Please note that as Nobara is a forward-moving, gaming-focused distribution, it is required that if you have an Nvidia GPU, it must be supported by Nvidia open driver version 565.77 or newer for compatibility with the latest Wayland, VKD3D and DXVK updates, OBS, Gamescope, and Vulkan. Older driver versions do not have the functionality and vulkan extensions that are required for these and will have performance and rendering issues, or may not work at all. For details please see:
https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope/issues/151
https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/187834/en/
https://github.com/nowrep/obs-vkcapture#known-issues
https://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/187826/en-us/
Nvidia switched to defaulting to the open source driver module in driver 560. As of 565.77 we've also made the same switch. The open-source Nvidia driver does not support pascal (10 series) and older because it requires GSP firmware, which those cards are not capable of.
The lowest supported chips are the GTX 1630 and MX 450 (mobile only):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_(microarchitecture).
Anything before Turing is not supported.
If you are still unsure if your GPU is supported by the open driver:
Supported by current open driver:
GeForce RTX: 50 Series, 40 Series, 30 Series, 20 Series
GeForce: 16 Series
NVIDIA Turing: T4, T4G
Supported by closed proprietary driver:
GeForce RTX: 40 Series, 30 Series, 20 Series
GeForce: 16 Series, 10 Series, 900 Series, 700 Series
NVIDIA Turing: T4, T4G
NVIDIA Volta: V100
NVIDIA Pascal: Quadro: P2000, P4000, P5000, P6000, GP100; Tesla: P100, P40, P4
NVIDIA Maxwell: Quadro: K2200, M2000, M4000, M5000, M6000, M6000 24GB; Tesla: M60, M40, M6, M4
If you want to use an older card that is - for now - still covered by the closed proprietary driver and works with Wayland, install from a non-Nvidia ISO and then install the closed-module drivers through the Nobara Driver Manager after first boot, and restart. Nvidia drivers may take up to 5-10 minutes to build after this reboot, until which you will see a black screen. Bear in mind that these cards will no longer be supported at all following the release of the Nvidia 585 driver, which is expected to release in Q4 2025.
It should be additionally noted, Nobara 41 and higher do not ship with X11 packages and also does not support X11 moving forward.