Information about Nvidia optimus support

[Perfect Storm]

Previously guide is marked outdated.

[pogopuschel]

Thanks. Btw, both guides are "previous" (relative to your post); the last one (post #20) is actual of course (9.5.)

[Perfect Storm]

Would it be better if we close this one, and you can start a new one? Then we'll avoid confusion among the users (and me ) ?

[rockorequin]

Actually, I found that I don't need to remove bumblebee/nvidia: if I restart X after I modprobe nouveau, I get sane values for xrandr --listproviders, and prime works. It only works if I allow nouveau to do a modeset, which unfortunately means I can't unload it (the nouveau wiki says you can unbind it from the framebuffer and then unload it, but unbinding doesn't work - at least while X is running - presumably because the intel is attached as well).

Using the nouveau driver only seems to work for certain window sizes, or you get a black screen and PGRAPH errors. The default size for glxspheres is too small for it to work, and maximized is too big. I have a 1920x1080 monitor with the unity launcher on the side and the top panel, so maximized is approx 1880x1000.

And DRI_PRIME=3 glxspheres crashed X! In the past that ran the intel driver without frame-limiting it to the vblank interval (60 Hz).

PS. For libXrandr and randrproto, you need ./configure instead of ./autogen. But do we even need to build these? libxrandr is already at 1.4.0-1 in ubuntu.

[Lekensteyn]

PS. For libXrandr and randrproto, you need ./configure instead of ./autogen. But do we even need to build these? libxrandr is already at 1.4.0-1 in ubuntu.

You do not need them, PRIME support for libxrandr is already upstreamed in 1.4.

When trying PRIME, you **must** disable bumblebeed since optirun will not cooperate with PRIME:

sudo tee /etc/init/bumblebeed.override <<<manual
sudo stop bumblebeed

You can use vgaswitcheroo to safe power, but mind that its still broken after suspend/resume: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44391

[pogopuschel]

You do not need them, PRIME support for libxrandr is already upstreamed in 1.4.

Well, indeed you do not need to build libXrandr anymore, that is correct, but still xrandr and randrproto, or you won't have any "listprovideroptions" in xrandr.

@ Lekensteyn
Can you drop a few words about amonakov's "primus" ?
Will it be prime with nvidiablob?

[rockorequin]

@Lekensteyn, thanks for the info. But how exactly does bumblebee not cooperate with prime? Doesn't it just wait in the background and wait for optirun to request a server? Or does it stop vga switcheroo from loading? (I don't have a /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo folder, but I thought it only worked with laptops that have a hardware MUX for the video cards.)

I would be quite happy just using bumblebee at the moment, but I was keen on trying out prime because the nvidia driver crashes and burns almost immediately for me on the two games I like to use it for, making the nvidia card pretty much useless for me at present.

[Lekensteyn]

@ Lekensteyn
Can you drop a few words about amonakov's "primus" ?
Will it be prime with nvidiablob?

See https://github.com/amonakov/primus for a description of primus. It will indeed be usable with the nvidia blob, although it is not exactly PRIME.

@Lekensteyn, thanks for the info. But how exactly does bumblebee not cooperate with prime? Doesn't it just wait in the background and wait for optirun to request a server? Or does it stop vga switcheroo from loading? (I don't have a /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo folder, but I thought it only worked with laptops that have a hardware MUX for the video cards.)

Bumblebee starts an X server on its own and disabled the nvidia card when its not in use. The default method, bbswitch, also requires the video driver to be unloaded. PRIME works with a single X server that communicates with both cards. It requires a driver for the nvidia card (currently nouveau). This does not work with bbswitch (but switcheroo works).

I would be quite happy just using bumblebee at the moment, but I was keen on trying out prime because the nvidia driver crashes and burns almost immediately for me on the two games I like to use it for, making the nvidia card pretty much useless for me at present.

nvidia blob does not work with PRIME atm, so you might want to stick to Bumblebee for the time being (or try PRIME with nouveau, but you'll very likely hit some bugs now)

[rockorequin]

PRIME works with a single X server that communicates with both cards. It requires a driver for the nvidia card (currently nouveau). This does not work with bbswitch (but switcheroo works).

Yes, but I have no /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo folder, which the internet tells me I need to use vgaswitcheroo. But my kernel (3.6-rc4) is built with CONFIG_VGA_SWITCHEROO=y.

nvidia blob does not work with PRIME atm, so you might want to stick to Bumblebee for the time being (or try PRIME with nouveau, but you'll very likely hit some bugs now)

Sadly, bumblebee is only useful for turning off the nvidia card at the moment for me, because the nvidia-current kernel module crashes so quickly and comprehensively when I run wine apps with it.

And yes, speaking of buggy, nouveau prime doesn't work for wine apps because of the PGRAPH issue. I did at one point get nouveau working with bumblebee but it runs too slowly.

[pogopuschel]

Yes, but I have no /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo folder, which the internet tells me I need to use vgaswitcheroo. But my kernel (3.6-rc4) is built with CONFIG_VGA_SWITCHEROO=y.

Because you have the Nvidiablob installed. This Folder only exists when running the free drivers.