What's the current state of affairs for Optimus GPUs?

[PhrostB]

Last I tried Linux was half a year ago (actually I used it all the time about 5-10 years ago, but not since). Anyway, I was hoping that with Steam finally being released for Linux I could permanently switch over.. but ran into endless difficulties getting my 740m working. I tried the open drivers, the propriety drivers, bumblebee, and a whole bunch of hacks.. couldn't get anything working, so I just gave up. Apparently they added native switching to the 3.12 kernel but I couldn't get that working either.

I'm guessing there haven't been any advances yet huh

[Cosmo]

There was mention of support for "hybrid" graphics or something in the latest update (93 or something?), but I don't know if this truly extends to optimus, given the massive troubles i has currently.

[PhrostB]

can you link me to a changelog?

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

Have you heard of the nvidia-prime package in Ubuntu? It implements the XrandR 1.4 "initial optimus support" you may have heard of, but dynamic switching between GPUs isn't possible without updating to the 0.5 development edition. (Even then, switching is done between lightdm logins.)

Compared to bumblebee/primus, it gives you direct rendering from the GPU, meaning performance directly comparable to Windows. More importantly, the virtualGL overhead from bumblebee is eliminated, meaning less input lag. (Important!)

(DO NOT USE KWIN. Use Unity and the Compiz window manager. KWin gives you unbearable tearing making your games unplayable.)

[PhrostB]

i think i tried nvidia-prime as well...
i wish there was a seamless solution :\

[Dusk of Oolacile]

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

i think i tried nvidia-prime as well...
i wish there was a seamless solution :\

There is. Get rid of the laptop and build a desktop PC.

[PhrostB]

Messaggio originale di LOLCAT:

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

i think i tried nvidia-prime as well...
i wish there was a seamless solution :\

There is. Get rid of the laptop and build a desktop PC.

No? I'm overseas and have absolutely no place in my life for a desktop.

[Dusk of Oolacile]

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

Messaggio originale di LOLCAT:

There is. Get rid of the laptop and build a desktop PC.

No? I'm overseas and have absolutely no place in my life for a desktop.

Then get a laptop that mimics desktop PCs. One single discrete grapchich card and no Intel crap in between.

[PhrostB]

Messaggio originale di LOLCAT:

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

No? I'm overseas and have absolutely no place in my life for a desktop.

Then get a laptop that mimics desktop PCs. One single discrete grapchich card and no Intel crap in between.

alright let me just throw this powerful laptop in the trash. I shouldn't have to conform to Linux.. it should be the other way around.

[PhrostB]

I appreciate the advice.. I've only used SUSE briefly during my distrohopping days.. I was always a big fan of Debian based distros.. I used Debian as a kid and then graduated to Ubuntu and then finally Mint, never really liked the Red Hat based distros.

Anyway, it seems that openSUSE 13.2 Milestone was recently released. Perhaps I'll wait until the final build is released until I'm ready to do some actual testing.. hopefully this will be around the same time that the LTS Ubuntu/Mint releases drop and by then I assume enough people will be complaining about Optimus support that the distro maintainers will actually consider developing some sort of seamless interface for it.

That said, I will take a look at SUSE. Do me a favor though? When the new release drops, can you test it to see that bumblebee isn't broken?

[Boo Seta]

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

I appreciate the advice.. I've only used SUSE briefly during my distrohopping days.. I was always a big fan of Debian based distros.. I used Debian as a kid and then graduated to Ubuntu and then finally Mint, never really liked the Red Hat based distros.

Anyway, it seems that openSUSE 13.2 Milestone was recently released. Perhaps I'll wait until the final build is released until I'm ready to do some actual testing.. hopefully this will be around the same time that the LTS Ubuntu/Mint releases drop and by then I assume enough people will be complaining about Optimus support that the distro maintainers will actually consider developing some sort of seamless interface for it.

That said, I will take a look at SUSE. Do me a favor though? When the new release drops, can you test it to see that bumblebee isn't broken?

Me too, my whole life I used Debian or Debian based distros and only briefly tested rpm distros, what I regret after getting to know how good OpenSUSE is.

I don't plan on installing OpenSUSE 13.2 soon, I'll probably use 13.1 till the end of the year. 13.1 will be supported for more than a year, officially it'll be support until 2 months after the release of 13.3, so I'm not really concerned with that right now. But yeah, when I install a new version I can give you some feedback, though you can easily get it on OpenSUSE forums. I doubt Bumblebee support will be broken in further releases, it's already up and running for a while.

Concerning Ubuntu, people will complain about a lot of things and developers will do their best to fix that bugged distro, but it will be forever one of the most bugged Linux distros out there until the day that their fast paced release schedule is slowed down to a reasonable agenda.

[PhrostB]

Messaggio originale di Revernus:

Messaggio originale di PhrostB:

I appreciate the advice.. I've only used SUSE briefly during my distrohopping days.. I was always a big fan of Debian based distros.. I used Debian as a kid and then graduated to Ubuntu and then finally Mint, never really liked the Red Hat based distros.

Anyway, it seems that openSUSE 13.2 Milestone was recently released. Perhaps I'll wait until the final build is released until I'm ready to do some actual testing.. hopefully this will be around the same time that the LTS Ubuntu/Mint releases drop and by then I assume enough people will be complaining about Optimus support that the distro maintainers will actually consider developing some sort of seamless interface for it.

That said, I will take a look at SUSE. Do me a favor though? When the new release drops, can you test it to see that bumblebee isn't broken?

Me too, my whole life I used Debian or Debian based distros and only briefly tested rpm distros, what I regret after getting to know how good OpenSUSE is.

I don't plan on installing OpenSUSE 13.2 soon, I'll probably use 13.1 till the end of the year. 13.1 will be supported for more than a year, officially it'll be support 2 months after the release of 13.3, so I'm not really concerned with that right now. But yeah, when I install a new version I can give you some feedback, though you can easily get it on OpenSUSE forums.

Ok sounds good. When the last Ubuntu/Mint releases dropped.. I spent about a week trying to get them to play nice with my GPU... eventually I just gave up. I'm running Windows 8.1 now and it's really not so bad. I miss the simplicity of Linux... but things are functioning as they should here, so I really can't complain.

One that that surprised me was how few people were complaining about their Optimus GPU's. I found a couple people with my 740m GPU on the Ubuntu forums and they have seemed to have given up as well. I also saw one support ticket open on the Linux Mint site.. but no one had responded to it. I guess very few people are gaming in Linux.. and the amount of Optimus owners attempting to game must be a completely miniscule number. :\

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

Let me play devil's advocate here:

Bumblebee/Primusrun will always introduce significant input lag, performance problems, and even sometimes stuttering issues. I also found OpenSUSE to be a pain in installing Mesa 10, which is what you'll want if you do bumblebee(faster).

I strongly recommend using nvidia-prime; the gaming experience is just like Windows.

[PhrostB]

So constantly run my GPU? I'd rather just run Windows... the GPU switching in Windows is perfect.

[|Pro Kittens| Medic Plz]

Use the new prime-select tool in nvidia-prime >0.5.

[Boo Seta]

Mesa is problematic since ever, it's not a Bumblebee's specific issue.

If Bumblebee is installed, then only the integrated graphics will be used and to enable the GPU you must run "primusrun command" or "optirun command". If Bumblebee is not installed, then GPU will always be used.

Windows 8 is not that bad, but not that good either. Although I have an original Windows 8 key, I prefer using OpenSUSE and VirtualBox + XP to run Photoshop and some minor programs.