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2mac

Member

Registered: 2013-11-09

Posts: 95

[SOLVED] NVIDIA Card is 3D Controller?

I bought a laptop that shipped with Win7, using two cards: an integrated Intel graphics cards, and a high-performance NVIDIA GPU. After switching to Arch, the Intel card performed quite well with its light load, but I'd like to reap the benefits of having this high-powered card.

I cannot set the card as my default for X11.

$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)

$ lspci | grep 3D
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev a1)

It lists both cards, saying that the Intel card is a VGA compatible controller and the NVIDIA card is a 3D controller.

IDEAL SITUATION: I'd be able to set the NVIDIA card as my only card, so that when I start X11, my entire desktop is managed by it.

ALTERNATIVE IDEAL SITUATION: I could get it working with PRIME using the nouveau drivers (already installed), and run my graphics-intensive applications with the NVIDIA card.

Last edited by 2mac (2013-12-07 04:31:56)

clfarron4

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From: London, UK

Registered: 2013-06-28

Posts: 2,163

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Re: [SOLVED] NVIDIA Card is 3D Controller?

It lists both cards, saying that the Intel card is a VGA compatible controller and the NVIDIA card is a 3D controller.

IDEAL SITUATION: I'd be able to set the NVIDIA card as my only card, so that when I start X11, my entire desktop is managed by it.

ALTERNATIVE IDEAL SITUATION: I could get it working with PRIME using the nouveau drivers (already installed), and run my graphics-intensive applications with the NVIDIA card.

I think you're looking at the latter with BumbleBee to switch between the cards.

EDIT: IDEAL SITUATION is only possible if you can turn off the Integrated Card from the BIOS settings (and some people can).

Also, you know the nVidia proprietary 331 drivers + kernel >= 3.12 provide intelligent powering down and up of the discrete nVidia card, so you only need BumbleBee to switch the cards (where it is needed to do both with previous version of both).

Last edited by clfarron4 (2013-12-06 21:01:04)

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2mac

Member

Registered: 2013-11-09

Posts: 95

Re: [SOLVED] NVIDIA Card is 3D Controller?

The BumbleBee solution did work after working out a handful of other issues thereof. For those of you Googling your way to this thread, be sure to follow all instructions carefully.