NVIDIA Releases Optimus Linux Driver With New Features 123
An anonymous reader writes "Nearly one year after Linux creator Linux Torvalds publicly bashed NVIDIA and several years after their multi-GPU mobile technology premiered, the graphics vendor has finally delivered an Optimus-supported Linux driver. NVIDIA released the 319.12 Beta Linux driver that brings support for 'RandR 1.4 GPU provider objects' that basically allows for Optimus-like functionality when using the latest X Server, Linux kernel, and XRandR. The 319.12 beta also has many other features including better UEFI support, installer improvements, new pages on their settings panel, and new GPU support."
Nice! (Score:4)
How Optimus affects gaming performance (Score:5, Insightful)
it has nothing to do with gaming performance.
Of course it has to do with gaming performance. If you can't switch between the IGP and a discrete GPU without a reboot, then the launch and shutdown time for any high-performance 3D game includes a reboot to GPU mode, then a reboot to integrated graphics to save battery.
Re: (Score:2)
So how do true Scotsmen occupy their downtime? (Score:2)
Re:So how do true Scotsmen occupy their downtime? (Score:5, Funny)
So what do "real gamers" (as you define them) do instead of gaming while riding the bus, train, or carpool to and from work?
Angry Birds.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
...more hand-eye coordination, communication, abstract problem-solving and team-work skills in 2 hours of play than you've gained in your entire life.
Re: (Score:1)
and you used these skills to do what exactly?
Re: (Score:2)
You train your geometry with angry bird!
Its like snooker.
Re: (Score:1)
Be a safer driver.
Re: (Score:2)
I finally tried Angry Birds to see if it was as lame as I thought it was and yes, yes it is. Way too heavy for what little is happening in the game, I prefer programming competence. Makes you spend way too much time waiting. Yo dawg, I heard you like waiting, so I put a bunch of unskippable animation dickjerking so that you can wait for your game while you wait in line. Or for your bus to arrive. I can start up an FPS in the time it takes to even get into the stupid game after their initial animations. That
Re: (Score:2)
You silly person. Real gamers don't go to work. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Is that a trick question? Everybody knows that real gamers never leave their parent's basement!
Re: (Score:2)
DOSBOX. Not all games need 3d acceleration.
Out of style (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who said anything about buying?
Re: (Score:2)
But do people buy the kinds of games that run in DOSBox anymore? One Slashdot regular has repeatedly told me [no].
Who said anything about buying?
I can think of three scenarios:
Which scenario did you have in mind?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
My Alienware M11R3 can play Crysis (and warhead) with decent FPS. Mind you not as well as a desktop, but then again my desktop isn't 4.5lbs and can be taken anywhere (battery life is better too, darn UPS for the desktop weighs as much as it does and only lasts 10 min, the laptop at full burn, ie gaming, runs for 2.5hr).
I take this LAN parties all the time, WAY better than packing up a whole desktop. Maybe I'm just getting old, but not having to spend 1hr setup/tare-down is very nice. Sit down, plug in, turn
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
My Alienware M11R3 can play Crysis (and warhead) with decent FPS. Mind you not as well as a desktop, but then again my desktop isn't 4.5lbs and can be taken anywhere (battery life is better too, darn UPS for the desktop weighs as much as it does and only lasts 10 min, the laptop at full burn, ie gaming, runs for 2.5hr).
I take this LAN parties all the time, WAY better than packing up a whole desktop. Maybe I'm just getting old, but not having to spend 1hr setup/tare-down is very nice. Sit down, plug in, turn on, play games. And the heated keyboard keeps you hand warm while you play.
That notebook is not an Ultrabook, however. It's too thick.
Re: (Score:2)
SFF is where it's at these days. When you can put the fastest CPU and GPU available in a computer the size of a shoebox with an optical drive and two hard disks (plus an mSATA SSD), few people need anything bigger.
Me, I didn't quite go that overboard. I grabbed a Shuttle XPC, stuck an i7-3770k in it with a 16GB of RAM, a GTX670, two Intel 330 SSDs and a bluray burner. It's about one eighth the size of the desktop it replaced, and yet it's dramatically faster.
And this is an underpowered rig compared to the c
Re: (Score:2)
So that I can watch bluray movies on my PC, and so that I can burn movies to watch on other things. That's about it, I have no use for the thing apart from movie-related things. It'd be pretty hard to burn the AVCHD of Harmy's Despecialized Edition without an optical drive of some kind ;)
Video player with a USB port (Score:2)
So that I can watch bluray movies on my PC
What makes paid streaming or paid downloads unacceptable?
and so that I can burn movies to watch on other things
Then buy "other things" that have a USB port, and load movies onto an external drive.
