--- title: Mesa 25.2 brings new hardware support for Nouveau users description: Mesa 25.2 expands NVK (the open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs) to support Blackwell (RTX 50xx) and Kepler (GT/GTX 600–800 series) GPUs. Blackwell gets... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-2-brings-new-hardware-support-for-nouveau-users-xvv1asfqo twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Mesa 25.2 brings new hardware support for Nouveau users | daily.dev og:description: Mesa 25.2 expands NVK (the open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs) to support Blackwell (RTX 50xx) and Kepler (GT/GTX 600–800 series) GPUs. Blackwell gets... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-2-brings-new-hardware-support-for-nouveau-users-xvv1asfqo og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/xVV1aSfQO.png og:image:alt: Mesa 25.2 brings new hardware support for Nouveau users og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Mesa 25.2 brings new hardware support for Nouveau users **[Collabora Blog](https://daily.dev/sources/collabora)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Mesa 25.2 expands NVK (the open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs) to support Blackwell (RTX 50xx) and Kepler (GT/GTX 600–800 series) GPUs. Blackwell gets Vulkan 1.4 conformance, while Kepler is limited to Vulkan 1.2 due to hardware constraints. With this addition, NVK now covers the same desktop GPU range as NVIDIA's proprietary driver. Blackwell users also gain OpenGL 4.6 via Zink, whereas Kepler users remain on the legacy Nouveau GL driver for now. Hopper support is partially enabled but untested due to lack of developer hardware access. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What Vulkan version does NVK support for NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs in Mesa 25.2? NVK supports Vulkan 1.4 on Blackwell (RTX 50xx series) GPUs starting with Mesa 25.2, with confirmed Khronos conformance. Kepler GPUs (most GT/GTX 600 and 700 series, some GTX 800 series) are limited to Vulkan 1.2 due to hardware constraints. This brings NVK's desktop GPU coverage in line with what NVIDIA's proprietary driver has ever supported. _Linux users tracking open-source NVIDIA driver progress find NVK milestones like this on daily.dev._ ### Does Mesa 25.2 NVK support NVIDIA Kepler GPUs and what are the limitations? Mesa 25.2 NVK adds support for Kepler GPUs, covering most GT and GTX 600 series, most GTX 700 series, and some GTX 800 series cards. Kepler is capped at Vulkan 1.2 due to hardware limitations. Kepler users also remain on the legacy Nouveau GL driver for now rather than moving to Zink for OpenGL, though a future migration is possible. _Developers running older NVIDIA hardware on Linux can follow open-source driver developments on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Open-Source Nouveau\+NVK vs. NVIDIA 580 Linux Gaming/Graphics & Compute Driver Performance](https://daily.dev/posts/open-source-nouveau-nvk-vs-nvidia-580-linux-gaming-graphics-compute-driver-performance-nvfthue5s) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Open-Source Nouveau Performance With Linux 7.0 \+ NVK Mesa 26.1-dev vs. NVIDIA Linux Driver](https://daily.dev/posts/open-source-nouveau-performance-with-linux-7-0-nvk-mesa-26-1-dev-vs-nvidia-linux-driver-yuzlaesh7) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mesa 25.3 Unleashed: Revolutionizing Open-Source Graphics for Linux Power Users](https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-3-unleashed-revolutionizing-open-source-graphics-for-linux-power-users-9noeiyani) · Khronos · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mesa 26.2 Released With NVK Mesh Shader Support, Many Other Vulkan Improvements](https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-26-2-released-with-nvk-mesh-shader-support-many-other-vulkan-improvements-hjunmu9bt) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#vulkan](https://daily.dev/tags/vulkan), [#mesa](https://daily.dev/tags/mesa) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-2-brings-new-hardware-support-for-nouveau-users-xvv1asfqo) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Mesa 25.2 brings new hardware support for Nouveau users","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-2-brings-new-hardware-support-for-nouveau-users-xvv1asfqo","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/mesa-25-2-brings-new-hardware-support-for-nouveau-users-xvv1asfqo"},"datePublished":"2026-08-11T08:57:28.571Z","dateModified":"2026-08-11T09:44:36.416Z","description":"Mesa 25.2 expands NVK (the open-source Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs) to support Blackwell (RTX 50xx) and Kepler (GT/GTX 600–800 series) GPUs. 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