Hybrid Intel + Mobility Radeon HD 5650/5750 / 6530M/6550M

[QuimNuss]

I couldn't get the graphics drivers to work properly and I'm stuck with OpenGL 1.4 (I'd need 2.1).

From lspci I got

VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Madison [Mobility Radeon HD 5650/5750 / 6530M/6550M]
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

I guess it is using the Intel card, [8086:0046], but it _should_ support opengl 2.1 (check 0046 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ocessing_units). What can I do to use the appropriate driver?

I thought I'd try to use the ATI card, I've tried installing both flgrx drivers suggested on the 'additional drivers', but that gets me to 'low resolution mode' on reboot. I haven't tried fixing it since I'm not very optimistic when it comes to this...

Now I'd like to nail the problem down and be able to use at least OpenGL 2.1, any help would be much appreciated, as well as if somebody is able to tell me if that's even possible.

Thanks!

I'm on ubuntu 14.04.

lshw

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 02
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:44 memory:e0000000-e03fffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:6050(size=8)
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Madison [Mobility Radeon HD 5650/5750 / 6530M/6550M]
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: 00
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
resources: irq:46 memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:e6400000-e641ffff ioport:5000(size=256) memory:e6440000-e645ffff

$ lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: COMPAL Electronics Inc Device [14c0:004d]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
I/O ports at 6050 [size=8]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: i915
--
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Madison [Mobility Radeon HD 5650/5750 / 6530M/6550M] [1002:68c1] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: COMPAL Electronics Inc Mobility Radeon HD 5650 [14c0:004d]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 46
Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at e6400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]
I/O ports at 5000 [size=256]
Expansion ROM at e6440000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: radeon

[QuimNuss]

Summary of what I tried so far:

I've managed to power on/off the cards using switcheroo. How? By activating the modeset=1 on grub, rebooting, switching to a tty and stopping the lightdm. Then all the switcheroo commands seem to work (their status changes and says i915 driver is off).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics

Then I tried installing the ATI proprietary driver from the repositories as well as from the ATI site, on both cases getting the low-resolution mode and almost an irresponsive keyboard and mouse (I kind of managed to make it work sometimes by starting on recovery mode).

When using the ATI proprietary driver from the site I pretty much followed these steps: http://askubuntu.com/questions/48776...4-throws-error up to 5., since I didn't have that error and the packages were build and the pop-up suggested me to install them, which I did (I had to do that several times as missing dependencies were missing)

I've tried powering off the integrated card on all cases just in case that helped making the system believe it isn't hybrid and only had the ATI card, but I always end up in low graphics mode anyway.

On low graphics mode, I've tried aticonfig --initial, the switcheroo things, ... nothing worked.

WARNING: After installing the proprietary driver I was unable to get a responding system (it got stuck loading unity: menus and mouse were there but nothing happened) following my life saving commands (purge fglrx, reinstall xorg, reconfigure it, reboot).

I'll try with archlinux next week or with a fresh ubuntu install, which it must have some tweak on OpenGL as I was able to play some games I'm not able to now.

Summary: anytime I try to use fglrx or fglrx-updates I get the low graphics mode and I'm unable to log in. Even with radeon, the system doesn't seem to use the ATI card as I only get opengl 1.4. I haven't seen any difference on the battery life estimate by switching the card on an off using switcheroo.

Any help is much appreciated.

[QuimNuss]

I've solved it... I'm so ****ing excited. The 4 nights of crawling the web and understanding how graphics work payed off... I'm still amazed.

Ok so I managed to get the discrete card working on Linux Mint 14.04 Qiana.

What I did:
Updated fresh install
changed the /etc/default/grub from quiet splash to modeset=1
update-grub

added the lines
echo ON > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo DIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

at /etc/rc.local

Then reboot.

Then I went to tty with ctrl+alt+f1, sudo su and checked that both cards were up with

# cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

stopped mdm (lightdm on ubuntu or kdm gdm on others) with

service mdm stop

then turned off the intel card

echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

it said i915 is off and with cat like before we can see

  
0:DIS:+:DynPwr:0000:01:00.0
1:IGD: :Off:0000:00:02.0
2:DIS-Audio: :Pwr:0000:01:00.1

and then

service mdm start

to bring the window manager up again. And voilà!

pol@baldrik ~ $ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD REDWOOD
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.1.0
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.0
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:

So I believe what was that the DIS card is on slot 0 (I don't know how that happened)

Also, last week I was looking at the wrong string on glxinfo (grepping glx version instead of OpenGL) which is always 1.4 (unfortunatelly the same OpenGL version I was able to run on the intel card :S, hence the stupid mistake)

I had problems with modeset.i915=0 modeset.radeon=1 and combinations, always getting the 'vga_switcheroo: client <number> refused to switch' . modeset = 1 worked.

So probably now if I add the echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch on rc.local I will always start with the integrated graphics card. However, if using switcheroo to power the cards and move them around works, then I'll leave the OFF for the integrated card by default and switch graphics when I need them. I still have to try this.

I haven't managed to get the fglrx driver or the amd catalyst to work, I've tried all sorts of things. Different debian-based distros (ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, mint, debian). The problem was essentially that fglrx claims to not support muxless cards.

