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#1 2013-09-26 14:25:17

archie0
Member
Registered: 2012-02-26
Posts: 144

[Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

Hey. I've just installed Arch on a laptop that's got 2 AMD cards. 6520G and 7xxx.

I'm trying to disable the dedicated one, but I don't really know how.

Running xrandr --listproviders only shows one of the cards:

Providers: number : 1
Provider 0: id: 0xXY cap: 0xf, Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload crtcs: 2 outputs: 3 associated providers: 0 name:radeon

cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

0:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:01.0
1:DIS: :Pwr:0000:01:00.0
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD SUMO

It seems that the internal one is running at the moment.

Why is just one of them detected by xrandr?

Using kernel 3.11.1, Gnome 3.8, early KMS; I've also added the "performance tuning" options in my 20-radeon.conf


Edit: Disabled it with echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
I'm still wondering why it was using the internal one by default..

Edit2: Now both are showing up but it's still running on the integrated one though. What if I want to use the dedicated one?

Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0xXY cap: 0xf, Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload crtcs: 2 outputs: 3 associated providers: 0 name:radeon
Provider 1: id: 0xYZ cap: 0xf, Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload crtcs: 6 outputs: 0 associated providers: 0 name:radeon

Edit3: Tried with Prime too. It's still running on the IGP.
The thing is: one card is r600 driven, and the other, radeonsi. The X does restart after running Prime, but still.



Problem solved
It needs manual intervention but it works!
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p1329853

Last edited by archie0 (2013-09-28 14:50:07)

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#2 2013-09-26 19:50:18

ooo
Member
Registered: 2013-04-10
Posts: 1,637

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

have you checked if you can disable the built-in vga from bios?

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#3 2013-09-26 19:57:42

archie0
Member
Registered: 2012-02-26
Posts: 144

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

There's no option for that

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#4 2013-09-27 16:52:25

spikkle
Member
Registered: 2013-09-19
Posts: 13

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

If you want to keep it from using the IGD entirely, you can blacklist the module with a conf file in your /etc/modprobe.d folder.  Like so:

/etc/modprobe.d/no_igd.conf

blacklist r600

Note that this will prevent vga_switcheroo from seeing the card at all.  Vga_switcheroo requires ALL modules to be loaded for graphic devices in order to switch between them.

The other route is to create a customized device entry in your /etc/X11/xorg.d folder to specifically set your graphics device using the module you want.  I don't have a code example of this handy at the moment, but you can look around and are sure to find one.

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#5 2013-09-27 18:36:37

archie0
Member
Registered: 2012-02-26
Posts: 144

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

I just wanted to see if the dedicated can be used. Prime seems to work now (outputs the dedicated card when: DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"). Does the dedicated activate automatically when there's something graphically heavy going on? Because I've tried running a 3D game and it was rendering on the IGP.

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#6 2013-09-27 19:03:06

spikkle
Member
Registered: 2013-09-19
Posts: 13

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

Unfortunately, right now there is no way to automatically swap GPUs under the covers when you do something graphically intensive.  You can get close if you have the Nvidia Optimus chipset using the Bumblebee project.  Also if you run your graphics intensive process inside of a KVM you could assign your fancy graphics to it with a bit of work (and reading on the forum).

Maybe we'll get it in Wayland?

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#7 2013-09-27 19:16:17

archie0
Member
Registered: 2012-02-26
Posts: 144

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

In that case, what does Prime do exactly? I though it's supposed to enable the dedicated card when it's needed; it clearly doesn't do that on my computer, so I don't see it's purpose. Could someone elaborate? Thank you

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#8 2013-09-27 21:08:32

spikkle
Member
Registered: 2013-09-19
Posts: 13

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

Looks similar to Bumblebee, so specifically it advertises swapping GPUs when you have (specifically) Nvidia Optimus or ATI switchable graphics.  These configurations have hardware switches controllable by the drivers.  Just because you have two cards doesn't necessarily mean you can do it, they have to be supported in that way.

For example, my Macbook Retina 15 has Intel i915 and Nvidia 650M, but I cannot use either software to switch between them because there is no hardware, driver controlled switch.

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#9 2013-09-27 21:54:14

clfarron4
Member
From: London, UK
Registered: 2013-06-28
Posts: 2,163
Website

Re: [Solved] Hybrid graphics. Can't use the dedicated card

I don't know how well this works, but there is a package for Bumblebee for AMD in the AUR.

There is also AMD Catalyst with PowerXpress.

NOTE: I have never dealt with Hybrid Graphics in person.


Claire is fine.
Problems? I have dysgraphia, so clear and concise please.
My public GPG key for package signing
My x86_64 package repository

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