NVIDIA Has Major New Linux Driver: Optimus, RandR 1.4

[LLStarks]

Nvidia's kernel patches and dma-buf suggestions were implemented in a way that satisfied 90% of what they wanted. It's the main reason why this requires the unreleased 3.9 kernel.

They couldn't use randr 1.4 without it.

[Ericg]

Optimus has been advertised as a feature for Windows 7 specifically: http://www.nvidia.com/object/optimus_technology.html
"* Optimus requires Windows 7 or later"
XP/Vista users don't get that feature either (because the OS lacks support), so I'm not sure why linux users felt they were entitled to the functionality in the first place. nVidia tried to offer some kernel patches to enable Optimus in the past, but these were not accepted. Now they are using an alternative approach using a feature in RandR 1.4 (which wasn't available at the time Optimus was introduced).

Kinda sorta right. XP Doesnt support optimus at all. Vista CAN support it but it requires a BIOS flag. This issue came up at linux.conf.au (I forget which speaker... was David, Daniel or Keith) Vista had to have a hardware (read: BIOS) flag to switch between the GPUs, OS X mandates a hardware flag just to make sure it works properly, Win7 doesnt require a hardware flag. Became an issue of "Well OS X does it this way... Windows does it the opposite way... which do we do?"

[LLStarks]

I'm pretty close to getting "Optimus" working. Unfortunately, my Nvidia card isn't wired to HDMI or any output and the LVDS doesn't want to play nice.

I'm getting a blank, backlit screen. X will start without complaining, run programs invisibly and glxinfo will report Nvidia, but there's nothing on the LVDS or HDMI.

Unity and other DEs will try to load, but report framebuffer errors.

Providers for Nvidia and modesetting (or Intel, I've tested both) report properly.

Clevo W150HRM
Core i7 2630QM
Nvidia GT 555M
Ubuntu 13.04
Linux 3.9-rc6
xorg-edgers and xrandr 1.4

[schmidtbag]

Yeah, Michael has mentioned in previous articles that the Fermi and Kepler series of cards don't support overclocking when using the Nvidia binary drivers.

Do they work in Windows?

[Veerappan]

Those are the only ones I happened to have access to. I never heard that GTX400 cards and newer can't overclock, but I suppose I don't have a reason to doubt that. Honestly though, aside from testing for stability, OS GPU overclocking tools aren't really the best way to go because they're always temporary. I personally replace the GPU BIOS, so I don't have to worry about an OS not supporting the higher clock speeds known to work.

Yeah, Michael has mentioned in previous articles that the Fermi and Kepler series of cards don't support overclocking when using the Nvidia binary drivers.

[schmidtbag]

You mean only cards older than GTX4xx, right?

Those are the only ones I happened to have access to. I never heard that GTX400 cards and newer can't overclock, but I suppose I don't have a reason to doubt that. Honestly though, aside from testing for stability, OS GPU overclocking tools aren't really the best way to go because they're always temporary. I personally replace the GPU BIOS, so I don't have to worry about an OS not supporting the higher clock speeds known to work.

[dh04000]

Has anyone here tried it? Setting up the new driver with the opensource intel one and seeing what does and does not work?

[Licaon]

linux has been able to overlclock nvidia cards for a while now....

You mean only cards older than GTX4xx, right?

[schmidtbag]

Will nVidia enable overclocking on Linux? Any news on this?

linux has been able to overlclock nvidia cards for a while now.... IIRC, even the open source drivers can do it at this point. I think you're also able to change fan speeds. I'm not sure if all GPUs are supported for either ability. I'm pretty sure most ATI and AMD cards can be overclocked too. Intel was the only one that lacked overclocking support up until very recently.

[uid313]

Optimus support makes Nvidia more appealing to Linux laptop gamers.

I've avoided Nvidia laptops due to Optimus not working on Linux.
So Optimus coming to Linux is great.
Though, when I buy next laptop, it wont have a Nvidia card anyways, because it just draws more power than a Intel or AMD CPU with integrated GPU.

I would like to see some open source commitment from Nvidia.
Also, I would like to see EGL, OpenGL ES, Wayland support.