I haven't found a clear way to know if you have a muxed or a muxless card. Muxed or muxless essentially means that you have a physical switch or a bios switch for the cards (muxed) or that you switch by software (muxless). The later have higher rate of success on working. THe internet claims that atis over 6xxx (included) are muxless and below 4xxx (included) are muxed. I had 5xxx so that grey zone... ( http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubu...allation_Guide )

I was reassured when inspecting the log of /var/log/XOrg.log upon installing fglrx reported

[ 32.664](WW) PowerXpress feature is not supported on A+I Mux platform. Please uninstall fglrx driver.
[ 32.664] (EE) this is a Muxless PX A+I platform, we doesn't supported it
[ 32.664] (EE) No devices detected.

(the we doesn't supported it is real, (sic))

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2228404

So at least you can know wether your card is muxless by looking at XOrg.log when installing fglrx and look for the (EE) strings.

The post http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...930450&page=82 didn't work for me, any of the interesting comments (namely: 503 536 815 834 857)

I haven't tried with ubuntu 13.04 because it is discontinued and I would've had problems getting the packages. The 12.04 gave me an error when installing the generated packages (missing some networking driver when runing initrms or initramfs... I can't remember exactly)

I tried with xorg-edgers and some other ppa, I'll post how to revert the changes tomorrow.

And also some piece of information many people get wrong. vga_switcheroo is related to the opensource radeon driver. If you are using another driver that 'file' won't exist. Also you need to be root to see ir and autocomplete won't work, so use the first two sections of the guide:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HybridGraphics

(How to switch and using vga_switcheroo)

In that guide is missing that you have to put the grub to modeset=1, though. Otherwise if I recall correctly is not the kernel that decides what gpu to use and you won't be able to switch, or something like that. (Kernel Mode Setting KMS http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1744188)

I'll post more information I've gathered and embellish this post tomorrow.

Hoorray!

ps. fingers crossed that this will still work upon reboot :S

[QuimNuss]

Ah, and maybe it's important to say that there's no xorg.conf anymore. aticonfig --initial messes that one pretty much. What I saw is that it simply neglected the intel card and created a xorg.conf with no reference to the intel card.

But with radeon and intel, there's no xorg.conf no more.

Also, if the modeset of the intel card is set to 0 the X server fails to start. I can't tell why since I didn't save the log.

[QuimNuss]

Ah, one more thing. Now that I know that vgaswitcheroo works, there are plugins/applets to add an icon to the applet bar to switch cards within a click. I'm not sure it will work here since I believe I had to stop and start mdm for the changes to be in effect, but it's worth a try, it's pretty neat.

Thanks to Nicola and Alexislavie for their inspiring posts and the community in general. Special thanks to cutting edge Gentoo users, some pretty neat stuff there regarding this problem. And this guy too http://airlied.livejournal.com/70348.html.

[QuimNuss]

goddamit it didn't work on reboot...

but I'm getting there... stay tuned.

[youzava]

don't give up! I've been busy for a long time with this and I won't give up either!

Have you considered looking in the direction of a specific amd/intel kernel? Maybe we can compile one.

[QuimNuss]

Hello brother in arms,

I haven't recompiled the kernel before, but that's a good idea. I'll switch to ubuntu tonight since there switcheroo worked all the time, for some reason it now stopped working on Mint (keeps saying client 0 (or 101) refused to switch) no matter if I'm root, mdm is stopped or what modeset I have inputted in grub. Also sometimes the keyboard doesn't work, sometimes the cursor doesn't work... stuff like that.

But now that I know that it is possible that shed some light in the issue. I can't rembmer if switching changed the order of the cards on switcheroo. Maybe that was the reason of the success, having the discrete card first. I have no idea how to control that if it's not throught switcheroo. I've tried blacklisting i915 and radeon and modprobing them on rc.local, but that didn't seem to change anything.

So, how do we recompile the kernel and what do you suggest we try? Do you also have 5xxx? I feel 5xxx cards are kind of neglected out there.

cheers!

[youzava]

Hey I installed 14.10 and the latest kernel 17.10 and after a lot of work I am now figuring out how to configure the open source driver for gaming.
phoronox forums have a lot on that. They say there are a lot of graphical improvements to be made with 3.18
DRI_PRIME=1
xrandr --listproviders
xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink
DRI_PRIME=1 glxgears
I wonder why no one tries to help us on this forum..

The oibaf ppa is something to look out for.

[QuimNuss]

The oibaf repos didn't work for me. What kernel is 17.10? I have 3.2 so I don't know what you mean.

What do the commands you posted do?

I've managed to get the default opensource driver (radeon) to work correctly through vgaswitcheroo. Putting the commands in rc.local does not work, probably because X server is already running when they are issued althought I had read rc.local was ran after each runlevel, not true. That's what happened in Linux Mint.

So right now my procedure is to switch to a terminal, stop lightdm (or mdm or kdm) run the command

echo DIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

and start lightdm. Then the discrete is on and the integrated is off and I can do nice 3d stuff. The acceleration is baaarely enough for game emulation, but it works fine for pc games like TF2 (Haven't tried yet, but it worked already with the integrated one, so...).