Hybrid ATI/ATI - Intel/ATI solution: small switcheroo how to

[dogsleg]

fglrx handles it internally. It's a hack to workaround the limitations of the xserver. The open driver could do it internally as well, but time would be better spent on doing it right, plus it solves a lot of other problems (hotplug of USB displays, etc.).

Thanks for your answers!

Hope that with going X.Org GPU hot-plugging into mainline the support for muxless cards is a very near thing. Muxless support is a business not only for AMD, yep. May be there is some info on the progress to handle it?

[agd5f]

Well, I can switch between integrated and discrete cards when using fglrx (beginning from 11.8 version till up-to-date). So fglrx doesn't depend on X server architecture for switching? Is it contains some bypass that allows to support muxless systems?

fglrx handles it internally. It's a hack to workaround the limitations of the xserver. The open driver could do it internally as well, but time would be better spent on doing it right, plus it solves a lot of other problems (hotplug of USB displays, etc.).

[dogsleg]

You have a muxless systems (i.e., the laptop panel is only attached to the integrated GPU). The panel is not attached to the discrete card so there is no way to switch. To properly support muxless systems the X server needs significant architectural changes to decouple rendering and display (basically both GPUs are active and the discrete card renders into a buffer that is shared with the integrated card. The integrated card then composites that buffer with the rest of the desktop when it updates the screen. There is some work going on to support this, but it's not ready yet.

Well, I can switch between integrated and discrete cards when using fglrx (beginning from 11.8 version till up-to-date). So fglrx doesn't depend on X server architecture for switching? Is it contains some bypass that allows to support muxless systems?

[agd5f]

Is it my fault or a bug in X/radeon/kernel? What you, guys, can advise me?

You have a muxless systems (i.e., the laptop panel is only attached to the integrated GPU). The panel is not attached to the discrete card so there is no way to switch. To properly support muxless systems the X server needs significant architectural changes to decouple rendering and display (basically both GPUs are active and the discrete card renders into a buffer that is shared with the integrated card. The integrated card then composites that buffer with the rest of the desktop when it updates the screen. There is some work going on to support this, but it's not ready yet.

[dogsleg]

X segfaults...

Sorry for digging out that thread...

I'm trying to get vga_switcheroo working on my notebook (Debian testing+unstable installed)with:

lspci | grep VGA
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI RS880M [Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series]
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Whistler [AMD Radeon HD 6600M Series] (rev ff)

VGA switcheroo is configured:

cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch 
0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:01:05.0
1:DIS: :Pwr:0000:02:00.0

I'm trying to do this:

echo DDIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

After that I'm restaring X, but getting just a black screen, then I entering root and root's password, and then reboot.

Well, here is my Xorg.0.log (from default IGD-session): http://pastebin.com/urC2jd2L.
And here is my Xorg.0.log.old (from trying to switch to DIS session): http://pastebin.com/gs3kUQQC.

Is it my fault or a bug in X/radeon/kernel? What you, guys, can advise me?

[allbread]

On my Thinkpad W500 (with Linux Mint 10) I've run through the "switcheroo" installation procedure and currently see the following:

When selecting "Discrete(*)"
allbread@Tomato ~ $ glxinfo | grep vendor
server glx vendor string: SGI
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

When selecting "Integrated(*)"
allbread@Tomato ~/Desktop $ glxinfo | grep vendor
server glx vendor string: SGI
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
OpenGL vendor string: Tungsten Graphics, Inc

This looks promising... is this the expected (correct) behavior?

Since installing switcheroo I seem to have run into a problem - i.e. my system hangs whenever I attempt to logout/restart/shutdown manually from the desktop... however oddly enough the reboot via the switcheroo code (or from applications such as UNetBootin) seems to work just fine. I'm not 100% sure this is attributable to the hybrid switcheroo but it does seem like an odd coincidence... any ideas?

Also, assuming the switcheroo functionality is running as intended, is there a way to get it to load the proprietary ATI drivers (instead of the open source drivers)?

Is there be a way for me to modify the script to detect if I'm running on battery vs AC power (and adjust my GPU to integrated or discrete respectively) on boot?

[Kano]

For hardcore users you could try dsdt editing which seems to be a sport for osx users on normal pcs

[Death Knight]

Thanks for the information. And Airlied to works on PRIME architecture.

Not lucky, my MB, bios can't show even BIOS screen on integrated graphics too. Can't set onboard GPU as primary...(Using old bios to enable 4.th CPU core)

Anyway, I can use manual switching with current code (after Northern Islands 3D acceleration arrives). As Airlied says at his blog, X doesn't allow driver without screen, so PRIME is not yet in usable stage. What about Wayland? Does its architecture allows such a thing or it looks like to support it near future? Its good to have open sourced hybrid-crossfire like solutions. (Really don't know the "diff -ruN X11 Wayland")

[Kano]

If you are lucky you can disable it in bios.

[bridgman]

D'oh !!

Sorry about that