inst to get latest driver installed, for more info go here:
With the introduction of the eos-hwtool you can easily get drivers installed with one simple command:
eos-hwtool --no32 --install-recommended
If you do plan to install steam best is to install 32 bit libs too: eos-hwtool --install-recommended
For other Nvidia settings choose the right article for your hardware:
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/category/nvidia/
Notes:
No RTD3 power management on Turing
Crashes on some laptops: The proprietary NVIDIA Linux driver supports RTD3 runtime power management only in specific configurations and treats it as experimental on Turing GPUs. Documentation notes initial experimental support for Turing notebook GPUs, and real-world reports show that RTD3 is often disabled by default or leads to instability (e.g., ‘Runtime D3 status: Not supported’ or system hangs/crashes) on some laptops. For details, see the official NVIDIA README on dynamic power management and user reports on Arch and Fedora forums.
