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#1 2013-01-30 19:06:29

syms
Member
Registered: 2008-12-25
Posts: 296

Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

Hello,
I'm sorry if its a bit offtopic question, but im planning to buy a laptop first time, and i chosen two models - Asus k55a and Asus k55vd. k55a has intel hd 4000 graphics only, while k55vd has intel hd 4000 graphics + nvidia geforce gt610m. Those two models are absolutely the same except for dedicated graphics. What do you recommend for me? If optimus state now is problematic i would choose k55a, but if its not or at least bbswitch works fine then k55vd would be a choice. So what is current bumblebee state? Is it worth to choose one with dedicated graphics, or better to stick with intel only? I am not a gamer, but i heard that nvidia drivers are still way better than intel ones for opengl apps, and since those two models are priced similairy i dont want to lose one or two features even if i wont use them a lot.

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#2 2013-01-31 15:41:10

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

syms wrote:

Hello,
I'm sorry if its a bit offtopic question, but im planning to buy a laptop first time, and i chosen two models - Asus k55a and Asus k55vd. k55a has intel hd 4000 graphics only, while k55vd has intel hd 4000 graphics + nvidia geforce gt610m. Those two models are absolutely the same except for dedicated graphics. What do you recommend for me? If optimus state now is problematic i would choose k55a, but if its not or at least bbswitch works fine then k55vd would be a choice. So what is current bumblebee state? Is it worth to choose one with dedicated graphics, or better to stick with intel only? I am not a gamer, but i heard that nvidia drivers are still way better than intel ones for opengl apps, and since those two models are priced similairy i dont want to lose one or two features even if i wont use them a lot.

Even though this thread could be closed down quickly citing forum guidelines, I shall try to share my experience a bit since I have an optimus laptop.
bumblebee is in good state. It involves few complicated steps, but not impossible. Life would be lot easier without optimus. David airlie from Redhat is trying some linux specific optimus like solution but I would not count on it, becoz its nothing grossly different from bumblebee.
Is it worth to try a 610M ?
Its a better solution than HD4000, but its not a great card. Overall it depends upon how you plan on using the nvidia card. Some people do CUDA coding in linux.

You have to weigh in your options, before you purchase.

Last edited by hadrons123 (2013-01-31 15:43:37)


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#3 2013-01-31 20:22:09

syms
Member
Registered: 2008-12-25
Posts: 296

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

hadrons123 wrote:
syms wrote:

Hello,
I'm sorry if its a bit offtopic question, but im planning to buy a laptop first time, and i chosen two models - Asus k55a and Asus k55vd. k55a has intel hd 4000 graphics only, while k55vd has intel hd 4000 graphics + nvidia geforce gt610m. Those two models are absolutely the same except for dedicated graphics. What do you recommend for me? If optimus state now is problematic i would choose k55a, but if its not or at least bbswitch works fine then k55vd would be a choice. So what is current bumblebee state? Is it worth to choose one with dedicated graphics, or better to stick with intel only? I am not a gamer, but i heard that nvidia drivers are still way better than intel ones for opengl apps, and since those two models are priced similairy i dont want to lose one or two features even if i wont use them a lot.

Even though this thread could be closed down quickly citing forum guidelines, I shall try to share my experience a bit since I have an optimus laptop.
bumblebee is in good state. It involves few complicated steps, but not impossible. Life would be lot easier without optimus. David airlie from Redhat is trying some linux specific optimus like solution but I would not count on it, becoz its nothing grossly different from bumblebee.
Is it worth to try a 610M ?
Its a better solution than HD4000, but its not a great card. Overall it depends upon how you plan on using the nvidia card. Some people do CUDA coding in linux.

You have to weigh in your options, before you purchase.

Thanks for opinion. Well even if bumblebee wont work fine, i could use bbswitch to disable nvidia and then the problems are over. If bumblebee doesnt drain battery and doesnt keep fan spinning because of nvidia, i guess i can just choose optimus laptop.

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#4 2013-01-31 22:24:51

-MacNuke-
Member
Registered: 2013-01-29
Posts: 24

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

There is also a chance, that the nvidia driver supports Optimus in the near future. Nvidia has a working driver in-house, but they can not release it, because there are some kernel developer "working" against it (search for dma_buf and/or PRIME helper combined with optimus for more info).

But as far as i know there are some patches in Kernel 3.9 from Nvidia to work around that.

Until this, bumblebee works quite good.

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#5 2013-01-31 23:18:38

syms
Member
Registered: 2008-12-25
Posts: 296

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

-MacNuke- wrote:

There is also a chance, that the nvidia driver supports Optimus in the near future. Nvidia has a working driver in-house, but they can not release it, because there are some kernel developer "working" against it (search for dma_buf and/or PRIME helper combined with optimus for more info).

But as far as i know there are some patches in Kernel 3.9 from Nvidia to work around that.

Until this, bumblebee works quite good.

