> After Steam announced steambox, and with the massive improvements since Steam for Linux, nVidia would want their drivers to be the best for Linux to sell Linux users on their video cards.
For a long time, the Nvidia proprietary driver has been the best gpu driver for Linux, not that it has been super good but the competition has been really awful. Only in the recent years there has been any competition if you want a GPU with good 3d features. Intel has had decent 3d only in their latest few generations of integrated GPUs and ATI drivers have ranged from not working at all to barely usable.
That being said, this is a very welcome change and will hopefully make the nouveau drivers better in the long run. In particular, this is good news for the common linux graphics architecture (dri/drm, etc) and Wayland.
If you want opencl compute performance, though, Intel's haswell parts (especially crystalwell) are basically built for GPGPU, and can deliver huge strides above its price grade. A lot of professional contexts need that compute power, not necessarily opengl performance.
For a long time, the Nvidia proprietary driver has been the best gpu driver for Linux, not that it has been super good but the competition has been really awful. Only in the recent years there has been any competition if you want a GPU with good 3d features. Intel has had decent 3d only in their latest few generations of integrated GPUs and ATI drivers have ranged from not working at all to barely usable.
That being said, this is a very welcome change and will hopefully make the nouveau drivers better in the long run. In particular, this is good news for the common linux graphics architecture (dri/drm, etc) and Wayland.