NVIDIA 590 Linux Graphics Driver Enters Public Beta with Better Wayland Support

posted by Marius Nestor on Dec 02, 2025,
updated Dec 06, 2025

The NVIDIA 590 graphics driver series promises improved support for Wayland users by raising the minimum supported Wayland version to 1.20 and fixing a bug that prevented the PowerMizer preferred mode drop-down menu in the nvidia-settings control panel from functioning correctly on Wayland systems.

The NVIDIA 590 series also promises better support for Vulkan apps by improving the performance of recreating Vulkan swapchains, which helps prevent stuttering when resizing Vulkan application windows, and fixing several issues that prevented Vulkan apps from working on the Venus VirtIO virtual GPU.

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Update

More here:

• NVIDIA Beta driver 590.44.01 released for Linux | GamingOnLinux

  The first release of the 590 driver branch has arrived in Beta for Linux with 590.44.01 now available for those willing to give it a test. For those of you with an NVIDIA GPU that need the most stable experience, you should probably stick with driver 580.105.08 from early November.

By Borisov:

• Linuxiac ☛ NVIDIA Releases Linux Display Driver v590 Beta

  On the Vulkan-related updates side, NVIDIA has improved the performance of recreating Vulkan swapchains, which helps reduce stuttering when resizing application windows. The driver also resolves several issues that previously prevented Vulkan applications from running on the Venus VirtIO virtual GPU stack.

UbuntuHandbook:

• NVIDIA 590.44.01 Beta Driver Released for Next New Feature Branch | UbuntuHandbook

  NVIDIA 590, the next new feature branch driver for Linux, is available for beta testing.

  This beta driver is NVIDIA 590.44.01, which however does not introduce any new features, but raised the minimum system library requirements and fixed some bugs.

  The new driver now requires wayland >= 1.20 for the modern Wayland session, xserver 1.17 or higher for classic Xorg session, and glibc library >= 2.27. For Ubuntu, 22.04 and higher match the Wayland requirement, while 18.04 and 20.04 with Xorg are still supported.

Ji M:

• NVIDIA 590.44.01 Beta Released! Removed GeForce 10 Series & Earlier Support

  NVIDIA 590, the next new feature branch driver for Linux, is available for beta testing. This beta driver is NVIDIA 590.44.01, which however does not introduce any new features, but raised the minimum system library requirements and fixed some bugs.

Tech Radar:

• Nvidia drops Linux 590 driver support for GTX 900 and 10-series, signaling the end of Game Ready updates for older GPUs

  Nvidia has released the first driver in the 590 branch for Linux, signaling an important shift in support for older GPUs.

  Reports from community members indicate that several Pascal-era and Maxwell GPUs no longer register with the new driver.

  Cards such as the GTX 1050 Ti fail to function even though the release notes still list legacy support.