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jearbear

Member

Registered: 2012-04-03

Posts: 12

[SOLVED] Steam games running slowly with Bumblebee

I've been trying to get Steam games like Dota 2 working with Bumblebee and I followed the bumblebee instructions pretty closely and even completely reinstalled the system twice to get the issue resolved to no avail.

I have verified that Bumblbee is working correctly by testing glxgears with optirun/primus run and seeing that it runs faster under these modes compared to running it normally. However, when I try applying the primusrun or optirun %command% option or without it, games still run extgremely slowly as I suspect the Intel Graphics are being used.

I'm sure other people have had this issue, but I can't seem to find any solutions that work for me.

Thanks in advance!

I'm running a GTK 765M with HD4600 Intel graphics if that matters.

Last edited by jearbear (2014-05-10 17:39:56)

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Steam games running slowly with Bumblebee

Have you tried starting these games from a terminal? Sometimes ther are issues with starting some apps from a terminal, and then having them launch anotherapp/process and they are NOT using optirun. Try this just for snicks:

1) Launch a terminal.
2) From that terminal, launch ANOTHER terminal using optirun/primusrun: i.e. "optirun xterm"
3) NOW from the second terminal (the one launched with optirun) launch your game and see if there is any difference.

Sometimes this works.

---

Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

Gustorn

Member

Registered: 2014-01-16

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Steam games running slowly with Bumblebee

First, you should check the game's launch options, to see if you got it right, it should read:

primusrun %command%

Second, most of the games on Steam will use the lib32 libraries for primus/virtualgl, so make sure, you have them installed, the repsective packages are: lib32-virtualgl (for optirun), and lib32-primus (for primusrun).

Third, if you have already tried these options, here is a way to test if the Nvidia card is being used: After you started a game on Steam, run the following command in a terminal:

# cat /proc/acpi/bbswitch

If the resulting line ends with OFF, then the Intel card is being used, if that's the case it will need further debugging.

jearbear

Member

Registered: 2012-04-03

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Steam games running slowly with Bumblebee

1) Launch a terminal.
2) From that terminal, launch ANOTHER terminal using optirun/primusrun: i.e. "optirun xterm"
3) NOW from the second terminal (the one launched with optirun) launch your game and see if there is any difference.

Optirun brings up errors for me while primusrun doesn't

Second, most of the games on Steam will use the lib32 libraries for primus/virtualgl, so make sure, you have them installed, the repsective packages are: lib32-virtualgl (for optirun), and lib32-primus (for primusrun).

Yeah, I was trying it with 'primusrun %command%' but it was still running on Intel Graphics I guess. However, I just installed the lib32-primus package your mentioned and it totally worked! I can't believe I overlooked something so simple, thank you so much, this problem has been plaguing me for months!

Gustorn

Member

Registered: 2014-01-16

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] Steam games running slowly with Bumblebee

You're welcome, make sure to mark the topic as [SOLVED].