Skip to content
QuasarQuasar

NVIDIA compatibility reference

Quasar’s supported NVIDIA driver baseline is 610 or newer. This maintainer-set requirement is broader than the measured regression below; it does not mean every card or driver version has been tested, or that all 595 versions have the same defect.

Measured AV1 regression

Section titled “Measured AV1 regression”

RTX 5090 (PCI ID 10de:2b85) with NVIDIA 595.99.02 produces corrupted Vulkan AV1 video. 610.57.04 produces clean output, including on Unraid with the open kernel modules. This is host encoding, not browser decoding. The 610.57.04 comparison produced clean output; the Unraid confirmation was operator-reported rather than a separate automated run.

What Quasar does:

  • If any render device on the host matches the affected combination, AV1 is removed from the host’s codecs (with Vulkan or NVENC), and host readiness says why. Sessions use HEVC or H.264 where the profile and client allow.
  • An AV1-only profile has no eligible codec on that host: allow another codec or use another host.
  • Choosing nvenc or setting QUASAR_VULKAN_AV1=0 does not bypass this.
  • Unlisted GPU and driver combinations stay eligible. That isn’t a claim they were all validated.

After a driver update, recreate the agent container and check its reported driver and codecs; compatibility is reassessed at startup. On Unraid, confirm the package supplies the open kernel modules your GPU needs.

On an older release without this protection, choose HEVC or H.264 explicitly on the affected driver. Check your release notes.

Driver-volume provisioning can supply missing container libraries, including the Vulkan ICD, but not the host kernel driver. It is not a reason to switch to NVENC. If the Vulkan loader can’t initialize, check the host’s readiness findings.

Evidence: Vulkan AV1 driver comparison. The current runtime guard remains scoped to the measured combination; the documented 610+ supported baseline adds no new runtime check.