AMD/Intel Hybrid Graphics works

[slowtrain]

I tried to use these instructions to install the new Catalyst 12.6, which should be appropriate for my Radeon HD 6700M graphics processor.

On a first run-through, X11 fails to work and I need to replace my xorg.conf file with a backup to get a graphic desktop again.

Looking through the installation output, I see lines such as the following with warnings:

update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl32.icd because associated file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl32.icd (of link group x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist.

So, I tried installing opencl by adding the packages opencl-headers and python-pyopencl.

I now see a file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd . I'm not sure whether this file was there before my attempted addition of OpenCL because I hadn't checked.

Anyway, I was going to test the new setup, so I uninstalled fglrx and then reinstalled. but when I try the line "sudo amdconfig --initial -f", I get "amdconfig: command not found".

Looks like I scrambled something badly when I uninstalled fglrx earlier. According to my locate database, there was previously an amdconfig command in /usr/bin. It's no longer there. There's also one under /user/lib/fglrx/bin. I've tried running that by going to the directory and using sudo ./amdconfig --initial -f . I get "Unable to open /etc/ati/control, please reinstall the driver." I've reinstalled the driver 3 times and still get that error. Have also tried the directions at the following link for fixing the problem, but it doesn't help: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...etely-on-lucid .

Anyway, looks like I can't test the new installation. The dpkg command still gives a warning: "update-alternatives: warning: forcing reinstallation of alternative /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf because link group x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf is broken."

[Niccola]

Thanks for your great efforts I think it worked now
I have downloaded your fixed packages
and here is the output :
1- The installation log file fglrx_install.log : http://pastebin.com/r8dipgCA

2-

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6400M Series
OpenGL version string: 4.2.11733 Compatibility Profile Context

3-

$ glxinfo | egrep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6400M Series
    GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_conditional_render,

But the switching not working

$ sudo amdconfig --px-igpu
No layout section was found in the file: 'xorg.conf'.
Please run 'aticonfig --initial' first or modify your configuration file manually and run aticonfig again.
amdconfig: parsing the command-line failed.

Ok, nice to know. No errors were found in your fglrx installation.

you can solve last error running the command below:

sudo aticonfig --initial -f

and post it's output

then try to switch between graphic cards

I tried to use these instructions to install the new Catalyst 12.6, which should be appropriate for my Radeon HD 6700M graphics processor.

On a first run-through, X11 fails to work and I need to replace my xorg.conf file with a backup to get a graphic desktop again.

Looking through the installation output, I see lines such as the following with warnings:

update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl32.icd because associated file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl32.icd (of link group x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf) doesn't exist.

So, I tried installing opencl by adding the packages opencl-headers and python-pyopencl.

I now see a file /usr/lib/fglrx/etc/OpenCL/vendors/amdocl64.icd . I'm not sure whether this file was there before my attempted addition of OpenCL because I hadn't checked.

Anyway, I was going to test the new setup, so I uninstalled fglrx and then reinstalled. but when I try the line "sudo amdconfig --initial -f", I get "amdconfig: command not found".

Looks like I scrambled something badly when I uninstalled fglrx earlier. According to my locate database, there was previously an amdconfig command in /usr/bin. It's no longer there. There's also one under /user/lib/fglrx/bin. I've tried running that by going to the directory and using sudo ./amdconfig --initial -f . I get "Unable to open /etc/ati/control, please reinstall the driver." I've reinstalled the driver 3 times and still get that error. Have also tried the directions at the following link for fixing the problem, but it doesn't help: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...etely-on-lucid .

Anyway, looks like I can't test the new installation. The dpkg command still gives a warning: "update-alternatives: warning: forcing reinstallation of alternative /usr/lib/nvidia-current/ld.so.conf because link group x86_64-linux-gnu_gl_conf is broken."

First of all...
Don't need to worry about update-alternatives warnings, it's not errors... just warnings. It's happens with everybody.

You just have to install OpenCL if you'll use your card for OpenCL purposes. It's not really necessary

I have same card than you 6700M series (mine is an 6770M)
however...

