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Hi all,
I just wanted to share my working setup with Nvidia Optimus, HiDPI (4k), Nvidia-Exec on Gnome. I am pretty happy with it - although I wish it didnt involve any manual steps (see below).
I hope it can be useful and maybe inspire anyone else to use a similar setup - or help me improve or develop tooling!
Disclaimer: I run manjaro and thus posted this at https://forum.manjaro.org/t/sharing-exp … ome/119796 - however I believe that the setup should work on pure Arch as well.
- HP Zbook Studio G5 with UHD display (HDMI is routed through a Nvidia Quadro Pascal GPU)
- External monitor 27 inch with 1440p resolution and 144hz
- Running Gnome 42.4, Nvidia 515.65.01-6, mutter-x11-scaling 42.4-2 (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mutter-x11-scaling), nvidia-exec 0.1.0-4 (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nvidia-exec)
I can switch between those with logging out of Gnome (no reboot needed, but some manual steps, see below)
1) on the go - hybrid optimus setup
I use Gnome Wayland for on the go. If I need to run an application on the GPU I use Nvidia Exec. For example, to edit pictures running opencl on the GPU I can use 'nvx start darktable'. Games work to, for example I can start X-Plane with the --vulkan switch.
*Advantages*:
- Low power consumption, even with scaling (I use 175 scaling and get 5-7h battery life)
- Nvidia available if needed, with full Vulkan support and no bumblebee penalty (as far as I can judge)
*Disadvantages*:
- HDMI port is unavailable (monitor turns on but is not activated in Gnome, see logs below)
- Sometimes chromium grabs my GPU while it is active, but I mostly use firefox
2) Nvidia stationary setup
I start Gnome on X11 (config below). My external monitor is recognized and I can use both internal and external monitor.
*Advantages*
- Can use external monitor, runs at 144hz
- Mixing UHD laptop screen and QHD external monitor works (thanks mutter-x11-scaling!)
*Disadvantages*
- Fans are running, I notice it gets better when I close my laptop and only external screen is running (I believe it might be connected to a large virtual buffer that mutter-x11-scaling creates)
- I have to run X11 (would prefer to always be on Wayland)
- If I want to run scenario 2, i run 'nvx on' and logout + log into 'Gnome on Xorg'
- If I want to go back to scenario 1, i log off and while in GDM, I open a virtual terminal and run:
sudo systemctl stop gdm
nvx off
sudo systemctl start gdmI then chose 'Gnome' to start my wayland session again
Of course I would prefer to not have to do those manual steps, but I haven't found the time to do a script. I would not be sure how to handle the logouts gracefully. But it might actually be quite simple...
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf:
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
#Option "DRI" "2" # DRI3 is now default
#Option "AccelMethod" "sna" # default
#Option "AccelMethod" "uxa" # fallback
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "true"
Option "AutoAddGPU" "false"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "DiscreteNvidia"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
Option "ProbeAllGpus" "false"
Option "NoLogo" "true"
Option "UseEDID" "true"
Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration"
# Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "DiscreteNvidia"
EndSectionI dont remember whether it was necessary, but I set `WaylandEnable=true` in /etc/gdm/custom.conf and also ran `sudo ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules`
I dont use `nvidia_drm.modeset=1` since it causes gnome-shell to grab the external GPU and doesn't allow to release it
I notice that when I enable modesetting, I can use the external screen in Wayland, but I loose the ability to turn off the nvidia (it is blocked by gnome-shell and thus `nvx off` hangs)
Without modesetting, here is what the logs show if I try to connect the external monitor after running `nvx on` while in a Wayland session (I think I tried twice below):
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7051]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:01.0/power/control
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7051]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7051]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.home1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' requested by ':1.277' (uid=0 pid=7068 comm="sudo tee /s>
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7068]: pam_systemd_home(sudo:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7068]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/power/control
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7068]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7068]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.home1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' requested by ':1.278' (uid=0 pid=7076 comm="sudo modpro>
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7076]: pam_systemd_home(sudo:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7076]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/modprobe nvidia
Aug 18 23:00:40 nk-zbook sudo[7076]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia-nvlink: Nvlink Core is being initialized, major device number 508
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook kernel:
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook kernel: NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 515.65.01 Wed Jul 20 14:00:58 UTC 2022
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7037]: nvidia: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidiactl c $(grep nvidia-frontend /proc/devices | cut -d \ -f 1) 255'' failed with exit code 1.
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7083]: nvidia: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidiactl c $(grep nvidia-frontend /proc/devices | cut -d \ -f 1) 255'' failed with exit code 1.
