The release of Nvidia driver 185.13 was a bit confusing to me, because I couldn’t find any change log, which describes, what have changed, or added to the new release. Only after browsing and searching nvnews.com I’ve found the statement, that a bug with Compiz was fixed, and it’s now possible to use Nvidia VDPAU in conjunction with the Compiz Desktop without a significant CPU load (~50%), what is good news of course. The information I was actually looking for, was the explanation for the version leap from 180.xx onto 185.xx. The explanation of AaronP (Nvidia employee) is this:
- Current official release: The driver currently on nvidia.com
- Current prerelease: (x86, x86_64) The latest FTP driver from the stable branch
- Current beta release: (x86, x86_64) The latest FTP driver from what will become the next release cycle
The links in the enumeration above were added my me, and are based on my own understanding. Please also regard, that they are only valid a few days, and should be treated as a snapshot of the current situation. I don’t know what exact problems lead to this rearrangement (one could comb through the forum of the nvnew.com), but to be honest, I’m now more confused, than I was before. I think, I’ll keep using the 180.xx branch, until I read something really plausible and convincing.