You probably corrupted files or pissed off in fglrx-system files and also your environment variables. I really recommend you to try again the first post #1 executing all commands again.

I really recommend, also, to uninstall OpenCL if you'll not use it. It's not necessary. But you can keep if you want to...

seems like amdconfig was added in last updates, so you can try to run aticonfig rather than amdconfig.

[Niccola]

First of all I have to say thanks. I am following this thread since a long time and it was helping me a lot to get the switchable graphics working for my Samsung.

Samsung Series 7 Chronos 700Z3A-SO2de, Intel HD 3000, AMD 6490m, HDMI Intel/AMD not tested/not tested, Mini DisplayPort Intel/AMD not testes/not tested

Nevertheless there are still issues to fix. The laptop has been under linux always a little bit hotter than under windows. I had activated the integrated graphics card. But the dedicated seems to be online thought. Today I activated the dedicated and now the used power seems to be dropped by 0.5 to 1W and the temperature of the air coming out of the laptop seems to be lower.

Does anyone made the same observation? Maybe the fglrx driver does'nt set the dedicated graphics card into a very low power mode when the integrated graphics card is chosen.

I am experiencing the opposite than you. The fglrx driver really cool down my temperatures and computer noise. Before fglrx the opensource driver makes my laptop scream as crazy and temperatures goes higher than 90°C

You should verify if your laptop is muxless or muxed. It really makes differences in this case.

[roudy1989]

I am experiencing the opposite than you. The fglrx driver really cool down my temperatures and computer noise. Before fglrx the opensource driver makes my laptop scream as crazy and temperatures goes higher than 90°C

You should verify if your laptop is muxless or muxed. It really makes differences in this case.

It does cool down my laptop, too. I have now 56°C on CPU and GPU.
When I switch to integrated graphics card I cannot see the temperature of the dedicated graphics card anymore (aticonfig --odgt) but the temperature of the integrated card is slightly higher at ~60°C.

This laptop is muxless. I think every laptop which use PowerXPress 4.0 (or higher) is muxless, if I am informed right.

[slowtrain]

Hi Niccola: Thanks for letting me know that the OpenCL software isn't needed. Best not to have useless software clogging my system. I've removed it (it did create some problems by installing nvidia-current, which seems to block any access to the GPU).

I did a clean install of the first additional driver that Ubuntu wants to add (not the post-release one). This added the /usr/bin/amdconfig cmd back into my system. Am guessing I can now use that command (or aticonfig).

Not really sure that repeating the instructions will make a difference--I've already gone through them at least 3 times, always with the effect of making X11 inaccessible. If the problem isn't in the warnings, then I don't know what else to do to make this work. Oddly, AMD seems to think that the 12.6 Catalyst driver should do the trick. Maybe I'll give it one more try.

Thanks!

[slowtrain]

Well, tickle me pink, this time going through the instructions, Catalyst seems to have installed properly!

Powertop reports, at times, lower wattage used than I've ever seen before, but the power use is more variable, with rather high rates periodically. So am not sure this is overall a power saving--will have to test some more.

One thing that would be handy would be a way to switch between dual graphics and just the low-power intel chip. The Catalyst Control Center (sudoed) allows such a switch, but the last time I used it, graphics simply wouldn't work on the system and I had to reinstall the system. Maybe that's because Catalyst wasn't properly installed, but it would be nice if there were some way to use the command line to switch the original configuration file back if graphics get nuked.

Problem is, I can't seem to find a config file for the Control Center. Anyone have any ideas how to find that?

[Niccola]

It does cool down my laptop, too. I have now 56°C on CPU and GPU.
When I switch to integrated graphics card I cannot see the temperature of the dedicated graphics card anymore (aticonfig --odgt) but the temperature of the integrated card is slightly higher at ~60°C.

This laptop is muxless. I think every laptop which use PowerXPress 4.0 (or higher) is muxless, if I am informed right.

Of course you can't see temperature when using integrated graphics: because de discrete one is "turned off"!

So, I put quotes in turned off by purposely, because in a muxless system, the switch is controlled by software in higher level. So, you can turn on again your discrete just running amdconfig command and restart your X server, and voila, the discrete graphic card is on again.