Thats interesting, thanks for info. Im starting to to consider optimus version, in fact if its gonna be officialy supported in future

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#6 2013-02-04 07:39:08

qKUqm3wtY4
Member
From: San Francisco
Registered: 2012-12-19
Posts: 60
Website

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

syms wrote:

Hello,
I'm sorry if its a bit offtopic question, but im planning to buy a laptop first time, and i chosen two models - Asus k55a and Asus k55vd. k55a has intel hd 4000 graphics only, while k55vd has intel hd 4000 graphics + nvidia geforce gt610m. Those two models are absolutely the same except for dedicated graphics. What do you recommend for me? If optimus state now is problematic i would choose k55a, but if its not or at least bbswitch works fine then k55vd would be a choice. So what is current bumblebee state? Is it worth to choose one with dedicated graphics, or better to stick with intel only? I am not a gamer, but i heard that nvidia drivers are still way better than intel ones for opengl apps, and since those two models are priced similairy i dont want to lose one or two features even if i wont use them a lot.

I have an ASUS K53SV.  I've had very few problems with it (up until today actually; I've broken it somehow).  I use Nvidia's proprietary driver with Primus.  The installations process was fairly easy, and well documented in the Wiki.  I am able to run games with no problems.  Steam has no problem utilizing my GPU.

My computer has similar hardware to the K55vd.

[username@localhost ~]$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 540M] (rev a1)

I am a noob.  Ask me nothing.

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#7 2013-02-04 19:59:04

syms
Member
Registered: 2008-12-25
Posts: 296

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

qKUqm3wtY4 wrote:
syms wrote:

Hello,
I'm sorry if its a bit offtopic question, but im planning to buy a laptop first time, and i chosen two models - Asus k55a and Asus k55vd. k55a has intel hd 4000 graphics only, while k55vd has intel hd 4000 graphics + nvidia geforce gt610m. Those two models are absolutely the same except for dedicated graphics. What do you recommend for me? If optimus state now is problematic i would choose k55a, but if its not or at least bbswitch works fine then k55vd would be a choice. So what is current bumblebee state? Is it worth to choose one with dedicated graphics, or better to stick with intel only? I am not a gamer, but i heard that nvidia drivers are still way better than intel ones for opengl apps, and since those two models are priced similairy i dont want to lose one or two features even if i wont use them a lot.

I have an ASUS K53SV.  I've had very few problems with it (up until today actually; I've broken it somehow).  I use Nvidia's proprietary driver with Primus.  The installations process was fairly easy, and well documented in the Wiki.  I am able to run games with no problems.  Steam has no problem utilizing my GPU.

My computer has similar hardware to the K55vd.

[username@localhost ~]$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce GT 540M] (rev a1)

Thanks for information, its good to see that similair model runs linux with no problem. i think i quite made decision to go to optimus laptop. Thank you!

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#8 2013-02-08 15:41:59

capitalaslash
Member
Registered: 2012-09-08
Posts: 4

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

i've been using this exact laptop at work for the last week.
as with my previous experience with another optimus laptop, i can say that bumblebee is working quite well nowadays, but i would still suggest you to buy the non-optimus one, as the added graphic card for me is just useless money that i struggle to keep quite and save battery.

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#9 2013-02-12 07:30:05

koz
Member
Registered: 2012-01-09
Posts: 37

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

There is nothing wrong with Optimus/bumblebee.

I can't speak for the state of drivers, etc. But doesn't the HD4000 outperform the 610M?
If this is indeed the case, then it seems like an exercise in futility.

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#10 2013-02-12 07:34:38

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

koz wrote:

There is nothing wrong with Optimus/bumblebee.

I can't speak for the state of drivers, etc. But doesn't the HD4000 outperform the 610M?
If this is indeed the case, then it seems like an exercise in futility.

No.

maybe haswell intel graphics might.


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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#11 2013-02-13 23:49:34

koz
Member
Registered: 2012-01-09
Posts: 37

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

hadrons123 wrote:
koz wrote:

There is nothing wrong with Optimus/bumblebee.

I can't speak for the state of drivers, etc. But doesn't the HD4000 outperform the 610M?
If this is indeed the case, then it seems like an exercise in futility.

No.

maybe haswell intel graphics might.

Plenty of benchmarks floating around say otherwise, but as always Intel graphics' performance also substantially depends on the CPU.

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#12 2013-04-10 05:28:00

-MacNuke-
Member
Registered: 2013-01-29
Posts: 24

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n … px=MTM0NzE

Official NVidia Optimus Driver seems to be out now.

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#13 2013-04-10 07:00:31

hadrons123
Member
From: chennai
Registered: 2011-10-07
Posts: 1,249

Re: Bumblebee and nvidia optimus state.

Wow... Linus finger did help.


LENOVO Y 580 IVYBRIDGE 660M NVIDIA
Unix is user-friendly. It just isn't promiscuous about which users it's friendly with. - Steven King

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