Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

Bahaika · 2013-04-16 07:35:10

Hi everyone

5 days ago, Nvidia release the 319.12 version of their drivers, which provide a beginning of Optimus native support.
I'm aware that bumblebee would be an alternative, but I'm using a second screen 80% of the time, and my HDMI output is directly wired to the Nvidia GPU.
My Laptop screen is wired to the Intel GPU, and my computer is muxless... so I was stuck with no way to create a dual-monitor setup.

After some search on google, I found 2 pages of the Nvidia documentation :
Using the NVIDIA Driver with Optimus Laptops
Offloading Graphics Display with RandR 1.4

So, according to the second link, I created a Xorg.conf file with my Bus ID. It didn't worked, GDM was crashing again and again until it reaches the number of maximum tries... Here is the log.

After reading the log, I realize that the error was caused because he wasn't detecting my screen.
So I decide to change

Screen 0 "nvidia"

with

Screen 0 "intel"

And now I'm stuck on a black screen with the watch of gdm loading...
Here is my xorg.conf file.
And here is my Xorg log.

I also tried to remove this line

Inactive "intel"

and it didn't change anything.

I think I've misunderstood something in documentation pages, but I don't know what.
I precise that my final goal is to have a native dual-screen, the energy consumption of having everything running on the Nvidia GPU isn't a problem to me.

Thanks for reading and I hope someone will be able to figure out what's wrong

hadrons123 · 2013-04-16 08:42:52

Try here
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi … een-found/

I didn't come across anyone do it in Arch BBS.

Sphaerophoria · 2013-04-19 20:13:22

I managed to get it working following the NVIDIA documentation. Install linux-mainline and set up your xorg.conf the way they said. Your BusID syntax is wrong. It should be "PCI:1:0:0". My only issue is I can only get it working when I set up the Nvidia card to have no outputs. As soon as I try to enable Nvidia and Intel at the same time xrandr spits some errors about not being able to find modes that it listed for the intel monitor.

themax · 2013-05-14 15:03:43

I got it to work on my laptop

from the official xorg.conf (that one from the readme) I changed "modesetting" to "intel"

in my .xinitrc I added (capital I in "Intel" is crucial):

xrandr --setprovideroutputsource Intel NVIDIA-0
xrandr --auto

right before "exec i3"

Normally, I use Gnome and gdm, but gdm broke lots of times I advise you to try a lightweight wm and no dm first.

with this, you get only OpenGL 2.1 via llvmpipe though. If you want the nvidia driver to be active you need nvidia-libgl

dhabgood3 · 2013-05-30 22:41:33

Thank you for posting this... I will see if this fixes my laptop as well.

dhabgood3 · 2013-05-31 21:53:10

I attempted to make those changes but that did not work. I managed to get the Nvidia optimus with native support working perfectly fine with fluxbox by following the how to on nvidia's website.

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/L … ndr14.html

I went ahead and installed, xorg-video-nvidia, xorg-xrandr, xorg-modesetting and xorg-video-intel. In order get the xorg-video-intel package to install I did a pacman -Sd xorg-video-intel which bypasses the dependancy checks and forces the package to install. Then I made the neccessary modifications to the xorg and xinitrc as described in the how to.

Finally for the last line in my xinitrc I changed it to exec startfluxbox

I strongly suggest you troubleshoot with a simple windows manager like fluxbox and get that working first then proceed to working with gnome or kde. GDM is a bit tricky with the xrandr as you need to put it into a startup script.

Last edited by dhabgood3 (2013-06-01 00:11:46)

w_bowman · 2013-07-31 18:40:03

themax wrote:

I got it to work on my laptop
from the official xorg.conf (that one from the readme) I changed "modesetting" to "intel"
in my .xinitrc I added (capital I in "Intel" is crucial):
xrandr --setprovideroutputsource Intel NVIDIA-0
xrandr --auto
right before "exec i3"
Normally, I use Gnome and gdm, but gdm broke lots of times I advise you to try a lightweight wm and no dm first.
with this, you get only OpenGL 2.1 via llvmpipe though. If you want the nvidia driver to be active you need nvidia-libgl

After God knows how long, you are my savior. I can finally start programming with CUDA.
I also had to uncomment out the

    #Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"

for my device, just incase others make it here and have the same issue I had.

Last edited by w_bowman (2013-07-31 18:41:19)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-04-16 07:35:10

Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#2 2013-04-16 08:42:52

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#3 2013-04-19 20:13:22

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#4 2013-05-14 15:03:43

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#5 2013-05-30 22:41:33

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#6 2013-05-31 21:53:10

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

#7 2013-07-31 18:40:03

Re: Nvidia optimus with native supports doesn't work

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