The Windows driver is 500MB when packed, the linux driver is 50MB when installed. You do the math what we DON'T have that the Windows users do.
And yet Linux outperforms Windows in some games. I guess it depends on the distro. But I have a lot more than 50MB here.
This article compares and contrasts various performance metrics between Fedora Workstation 35 and Windows 10 Pro 21H2 while running the 2018 game Far Cry 5.
fedoramagazine.org
The driver alone is over 50MB here.
Installed Packages
Name : xorg-x11-drv-nvidia
Epoch : 3
Version : 510.68.02
Release : 2.fc36
Architecture : x86_64
Size : 59 M
Source : xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-510.68.02-2.fc36.src.rpm
Repository : @System
From repo : rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
Summary : NVIDIA's proprietary display driver for NVIDIA graphic cards
URL :
http://www.nvidia.com/
License : Redistributable, no modification permitted
Description : This package provides the most recent NVIDIA display driver which allows for
: hardware accelerated rendering with current NVIDIA chipsets series.
: Fermi and Kelper GPUs NOT supported by this release.
:
: For the full product support list, please consult the release notes
:
http://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/510.68.02/README/index.html
:
: Please use the following documentation:
:
http://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA
All these packages together are over a Gig. Not that it seems to matter much.
dnf list installed | grep nvidia
akmod-nvidia.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
kmod-nvidia.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
kmod-nvidia-5.17.13-300.fc36.x86_64.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @@commandline
kmod-nvidia-5.17.14-300.fc36.x86_64.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @@commandline
kmod-nvidia-5.18.5-200.fc36.x86_64.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @@commandline
nvidia-persistenced.x86_64 3:510.68.02-1.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree
nvidia-settings.x86_64 3:510.68.02-1.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree
nvidia-xconfig.x86_64 3:510.68.02-1.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.i686 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power.x86_64 3:510.68.02-2.fc36 @rpmfusion-nonfree-updates
Size : 24 k
Size : 0.0
Size : 35 M
Size : 35 M
Size : 35 M
Size : 51 k
Size : 4.5 M
Size : 228 k
Size : 59 M
Size : 4.7 M
Size : 112 M
Size : 218 M
Size : 28 M
Size : 78 M
Size : 333 M
Size : 958 k