I don't know your graphics card model, so my answer is based on assumption.
Its looks like your graphics card is old and use legacy 173 driver from nvidia.
If so, for your graphics card, there was no development done from nivida in terms of version.
So whatever you have is the best and latest driver. If you forcefully install new drivers it will cause lag/crash to your system.
A ppa is a package bundle provided by 3rd party (meaning any other than Ubuntu official).
Adding a ppa and installing an app/driver from it means you will be receiving updates for them when the ppa owner updates a page.
Basically ppa s are for easy install and update process.
See more details from this discussion What are PPAs and how do I use them?
-- Update --
If you want stable an updated driver. Please use x-swat ppa. This team provide latest & stable drivers for ubuntu. Issue the following commands,
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
This instructions are meant to read twice before doing anything.
You can build mesa yourself, of course this will require lots of wits and brace yourself in case something goes wrong.
For this just download the mesa sources (you must make sure that the deb-src entries in your sources.list are enabled):
wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/mesa_9.2.orig.tar.gz https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/mesa_9.2-1ubuntu1.diff.gz https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/mesa_9.2-1ubuntu1.dsc
Now we will need the building dependencies:
sudo apt-get build-dep mesa
Since the package is already debianized, it will give you a scapegoat to revert back any change made by the installation. Now we should extract our sources:
dpkg-source -x mesa_9.2-1ubuntu1.dsc
cd mesa-9.2/
dpkg-buildpackage
Now, we can build with dpkg-buildpackage. The process will leave you with a bunch of .deb files in the parent directory. You should install the ones that you need. Done.
If in any case you hit:
dpkg-checkbuilddeps: Unmet build dependencies: llvm-3.3-dev (>= 1:3.3-4) libelf-dev
dpkg-buildpackage: warning: build dependencies/conflicts unsatisfied; aborting
This means that your libraries are too old to build the package. You can download the file and install it from saucy at your own risk.
TL;dr: having the bleeding edge on software is nice, but it has it risk. I would wait until they get released in Saucy. (I'm using Debian and the package is already on experimental, so I just have to chill out for a bit)
Best Answer
You can get the latest stable MESA driver using Kisak Mesa. This is the most up to date stable MESA driver as it appears to be regularly updated whenever a new release is made available.
It is being maintained by a guy that works at Valve and is very actively maintained
Remember it is a community PPA, so use at your own risk.
Recently Canonical also put up a PPA for latest stable MESA, but this one is not updated as often and you might as well not use it.
IMPORTANT
When you dist-upgrade Ubuntu from say 18.04 to 18.10 it is important to roll back the driver and use the original one provided by that distribution. If you are on Kisak PPA, then remove it using:
If you have used Padoka Stable PPA, then remove it using:
otherwise you might risk breaking the graphics driver in the next release. While that definitely is possible to recover from, it is huge and cumbersome task for even an experienced Linux power user.
Earlier
Previously I instructed people to use Padoka Stable Mesa, however, that PPA hasn't seen much activity for a long time now.
If you are on that PPA, I advise you to remove that by running:
After that you should be able to install the Kisak PPA using the steps above. Before doing so, please make sure, that Padoka Stable Mesa has been successfully removed.