Thanks to a little Twitter tip, we've learned today that NVIDIA are indeed working to provide better support for NVIDIA Optimus on Linux.
Currently, if you have a laptop with NVIDIA Optimus the official NVIDIA driver gives you the option between using the Intel GPU or switching over to the NVIDIA GPU. It doesn't handle it like you would expect it to on Windows, where it would offload the work to the more powerful NVIDIA GPU. Not an ideal situation, to switch between the two GPUs and from when I had a laptop with one (some time ago) it required logging out before it would take effect.
There's a forum topic talking about it on the official NVIDIA forum, which has been open since 2016. Aaron Plattner from NVIDIA said they were looking into it, but that was also back in 2016. A few hours ago, Plattner again gave an update in that post about it:
Hi folks,
Yes, it's still being worked on. Kyle laid the groundwork with the server-side vendor-neutral dispatch code that's in X.Org xserver 1.20. There's still some more work to be done there and support for it needs to be wired up inside our driver, but basic support for loading NVIDIA's GLX as a vendor in the server is in place. Kyle is putting together a proposal for the next steps.
Since I'm not currently up to speed on all the developments surrounding it, I thought it was quite interesting to learn. Hopefully some of you will too.
There are other ways to do it currently on Linux, like Bumblebee but having it done officially would be great. The less hassle Linux users and gamers have to go through, the better it is for everyone.
Hat tip to Luke.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Arranmc182 Aug 16, 2018
FutureSuture Aug 16, 2018
Quoting: GuestIs this feature in place yet for AMD?
2-3 years ago I used it on an Intel IGP/AMD dGPU laptop, worked like a charm. It even powered off the dGPU when not in use automatically, to save battery power.
The only thing is you'd have to put DRI_PRIME=1 in front of the game in Steam, or the game's launcher, as it doesn't automatically offload to the dGPU without you telling it to via that environment variable. As I recall, at that time on Windows it was the same only that you got a popup-notification after you closed a game on which GPU you want to run it.
I am not even sure automatic switching could be done reliably, short of providing a list of games or applications within the driver (that's probably what Nvidia does on Windows).
Note also that DRI_PRIME works between all Mesa DRM drivers -> Intel to AMD, AMD to Intel, AMD to AMD (that's how people could use Vega pre-DC), etc...
burningserenity Aug 16, 2018
Quoting: 14I've messed up my display settings multiple times on my laptop that has both an IGP and discrete Nvidia graphics. Thank goodness I had other computers to search the internet for help! I'm afraid to try it again because of those experiences.
I've been there! Distro hopped all over the place trying to make it work consistently. Nvidia-xrun works okay if you don't mind using fluxbox or something basic to run a single game. This guide worked the best for me. Somehow I messed it up several times before getting it to work, but lately I made it work on both Manjaro and Kali Linux.
Quoting: TeqI just got a laptop with Optimus and was bummed to find out (the hard way) that bumblebee doesn't support Vulkan. Hopefully this solution will.
I just found about this after reading this article :(
Just realized why I could not get DXVK working.
Sad, sad...
Quoting: ThormackQuoting: TeqI just got a laptop with Optimus and was bummed to find out (the hard way) that bumblebee doesn't support Vulkan. Hopefully this solution will.
I just found about this after reading this article :(
Just realized why I could not get DXVK working.
Sad, sad...
Vulkan works via Nvidia Prime but i highly recommend using it on a Ubuntu 16.04 based distro.
I can play Doom 2016 Vulkan via Wine , Gta5 , Witcher 3 via DXVK , Talos Principle , RoTR , Mad Max etc via Steam.
Looks like you didn't even try native Linux Vulkan titles before.
Quoting: HoriWill it work for older cards like a 610M?
I don't really care that much since Bumblebee works well enough and I'm not really using this old laptop anymore (not for gaming that is), but it would still be nice if it did.
Probably it will since Optimus is same since years. You will need X.org version that supports it and Nvidia driver that contains this support.
Quoting: GuestMy 700 EUR, 24 inch, Ryzen 5 1600 and RX 560 gaming PC gives 3268 points in the Unigine Superposition benchmark at 1080p Medium. What your xxxx EUR intel/nv laptop gives?
So just for fun, my 1055 EUR 17 inch laptop (which i can pick up an plug into my tv whenever i want) scored 6813 on the Unigine benchmark at 1080p medium... Am I a serious gamer yet?! xD
Quoting: burningserenityThanks. Maybe I'll get the guts to try again someday. It would be nice for the few games I play on my laptop to run smoother.Quoting: 14I've messed up my display settings multiple times on my laptop that has both an IGP and discrete Nvidia graphics. Thank goodness I had other computers to search the internet for help! I'm afraid to try it again because of those experiences.
I've been there! Distro hopped all over the place trying to make it work consistently. Nvidia-xrun works okay if you don't mind using fluxbox or something basic to run a single game. This guide worked the best for me. Somehow I messed it up several times before getting it to work, but lately I made it work on both Manjaro and Kali Linux.
Last edited by 14 on 17 August 2018 at 12:30 am UTC
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