Re: (Score:2)
Not everything is available for paid streaming, particularly in Canada, where we often have much less content available than in the US. Streaming is nice, and I do take advantage of stuff like Netflix a lot, but there's a fair bit of difference between a 40 megabit video on a bluray disc and a 7 megabit stream. Even paid downloads are often not as high bitrate.
Some stuff simply isn't available yet. I'm buying the Star Trek: TNG blurays as they come out, and while they will probably appear on Netflix or iTun
Re: (Score:2)
Laptops break down less than desktops? Yeah right! You must have had some really bad luck with your desktops if you believe that. Or.. maybe if you tend to replace your portable devices more often than your desktops... so they never get old.
Every laptop I have had has sucked @ss. The batteries never last long enough before they no longer hold a good charge. Not for what replacements cost anyway... And then after a couple of years they start shutting themselves down as soon as they warm up. If you do a
Re:How Optimus affects gaming performance (Score:5, Funny)
You silly laptop gamers, *real* gamers use desktops :s
I thought they used d20's.
Re: (Score:2)
Luxury!
Real gamer find things on the floor and hit on another with it!
Re: (Score:1)
That's so 90's - now-a-days we use fudge dice
Re: (Score:2)
My old laptop had an Optimus card. Horrible things for Linux users. It never switched to low power mode so the battery did not last very long and it ran worryingly hot.
I am so much happier with my Intel based machine (I do admit I am not a gamer).
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Will the bumblebee project still be necessary? (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't get it [bumblebee-project.org] working with the 3.8 kernel in the new ubuntu beta... wonder if this will make that project unnecessary..?
Re:Will the bumblebee project still be necessary? (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I can tell, this only adds support for using the nvidia card for everything (rendering the whole desktop) while sending its final framebuffer to the Intel for scanout. This is a strictly different use case from what bumblebee enables (rendering *specific apps* on the nvidia card while using the Intel for everything else).
Personally, since I only need the performance of the nvidia card one in a blue moon, the bumblebee approach is much more useful to me. Otherwise, I'd have to deal with tearing on everything (the current version of the nvidia RandR output provider does not support vsync) and increased power consumption.
I think what nvidia calls "render offload" in their README (which is currently not supported) is what would in fact replace bumblebee, if/when implemented. I'm curious as to how it would interact with power management, though. One of the very nice things about Bumblebee is that it doesn't even power up the nvidia card (via ACPI) until required, and that's easy because it starts up a background X server on demand to do the rendering. It's probably trickier to puil this off if you have to load the nvidia driver into your primary X server to take advantage of the direct integration.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
To answer my own question-- looks like this was an issue with xorg [github.com] not the kernel.
The solution:
lspci | grep NVIDIA
then add the right value to /etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia, such as
BusID "PCI:01:00.0"
Re: (Score:2)
You can't get it working because of a bug in the latest xserver-xorg-core package. You can work around it by either backleveling that package or adding the BusID line to the nvidia xorg.conf in your BumbleBee directory.
THIS IS GOOD NEWS! (Score:1)
Parity? (Score:4, Interesting)
So does this release bring the Linux drivers into parity with the Windows drivers? I'm sure this is a large step in the right direction, but if the Windows driver is still more capable or efficient, then Linux will still suffer on the gaming front.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought almost all the CAD software is on Windows.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
On the contrary. I want to know how the Linux driver compares with the Windows driver, feature-wise, and performance-wise. It's not a technical question. It's a user-oriented question, e.g. with this new driver, how could a game compiled or run under Wine in Linux compare to the same game for Windows quality-wise and framerate-wise, assuming OpenGL takes advantage of all of the features of each driver when available.
I don't need to propogate doubt. There's plenty of it out there. Answers are what there aren
Re: (Score:2)
On the contrary. I want to know how the Linux driver compares with the Windows driver, feature-wise, and performance-wise. It's not a technical question. It's a user-oriented question, e.g. with this new driver, how could a game compiled or run under Wine in Linux compare to the same game for Windows quality-wise and framerate-wise, assuming OpenGL takes advantage of all of the features of each driver when available.
There's always the problem that Windows games are mostly DirectX and the DX->GL translation incurs always some overhead when playing games under Wine (as the Linux graphics driver does not support DirectX).
nVidia have been jerking Linux around (Score:5, Interesting)
for as long as I can remember, and that is long
(Linuxer since 1991).
