How does nvidia optimus work

Debian 11 and later versions support everything required for this. This method supports both OpenGL and Vulkan. Also make sure that the outdated xserver-xorg-video-intel package is not installed.

The "modesetting" xorg driver has superseded it and will be used in this configuration. If your display connectors are wired to the discrete GPU, they will not work under this configuration. In that case, the Nvidia discrete GPU must be configured as an "output sink provider", commonly referred to as "Reverse Prime". The "Reverse Prime" setup requires some manual configuration, which is described in the Nvidia driver documentation linked below.

See 'systemctl status systemd-modules-load. Using nvidia-xrun See nvidia-xrun. Using Bumblebee The proprietary NVIDIA graphics driver can also be used to enable dynamic graphics switching between the embedded and discrete graphics providers through the use of Bumblebee. This method takes advantage of Optimus' power saving features, but can be more complex to successfully enable offloaded 3D applications.

Of course, this is vendor specific and you must consult your hardware manufacturer's documentation for further detail. While this configuration does not take advantage of Optimus' power saving features, it provides maximum performance.

The listing system only works well when the list is, obviously, always up-to-date. But because only few users update their graphic cards and updates for notebook drivers are released less frequently, this list would hardly be improved. That's why Nvidia uses drivers that automatically updates the profile list from the internet. Thus, even an older driver should theoretically recognize the newest application and run with the best graphic solution.

Additionally, the user can also alter the profiles manually or select the graphic card to be used via the context menu. Both didn't quite work reliably in the early version we had but that should be because of the early Beta stage of the driver. The method with the context menu, for example, had problems with shortcuts on the desktop and the profiles couldn't be changed permanently. Furthermore, Nvidia showed us a demonstration of a working Lenovo Thinkpad T model, but Lenovo is still assessing the use of Optimus and will for now start without this technology.

Optimus is theoretically also usable for desktop graphics cards. Especially the upcoming Fermi based high-end cards could profit from this feature regarding energy saving and noise level. Many demanding games even only run smoothly with the GM altough only with minimum detail settings. To see the currently active video card, Nvidia has provided us with a still unofficial tool, with which the GeForce graphic's status can be seen. This tool isn't intended for the consumer, but a similar tool is later planned to be available for end-users possibly in the course of a new driver release.

All games and applications recognized by the driver ran as expected in our test. As soon as a game like World of Conflict started, the GM was automatically enabled and took over the rendering. The graphic card was also disabled immediately after the application was closed. During the starting or stopping we didn't notice any image flickering or longer waiting times. We could only see the switching with Nvidia's test tool and the due to the expected performance. Optimus also already works well with Flash Therefore, the driver is also able to swith the graphics card because of other triggers than starting an application if the application supports Optimus.

Because Optimus isn't based on any driver "hacks", you don't have to anticipate any unusual errors in games or applications. We've tested the most common 23 games with the Asus UL50VF see gaming list and weren't faced with a single error. Even switching always went well, except for one time this error is probably due to the early beta driver. If a game wasn't listed in the driver, it had to be registered manually for the GM via Context Menu entry or permanently by assigning it in the driver game profile.

Due to the driver architecture always updating automatically, this should only hardly ever happen in the future. The only problem that we had sometimes was to start a game deliberately with the integrated graphics card overrule the driver.

However this problem will probably be easy to live with because the user won't likely start a 3D application with the slower GMA graphic on purpose. This is a bit annoying if you want to use an external monitor via HDMI permanently because of the higher power consumption. By the way, UL50VT's dedicated hardware switch to change the graphics card is without a function under Windows because manual switching is not yet supported by the driver.

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