The preparation for the successor to the Blackwell series has already begun. The latest patches reveal NVIDIA’s transition to Boot42 support for next-gen GPUs.
NVIDIA Nova Kernel Graphics Driver Patches Confirm Next-Gen GPUs Will Rely Solely on Boot42 as Boot0 Gets Phased Out
NVIDIA usually handles architecture identification through registers such as Boot0, which has been used for the Blackwell cards, but a new Boot42 identification logic has just appeared on NVIDIA’s Nova graphics drivers, which suggests that NVIDIA could be moving away from Boot0. Also, there is an explicit indication that NVIDIA has started the preparation of “next-gen” GPUs, but before you get too excited, it’s important to understand that this is likely hinting at the Rubin architecture, which will power the server-grade chips.
Phoronix reports that NVIDIA has been submitting new open-source Nova Driver patches that clearly show NVIDIA is now transitioning to Boot42 and is ditching Boot0 for Rubin. In the patch notes, NVIDIA’s engineer John Hubbard explained that the future GPUs will abandon the long-standing NV_PMC_BOOT_0 register and will adopt the latest NV_PMC_BOOT_42 to simplify detecting the logic for Nova.
“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.…
– Patch release notes
The release notes also mention that the change removes 33 lines of code for a cleaner and more forward-compatible structure. This development appears interesting since, for years, Linux enthusiasts criticized the lack of upstream involvement, but with Nova’s development, which is now being written in Rust, there is visible progress.
This early groundwork suggests that NVIDIA’s Linux team is prepared for the Rubin series, and as far as the overall development goes, we have been reporting on Rubin for months. Not long ago, we reported that NVIDIA had already scheduled Rubin volume production in the second half of 2026, and that Rubin Ultra might switch to Microchannel cover plates for optimal cooling.
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