Never bought anything else for a display card though.
Explain that.
Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around (Score:4, Insightful)
Because, unlike ATI/AMD, their driver works by and large? If you only play AAA titles released around the time of the driver version you're using, amd cards work alright...usually. Try doing anything else with the card (autodesk/adobe/video playback accel/demoscene/older games/newer games) and prepare yourself for the glitch gremlin.
I'm not saying that nvidia drivers are perfect. They're not, but they're a lot better than AMD.
Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite Agree.
Lets also not forget that the linux kernel (and other projects) have done their share of jerking NVidia around also, in the name of forcing them to work in the way the OSS people want, rather than in the way NVidia is willing to (they make/sell the cards after all).
It pretty much looks to me that NVidia have been waiting for X Server support for the features, and can now support it since that has arrived.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the kernel devs have good reasons for wanting (and setting things up to encourage) open driver code. It's nearly impossible to debug kernel dumps riddled with binary only drivers, and it retards the freedoms of open source on platforms containing nvidia chips. So I agree with linus, but I also want my computer to work, so I use nouveau on older chips and the nvidia driver on newer chips and whenever I need the best 3d possible.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Furthermore - a GPU driver crash should not take down the OS. It doesn't on Windows, it shouldn't on Linux.
Virtually all of my Windows crashes have occurred in the GPU driver, even while running nVidia. I have a hard time believing this never happens in Windows any more. It's not like they threw it away and rewrote it.
Re: (Score:2)
If an end user wants to run a binary blob driver for massively improved performance, they should be able to.
They can and no one stops them. They just shouldn't expect help from the kernel devs if they do.
I think people forget this (Score:5, Insightful)
nVidia has reasons for doing things the way they do. Yes, one of them is probably "because we don't want AMD grabbing our work," However there is some validity to that in that it is expensive to have a team of highly qualified people to do your development.
However that aside, there are licensing issues that keep their drivers closed, and there may be good reasons to want to use that code rather than try to re-implement it. Likewise there may be reasons to do their own thing and bypass some of the standard way of interfacing.
nVidia produces Linux drivers that work. They support the latest OpenGL features the hardware can handle, they are fast, and they are stable. That's pretty damn useful. So they are doing something right in their development. People should consider that, rather than just assuming that nVidia could easily deliver everything the same, but just in a format that makes OSS heads happy.
Also consider that maybe working with someone is an easier way to get at least some of what you want than fighting with them.
Re:I think people forget this (Score:5, Insightful)
They're a hardware company. I have no problem with them running custom firmwares or whatever *on the hardware* but a closed-source software driver stack is just absurd. I'd much rather we move to a model where the drivers were always OSS, even if it meant we needed more firmware running on the GPU itself since it'd be a return to having standard interfaces and it would mean everyone would get the benefits of improvements in the driver stack, rather then just the favored operating system.
Re: (Score:2)
They're a hardware company. I have no problem with them running custom firmwares or whatever *on the hardware* but a closed-source software driver stack is just absurd.
It is no more absurd than the law which governs it. nVidia drank the Microsoft kool-aid long ago and now their lips will be forever stained by it. Not until Microsoft is destroyed do we have any chance of an Open nVidia driver.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree.. optimus is crap, even on windows.
Re: (Score:2)
umm..ookayy. I'm sure the kernel devs would love all the kernel drivers under gpl2. I agree with linus, but I also want my computer to work. In the end, that's what's important to me. On older boards (geforce 7-), I usually use nouveau as it gives a nice high res accelerated terminal. The 3D support is passable enough to run opengl screensavers and the like. If I really need 3d support, I use the nvidia driver. Both work fine for me, far better than the radeon garbage.
Re: (Score:2)
nVidia is still the worst company regarding linux support. I have phisical pain because I can't connect an external montitor to my linux labtop. They are fucking morrons who obviously can't program a driver. FUCK U NVIDIA! Linus is right that they are a lot worse than AMD. At least they could have the dignity to support the nouveau driver. FUCK U NVIDIA. At least Ubuntu 13.04 and probably fedorda 19 won't support the latest latops that have an current nvidia chip. And thanks to optimus you can't connect an externeal monitor. FUCK U NVIDIA!
In your case I would simply recommend to get a laptop with Intel HD Graphics.
What he means (Score:2)
Is Linux users have been whining that nVidia should open up their drivers. nVidia won't, so LInux users thing nVidia is the bad guy and "jerking them around" rather than investigating if there might be some valid reasons.
