Linux Hybrid Graphics Will Be A Mess For A While

[grotgrot]

There is such a function. AMD/ATI calls it PowerPlay.

And Nvidia calls theirs PowerMizer. It is still inherently very difficult to design an manufacture something that can scale down really low while powering up very high. For example look at what ARM did with their new processor release. Even though they have been working on power and performance for years they they too use two different cores rather than managing to get one to cover the necessary range. Graph at the bottom of http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/...uperphones.ars

[nzjrs]

It's funny that Michael never reports the company I work for in Ubuntu articles :-), but other work I do gets mentioned as Red Hat does something, when really Red Hat is in no way "doing" it. It just happens to be a project I want to do and RH makes sure I can do.
Dave.

Perhaps RH should offer a free-form survey for users to bitch about graphics on Linux.

I'm sure Michael would report that with glee.

John

p.s. Thanks for all your work.

[grigi]

I want to know about optimus.

I don't want/need the Geforce graphics. what happens when I run linux in an optimus enabled laptop?
Does the normal intel graphics driver work?
Is there any way of disabling the nvidia GPU, or is it disabled by default?

Thanks in advance :-)

[alazar]

I think Bumblebee-project (not just Bumblebee) is more madured than Ironhide, at least it has a comunity behind it and is not maintaned just by one person.

I'm now running a optimus laptop with bumblebee installed, and it works.

@grigi: default the Intel is used and the nvidia driver (or nouveau) is not loaded. But the card still uses energy and you need to turn it off manually or with an application with the right acpi calls.

[marwi509]

I think bumblebee currently does the job allright, give it a bit more time and it might work really well.

[Kivada]

I never liked the idea of hybrid graphics to begin with...
If they did a better job designing the chip, the laptop shouldn't need to use a completely different chip to get better battery life..

There's no reason a graphics chip shouldn't be able to power down cores, just the same as an Intel CPU..

Really? I just hate that AMD dropped XGP http://www.amd.com/us/products/techn...s/ati-xgp.aspx which would have been awesome for those that want just a laptop but with the option for high end multiGPU performance when at home.

That and in the pre APU days I hoped for OpenCL on the IGP+sideport ram with a decent dedicated GPU for everything else. Now I want to do the same with an A8 series APU and at least a 6670.