You can interpret it like the graphic card is not totally turned off, because your command send a signal to turn on the discrete GPU, and it turn on without reboot your operating system.

I really disagree with you saying that GPU in windows is colder than linux, because on Windows you have a software which manage applications that will use your dGPU. In linux, or you use dGPU or iGPU in each session, in this way, you have a colder system.

But, I've figured out that if you run amdconfig command you turn on your dGPU again for a while. Doesn't matter if you use it or not. That's the proof that you switch by high-level software in OS. If you kill the amdconfig command running, after a while the dGPU is turned off again (if you're using iGPU and just execute amdconfig to do anything).

In fact, the driver runs over Xorg management, if you want to run fglrx driver just change xorg.conf driver statement to "fglrx", if you want to use intel just change statement to "intel" and, of course, restart X. We can conclude that both graphic cards doesn't turn off completely, but, it draws little energy (just like in stand by mode)

So, I don't know whats your point or what you mean. Just clarify your question, please.

[Niccola]

Hi Niccola: Thanks for letting me know that the OpenCL software isn't needed. Best not to have useless software clogging my system. I've removed it (it did create some problems by installing nvidia-current, which seems to block any access to the GPU).

I did a clean install of the first additional driver that Ubuntu wants to add (not the post-release one). This added the /usr/bin/amdconfig cmd back into my system. Am guessing I can now use that command (or aticonfig).

Not really sure that repeating the instructions will make a difference--I've already gone through them at least 3 times, always with the effect of making X11 inaccessible. If the problem isn't in the warnings, then I don't know what else to do to make this work. Oddly, AMD seems to think that the 12.6 Catalyst driver should do the trick. Maybe I'll give it one more try.

Thanks!

What the hell! Why did you install nvidia-settings in your system? It increase the possibility to you clogging your system

after uninstall some driver or program I really recommend to execute sudo apt-get autoremove to clean old (not needded) dependencies. So you could execute this command and after repeat post #1 over again. (forcing reinstallation of each package)

Well, tickle me pink, this time going through the instructions, Catalyst seems to have installed properly!

Powertop reports, at times, lower wattage used than I've ever seen before, but the power use is more variable, with rather high rates periodically. So am not sure this is overall a power saving--will have to test some more.

One thing that would be handy would be a way to switch between dual graphics and just the low-power intel chip. The Catalyst Control Center (sudoed) allows such a switch, but the last time I used it, graphics simply wouldn't work on the system and I had to reinstall the system. Maybe that's because Catalyst wasn't properly installed, but it would be nice if there were some way to use the command line to switch the original configuration file back if graphics get nuked.

Problem is, I can't seem to find a config file for the Control Center. Anyone have any ideas how to find that?

Good to know you take back amdconfig. But, what you mean about Powertop?

Do you know that catalyst control center (amdcccle) it's not working properly to switch between graphic cards? System is hanging on and crashing for a while. To switch between dgpu and igpu graphic cards you must run by command line:

sudo amdconfig --px-igpu

to switch to integrated GPU
or

sudo amdconfig --px-dgpu

to switch to discrete GPU

can you post the specification of your computer?

[slowtrain]

Hi Niccola:

Again, thanks for the info, though that had some adverse effects for me (see below).

Some info I acquired on power usage with Catalyst. I had run a test earlier without Catalyst in which I turned on only Chrome and ran a particular Hulu flash video for 30 minutes, collecting information on percent of battery power left at 15 minutes and every 5 minutes thereafter to 30 minutes. Using a simple linear regression, I can predict, likely with good accuracy given the neat linear fit of the data, how many minutes of total battery life I could expect. Without Catalyst, I could expect 153 minutes, but with Catalyst (in dual graphics mode) I could expect 138 minutes. That's comparable to Win 7 (on the same machine), which had a predicted value of 132 minutes. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that having something that occasionally checks in with a more power-consuming chip will use more power. Of course, running a flash video in Hulu is not to be compared with, e.g., trying to run something more graphics-intensive. It's just that I fairly rarely use more graphics intensive software. Also, from what I saw in powertop (a program that calculates wattage used), the wattage used by the machine when Catalyst is switched to integrated graphics only seems lower than what I've seen without Catalyst (but with a bad install of fglrx from Additional Drivers that seems to block the GPU from running continuously at maximum).