However despite that ideological point, he still uses their products, because they are the best for Linux. That again is a reason I say maybe people should consider that nVidia has reasons behind what they do.
Re: (Score:1)
Linus' screw you comment aside, I'm not certain the Linux users as all, consider nVidia to be anti Linux.
I'd image only a small minority stick to the "open or die" attitude.
- Gilboa
Re:nVidia have been jerking Linux around (Score:5, Funny)
I've been using nVidia Linux drivers since, 1992 (*gasp*)
Gasp indeed. I'd be very impressed by this, given that nVidia was only founded in 1993 and released its first graphics card in 1995.
Re: (Score:1)
Note to self: Writing comments after 20h+ work is known to produce interesting results.... :(
I meant 2002
- Gilboa
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Back in 2001-2002, I had a GF3 (?) running on a A7M-266D which had some issues - most of them related to the default AGP driver which was rather funky.
The irony was that Windows 2K exhibited the same issues (BSODs).
It took a while for the machine to reach rock solid status. (On both OSs, though I slowly stopped using Windows all-together more-or-less at the same time).
By 2004, I no longer had any serious issues with nVidia drivers (at least as far as I remember).
All in all I must have installed nVidia cards
Fearless Leader (Score:4, Funny)
I love this picture of our fearless leader. Doing what we've all wanted to do to companies that fuck with us.
http://www.phoronix.net/image.php?id=0x2012&image=linus_nvidia_finger_med [phoronix.net]
Lenovo Notebook? Don't Celebrate Just Yet... (Score:4, Informative)
I'll be glad when this is actually able to run on Lenovo's notebooks, which require an ugly ACPI hack to enable the Nvidia GPU: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch/issues/2#issuecomment-3797568 [github.com]
Re: (Score:2)
What's ugly about the ACPI hacks? Isn't this---powering up and down optional hardware in a standard way---exactly what ACPI is meant to do?
Honest question. I don't have an Optimus laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
It's time to get serious about bugs NVIDIA (Score:2)
Please NVIDIA do something about reliability, compatibility, provide debug symbols, meaningful error messages, and a way to easily provide feedback and response and the understanding of how the collected data is used rather than the impression it goes to /dev/null.
You have subtly reassigned your user base to serve as your beta test annoyance discovery team, selling hardware with drivers that provide the air of functionality but each with its own nuances of failure and glitches.
I try not to be nasty, but Lin
Linux Torvalds? (Score:1)
don't care: no sell (Score:2, Interesting)
haven't purchased anything (for myself or clients) with an nvidia chip in it for at least the last year. nvidia had time to design their way out of old third party impediments to open sourcing the driver code and they haven't even started. i don't care what their reasons are. I'm not installing their closed source (security and stability issues) code into a perfectly good linux machine and i don't appreciate their cavalier attitude towards me and mine as a market. The open source radeon driver (http://www.
Re: (Score:2)
Who? (Score:5, Informative)
Somebody get Soulxkill his coffee.
better late than never (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
when shopping for a new laptop or desktop i always look for ATI video now, (i dont like having my PC half_broken because some snooty hardware MFG wont build decent Linux drivers
So uh, why are you still running AMD? Only intel is making a serious effort to deliver decent Linux drivers. fglrx is crap and AMD trickles out the information too slowly for ati to be worth a crap either.
Android is Linux (Score:1)
Just wonder if they are leaning toward mobile market as well. It makes sense if they want to target the tablet market, as there are more mobile and social games around these days. And thinking about the developing countries, there are huge market on the mobile/tablet market.
Bumblebee team clarification - read and promote it (Score:1)
As a Linux user, I'm boycotting Nvidia (Score:1)
For a long time, I have decided to boycott Nvidia (which I have nicknamed as “Hang-vidia” due to the fact their drivers frequently caused my machine to hang) due to their positive hostility for Linux, and open source, and what not (lack of support for open source efforts, no specifications released, legal threats against open source efforts, dropping support for old cards, etc.), and the low quality of their binary-only offerings (frequent hangs and crashes), and their general incompetence. I w
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I could overclock (and get fan speed control) just by setting Option Coolbits "5" in xorg.conf, then a new section appears in nvidia-settings. (the coolbits number is a binary mask about enabling three features so it can go from 0 to 7).
I learnt of this by finally reading the nvidia driver documentation, which was quite detailed and allowed me to learn the xorg option to bypass monitor EDID. Then I quickly disabled overclocking before of concern for stability - my card is an old 7600GT and I think it crashe