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I'm so curious to try out the new Nvidia proprietary driver 367.18, because it supports the Vulkan API in the Steam game Dota 2. But I'm wondering if it's worth it, i.e. whether it's stable. I don't want to get things like black screens, flickering, glitches or worse. In that case I'd rather stay with the current graphics driver I'm on (340.96).

Does anybody have any experience with this, or know where I can go to find this kind of feedback?

Is it generally okay to use new Nvidia graphics drivers if you're concerned with stability?

Thank you.

System specifications: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS Linux Kernel Version 3.13.0-86-generic Asus M4A78LT-M LE Motherboard AMD Athlon II X4 645, 3.10 GHz Mushkin 8GB PC3 Blackline RAM (2 x 4GB) 500GB Western Digital Hard Disk Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti Nvidia Driver Version 340.96

sunnybubblegum
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If you want stability and what you have now works fine for you, don't upgrade. There's always a risk.

If you need the new features it provides, then go ahead and upgrade, but only once you actually need the features.

For me, the newest drivers tend to work well, but that's just my experience. Every single card (even model vs. same model) is different. Everyone has a slightly different experience. It could work amazingly for you and terribly for anther person with the same GPU.

I believe 367 is a beta, so it's not technically stable. However, like I said earlier, it could work perfectly for you. It could also be a disaster, however.

The best way to find out which it will be is to just do the upgrade. Of course, we could make predictions based on your hardware, but those predictions would be highly based on opinion and therefore off-topic on this site.

If the newest drivers do end up being unstable, it's almost always possible to just go into a TTY and reverse the upgrade. That, however, is a different topic, and one that has already been covered multiple times here and on various forums and Q&A sites. If you run into problems, comment, and I can link you to some topics that may help you out.

TheWanderer
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Yes, the new Nvidia proprietary driver should work well on your PC. Nvidia drivers have a much better reputation in Ubuntu than it's rival, AMD. From my experience, every time I have upgraded a Nvidia proprietary driver on Ubuntu, I have not encountered a SINGLE problem. So..... You should be good to go!

Good luck!