Ok, so to more harrowing info. I can't clearly remember if I've ever, in the past couple months of my Ubuntu install, had the system hang on suspend. After installing Catalyst using the instructions here (both Steps 1 & 2), the system hung on the first suspect (the screen froze, I couldn't switch to a terminal, power consumption went to max, I had to hard shut down the computer). I then undid Step 2 in the instructions above because it's not clear to me what this accomplishes and I was hoping the suspend problem would clear up. That worked for about 3 suspends, after which that hung.

I nevertheless held out hope that perhaps the problem would go away if I had Catalyst switched to integrated graphics using sudo amdconfig --px-igpu, as you suggested. This worked for a few minutes, then the system hung without even a suspend. I subsequently could boot into neither the GUI or a command line. Had to use Win 7 (on another partition) to swap to my original xorg.conf file so I could boot into Ubuntu. Maybe this setup is stable now--it does seem to be using somewhat less power than my system w/o Catalyst.

Anyway, it does seem that Catalyst makes my system unstable, and that may be helpful to know for others out there experimenting with this. My hardware is:

HP Pavilion dv6t
Intel Core i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.2GHz
Graphics: Radeon HD 6770M

[jkn83]

hey guys i am having trouble setting up my switchable graphics card for my hp dv6-3143us i am running 12.04 and everytime i do a manual update with teh ati 12-6.x86 driver i reboot only to find im in low graphics mode!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834157466

I have switchable intel with ati 5650 mobility radeon...

what i am trying to do is get startx running because i am trying to do android development within eclipse...i cant create AVD device without my video driver being correctly installed...or at least startx being able to run under either intel or AMD...i get the badrequest error whenever i try to start my AVD device...really annoying

i have tried the guide posted and i end up restarting getting low graphic mode and having to reinstall my whole linux after several re-installs i realized i could just rm /etc/R11/xorg.conf

i am about to try this method...
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t...ef8b54d1dc9b70
but really unsure on what the hell i should do

i dont know if you guys can recommend anything i have tried the wikilinux guide and this guide and still end up getting into low graphics mode after removing fglrx and manually installing the new 12-6.x86 drivers

when i do a clean install of ubuntu 12.04 /etc/X11/xorg.conf doesnt even exist. Xorg.conf is created when 12-6.x86 ati driver installed but when I reboot i enter low graphics mode and end up pissed that I wasted another hour of my life trying to get this to work

when i do a clean install everyhting loads up fine i have video - i go to additional drivers and install fglrx now just because it is the safest way for me to get the driver installed...however as you all know this is not switchable... i still get the bad request error whenever i try to start my AVD device within eclipse because my video driver is not set up correctly and i believe startx doesnt start propertly


i have a clean install of 12.04 ubuntu and fglrx drivers installed through additional drivers
below is some info about my system

ME# startx
Fatal server error:
Server is already active for display 0
If this server is no longer running, remove /tmp/.X0-lock
and start again.
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
at http://wiki.x.org
for help.

fglrxinfo
display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Ironlake Mobile
OpenGL version string: 1.4 (2.1 Mesa 8.0.2)

lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Madison [Radeon HD 5000M Series]

/etc/X11$ dir
app-defaults rgb.txt xorg.conf Xsession cursors X Xreset Xsession.d
default-display-manager xinit Xreset.d Xsession.options fonts xkb Xresources Xwrapper.config

i have tried a couple methods to get it to work and keep failing on my install
so going to post here - Keep in mind i have gone through the manual install multiple times for the 12-6.x86 driver and then get to the end where i sudo aticonfig -whatever and then i reboot in low graphics mode everytime! <=hate to see this
i have a clean install of 12.04 ubuntu and fglrx drivers installed through additional drivers

what method should i use to get startx to work