NVIDIA's new Nova drivers: preparing for next-gen Rubin GPUs with new BOOT42 register support

NVIDIA is preparing for Rubin-based GPUs with new patches preparing to transition to Boot42 support for its next-generation graphics cards.

NVIDIA's new Nova drivers: preparing for next-gen Rubin GPUs with new BOOT42 register support
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Gaming Editor
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TL;DR: NVIDIA is transitioning from its Blackwell to Rubin GPU architecture by updating Linux drivers from Boot0 to Boot42, simplifying GPU detection logic. The new open-source Nova driver, partly written in Rust, removes 33 lines of code for cleaner, forward-compatible support of future NVIDIA GPUs.

NVIDIA is preparing for the big move away from its Blackwell GPU architecture to its next-generation Rubin GPU architecture, with new patches published that will see NVIDIA moving from Boot0 to Boot42 in new Linux driver updates.

NVIDIA's new Nova drivers: preparing for next-gen Rubin GPUs with new BOOT42 register support 87
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The folks over at Phoronix spotted that NVIDIA has been submitting new open-source "Nova" driver patches that show the company is currently transitioning to Boot42, ditching Boot0 for Rubin. NVIDIA engineer John Hubbard discussed the move in the patch notes, explaining that future-gen GPUs will move away from the long-standing "NV_PMC_BOOT_O" register, to the new "NV_PMC_BOOT_42" to simplify detecting the logic for Nova.

The release notes also mention that there have been 33 lines of code removed, making it cleaner and a more forward-compatible structure. This is a rather interesting development, with the new Nova code being written in Rust, there is now progress towards the next-gen Rubin GPU architecture by the NVIDIA Linux team.

explains: "NVIDIA GPUs are moving away from using NV_PMC_BOOT_0 to contain architecture and revision details, and will instead use NV_PMC_BOOT_42 in the future. NV_PMC_BOOT_0 will be zeroed out. Change the selection logic in Nova so that it will claim Turing and later GPUs. This will work for the foreseeable future, without any further code changes here, because all NVIDIA GPUs are considered, from the oldest supported on Linux (NV04), through the future GPUs...."

The cover letter continues: "Add some comment documentation to explain, chronologically, how boot0 and boot42 change with the GPU eras, and how that affects the selection logic. Also, remove a couple of types: Spec and Revision. That deletes a net total of 33 lines of code and simplifies that area of code. It also simplifies the subsequent boot42 support diffs".