New Driver Aims To Improve MSI Laptop Support On Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: New Driver Aims To Improve MSI Laptop Support On Linux

A driver submitted for review that hopes to be included upstream in the Linux kernel enhances support for MSI laptops under Linux with more features being enabled...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/MSI-EC-Laptop-Driver-Linux

[WereCatf]

As someone with two MSI-laptops, this is obviously welcome. I do hope, though, that they'll also add the ability to toggle the iGPU/dGPU MUX on/off in the driver as well at some point. MSI likes to make that functionality only available through their god-awful, garbage-tier Windows-only software.

[sarmad]

As someone with two MSI-laptops, this is obviously welcome. I do hope, though, that they'll also add the ability to toggle the iGPU/dGPU MUX on/off in the driver as well at some point. MSI likes to make that functionality only available through their god-awful, garbage-tier Windows-only software.

Do you happen to know if the MUX is actually supported in Linux with nVidia dGPU?

[PAUL007]

hope one day something for hp laptops too.

[WereCatf]

Do you happen to know if the MUX is actually supported in Linux with nVidia dGPU?

There is nothing to support. Once the feature has been toggled, the OS only sees the dGPU as the iGPU is disabled and all video-output is routed out directly from the dGPU. This is to say, yes, it works just fine. The problem is not having the ability to toggle the MUX at the moment.

[sarmad]

There is nothing to support. Once the feature has been toggled, the OS only sees the dGPU as the iGPU is disabled and all video-output is routed out directly from the dGPU. This is to say, yes, it works just fine. The problem is not having the ability to toggle the MUX at the moment.

Looks like you don't understand how modern multiplexers work, AKA nVidia Advanced Optimus. With Advanced Optimus switching the display happen on the fly without rebooting. When you launch a game the display is switched to the dGPU on the fly; when you quit the game the display is switched back to the iGPU. I'm not sure if this is supported under Linux.

[WereCatf]

Looks like you don't understand how modern multiplexers work, AKA nVidia Advanced Optimus. With Advanced Optimus switching the display happen on the fly without rebooting. When you launch a game the display is switched to the dGPU on the fly; when you quit the game the display is switched back to the iGPU. I'm not sure if this is supported under Linux.

No, you are talking about a different thing than I am. The MUX is a hardware-feature, not a software-one and it does disable the iGPU entirely. I have a laptop with the said MUX, I know full well it works exactly like I said it does.

[piotrj3]

Looks like you don't understand how modern multiplexers work, AKA nVidia Advanced Optimus. With Advanced Optimus switching the display happen on the fly without rebooting. When you launch a game the display is switched to the dGPU on the fly; when you quit the game the display is switched back to the iGPU. I'm not sure if this is supported under Linux.

Switching on the fly is way more complicated then simple driver sending command to swap and it is practically opening a large can of worms.

[sarmad]

No, you are talking about a different thing than I am. The MUX is a hardware-feature, not a software-one and it does disable the iGPU entirely. I have a laptop with the said MUX, I know full well it works exactly like I said it does.

Yes, I am talking about something else, and it was what my question was about in the first place. What you are talking about is the old style MUX, and you are right in how it works, but new laptops come with what nVidia calls Advanced Optimus, which gives you all the benefits of old style MUX, but without the drawbacks. It's NOT a software solution, it's a hardware MUX but one that can be dynamically controlled by the OS, on the fly without restarting the OS.