Ubuntu Still Figuring Out How To Handle Hybrid Graphics

[Ericg]

Meh, I've always hated hybrid graphics even in windows. My brother has an HP laptop running windows 7 with hybrid AMD/intel graphics and its a horrible buggy mess. whenever looking for linux hardware I always make sure to totally stay away from any hybrid graphics.

To be fair, bwat, AMD's implementation of Hybridness is VERY different than Nvidia. Optimus tends to be relatively bug free and very clean on windows 7 at least in my experience with laptops sporting Nvidia+Intel.

On a separate note, because I know what that someone else would mention it eventually...

Canonical has to implement Hybrid graphics on their own, in server. Wayland also is currently without Hybrid support but for them its actually better-- remember Wayland just wants buffers filled with pixels. It doesnt care how those pixels got there. Daniel Stone said "Optimus? Thats a client problem." at his linux.conf.au presentation, most likely meaning hybrid support will come down to the Mesa devs leveraging DMA-BUF (everything has to be done in the driver, the kernel, or the GL stack. Wayland just wants buffers.)

Of interesting note is the actual implementation. On Windows when the hybrid kicks in, things flicker or stutter for a half second whenever you change GPU's and then youre good until you change GPU's again. On OS X interestingly, no stuttering or flickering or even pausing. It was either Daniel or David that said they most likely did all of their hybrid stuff inside their GL layer.

On Wayland, with compositing being mandatory and with the use of double/triple buffers..I wonder if Wayland will get to the same level of tear-free flicker-free switching. Either solution (Flicker or no flickering) is fine, really, it just looks nicer if we can achieve zero-flicker.

[Serafean]

Nvidia didn't do shit to enable hybrid graphics. They patiently waited for the linaro guys to create dma-buf, then for the X guys to do the X API changes and RANDR imrpovements, then they waltzed in with some comments (when all was done) and made a wrapper around GPL exported symbols. That's history as I remember it...

[bwat47]

Meh, I've always hated hybrid graphics even in windows. My brother has an HP laptop running windows 7 with hybrid AMD/intel graphics and its a horrible buggy mess. whenever looking for linux hardware I always make sure to totally stay away from any hybrid graphics.

[bkor]

Well, if the linux support for hybrid graphics is POOR, what do you want from Canonical?

They could contribute this themselves. Obviously, that is not what Canonical usually does, they work more on high level things.

[Alex Sarmiento]

Well, if the linux support for hybrid graphics is POOR, what do you want from Canonical?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Still Figuring Out How To Handle Hybrid Graphics

While NVIDIA Optimus and other multi-GPU/hybrid laptop graphics systems have been available for years, in the Linux world support for these capabilities is still in the early stages...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTM3MjY