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook sudo[7076]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7083]: nvidia: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c 'for i in $(cat /proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/*/information | grep Minor | cut -d \ -f 4); do /usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidia${i}>
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.home1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' requested by ':1.279' (uid=0 pid=7109 comm="sudo modpro>
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook sudo[7109]: pam_systemd_home(sudo:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook sudo[7109]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/modprobe nvidia_uvm
Aug 18 23:00:42 nk-zbook sudo[7109]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:43 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7037]: nvidia: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c 'for i in $(cat /proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/*/information | grep Minor | cut -d \ -f 4); do /usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidia${i}>
Aug 18 23:00:43 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia_uvm: module uses symbols nvUvmInterfaceDisableAccessCntr from proprietary module nvidia, inheriting taint.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia-uvm: Loaded the UVM driver, major device number 506.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7109]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7036]: nvidia_uvm: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidia-uvm c $(grep nvidia-uvm /proc/devices | cut -d \ -f 1) 0'' failed with exit code 1.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7036]: nvidia_uvm: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidia-uvm-tools c $(grep nvidia-uvm /proc/devices | cut -d \ -f 1) 1'' failed with exit code >
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.home1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' requested by ':1.280' (uid=0 pid=7132 comm="sudo modpro>
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7132]: pam_systemd_home(sudo:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7132]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/modprobe nvidia_modeset
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7132]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook kernel: nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms 515.65.01 Wed Jul 20 13:43:59 UTC 2022
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7132]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook systemd-udevd[7036]: nvidia_modeset: Process '/usr/bin/bash -c '/usr/bin/mknod -Z -m 666 /dev/nvidia-modeset c $(grep nvidia-frontend /proc/devices | cut -d \ -f 1) 254'' failed with e>
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.home1' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' requested by ':1.281' (uid=0 pid=7146 comm="sudo modpro>
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7146]: pam_systemd_home(sudo:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7146]: nils : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/home/nils ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/modprobe nvidia_drm
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7146]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root(uid=0) by (uid=1000)
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook sudo[7146]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook kernel: [drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00000100] Loading driver
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook kernel: [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 20160202 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 1
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Failed to open atomic modesetting backend: GDBus.Error:System.Error.ENODEV: No such device
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: g_hash_table_destroy: assertion 'hash_table != NULL' failed
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Failed to open legacy modesetting backend: GDBus.Error:System.Error.ENODEV: No such device
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Failed to hotplug secondary gpu '/dev/dri/renderD129': No suitable mode setting backend found
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: g_hash_table_destroy: assertion 'hash_table != NULL' failed
Aug 18 23:00:44 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Failed to hotplug secondary gpu '/dev/dri/card1': No suitable mode setting backend found
Aug 18 23:01:01 nk-zbook CROND[7210]: (root) CMD (run-parts /etc/cron.hourly)
Aug 18 23:01:01 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.opensuse.Snapper' unit='snapperd.service' requested by ':1.282' (uid=0 pid=7215 comm="snapper --config=root --quiet >
Aug 18 23:01:01 nk-zbook systemd[1]: Starting DBus interface for snapper...
Aug 18 23:01:01 nk-zbook dbus-daemon[882]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.opensuse.Snapper'
Aug 18 23:01:01 nk-zbook systemd[1]: Started DBus interface for snapper.
Aug 18 23:01:02 nk-zbook CROND[7209]: (root) CMDEND (run-parts /etc/cron.hourly)
Aug 18 23:01:04 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Window manager warning: last_user_time (413002) is greater than comparison timestamp (412954). This most likely represents a buggy client sending inaccurate timestam>
Aug 18 23:01:04 nk-zbook gnome-shell[5352]: Window manager warning: W2 appears to be one of the offending windows with a timestamp of 413002. Working around...Open to any ideas or improvements. Let me know if you have any questions of course!
Last edited by nika (2022-10-09 14:30:29)
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Update: when I use modeset=1 for both i915 and nvidia I am able to use wayland with nvidia. It runs much cooler than my previous setup which was running gnome-shell on nvidia.
However, in that case, I cannot use nvx for regular mobile use with optimus (nvx start) since it hangs upon removing the nvidia drivers after I run the application with nvidia enabled. However, if I disable modset I am able to use optimus as well with nvx start
Last edited by nika (2022-10-09 18:17:01)
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I dont use `nvidia_drm.modeset=1` since it causes gnome-shell to grab the external GPU and doesn't allow to release it
You can use it and avoid being grabbed by gnome-shell or other programs if you set __EGL_VENDOR_LIBRARY_FILENAMES, __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME to use mesa,
in your .bashenv or .zshenv
export __EGL_VENDOR_LIBRARY_FILENAMES=/usr/share/glvnd/egl_vendor.d/50_mesa.json #replace with the provided by intel/mesa
export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME="mesa"gnome/gdm or kde I think also need to set them on .config/environment.d/envs.conf
__EGL_VENDOR_LIBRARY_FILENAMES=/usr/share/glvnd/egl_vendor.d/50_mesa.json #replace with the provided by intel/mesa
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME="mesa"To avoid the hanging when releasing the nvidia modules you can set this on /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-whatever-name-you-want.conf
install nvidia /usr/bin/falseand the script that you use load the modules with "modprobe -i <module>" and unload with "modprobe -f -r <module>"
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Thanks @gnox, thats very helpful. I will try the parameters you describe.
The only downside is that this only applies when using the laptop in hybrid mode, i.e. when using without external screen and needing on-demand power from the nvidia for 3d games or cuda apps.
When connecting to an external screen, i probably should not set the variables to allow gnome-shell to use the external screen? Or does it work via a different mechanism?
Regarding the hanging issue on unloading: if I logout and stop gdm then I can unload cleanly without a workaround.
Last edited by nika (2022-10-09 22:44:37)
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