Prime render offload

ricklinux · April 7, 2020, 10:31pm

Which desktop have you installed as i you mentioned GDM.

hesxenon · April 8, 2020, 10:14pm

sorry I couldn’t answer because of the limitation on new forum members.
Got it working again as mentioned above, runlevel 3 and nvidia-installer-dkms -n with the caveat of removing lib32-virtualgl beforehand.

I’m using i3wm with some gnome stuff like polkit-gnome, however with this install I’ve also installed gnome DE because I thought it might help me with this problem (don’t want to use it however and plan on doing another install once I know what the problem is with only the base packages)

ricklinux · April 8, 2020, 10:23pm

I thought maybe you had installed Gnome desktop and that was an issue getting booted to the desktop as i think it defaults to wayland. But i’m not sure. Did you try installing straight Nvidia drivers or do you think you’ll end up with the same freeze problem? In that case maybe try Xfce desktop and i3 because they work well together.

Edit: Not sure what the issue is but it seems graphics related since you get the black screen.

hesxenon · April 8, 2020, 10:28pm

i’ll give xfce + i3 a spin, xfce seemed much less… invasive, shall we say, to me than gnome.

I’ve just installed the the nvidia drivers and glxinfo reports that they’re not being used, so i’m following this wiki article right now. Seeing as I can easily revert the state by removing the xorg config file it shouldn’t be a problem.

But just to clarify, there are three different scenarios now
1.) Use nouveau and don’t have the ability to play games
2.) Use bumblebee and get a complete freeze at startup, even before the display manager starts
3.) Use prime render offloading and the DM comes up, but get a complete freeze when logging in.

Just some logs would be nice for a start, is there nowhere else I can look in this case?

hesxenon · April 8, 2020, 10:45pm

progress! (I guess).

After installing the nvidia driver without dkms and adding this xorg conf as well as following the guide for using nvidia only I’m in a fourth scenario: the screen freezes when booting (DM does not come up) BUT it works on an external monitor and glxinfo reports the graphics card as working (also, I can switch TTY which I couldn’t in the previous scenarios)

ricklinux · April 8, 2020, 10:51pm

Is your goal to set it up to use the Nvidia only when gaming and turn if off so it doesn’t use power? There are a number of users here that can help you with this more than i can when it comes to dual graphics on these laptops and using Bumblebee or Prime. So maybe they can see this and help you more than i can at this point.

hesxenon · April 8, 2020, 10:53pm

Ideally yes, but at this point I’m fine with using the nvidia card only as long as I can do so on the integrated display as well. If you know of these hybrid graphics gurus I’d appreciate it if you could ping them (pretty please? )

basically I just don’t want to have paid for a card I can’t use

ricklinux · April 8, 2020, 11:00pm

I hear you. These guy’s have more experience with these hybrid graphics set ups. I’m fine with mostly Nvidia desktop cards and hardware. I know they are fairly busy right now trying to get the latest ISO completed.

ricklinux · April 8, 2020, 11:03pm

Check out the Arch Wiki here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA#Installation

Warning: Enabling KMS causes GNOME to default to Wayland. Non-Wayland-native applications suffer from poor performance in Wayland sessions because of the lack of hardware accelerated XWayland. This is expected to be resolved in Spring 2020 but there is no committed timeline from NVIDIA. Use the GNOME on Xorg session instead.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA_Optimus

hesxenon · April 8, 2020, 11:08pm

ok, so I read both of these articles a few times over now already, and I’m still trying to start i3, so no wayland here. I Also set gdm to use xorg instead of wayland so it should really purely be an xorg issue.

Was there anything specific you wanted me to point to that I missed?

P.s. (logging off now, kinda late where I am, thx a ton for the help so far!)

ricklinux · April 8, 2020, 11:19pm

No i don’t really know how to point you in the right direction other than the wiki. Hope it helps if not hopefully someone else can get you there. It can be done others have done it. I don’t have this hardware setup and no experience with it.

ricklinux · April 12, 2020, 9:34pm

@hesxenon

Just wondered if you happened to see these?

github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee

Laptop freezes when starting X11 and discrete graphics are OFF

opened 07:45PM - 06 May 16 UTC

jgkamat

Power Management Bug P:Medium

[edit by @Lekensteyn] This issue affects newer laptops (from about 2015-2016) w…ith Skylake and GTX 9xxM/10xx cards/ A workaround exists for some laptops, see https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/issues/764#issuecomment-234494238 [/edit] ___ I'm having a weird issue, and I'm not sure what kind of debug information is neccesary, but let me know what to give and I'll supply anything you need. When I start my graphics (lxdm), I get a freeze (keyboard stops working, no response on monitor at all, even log files stop working), but I can work around this by enabling the graphics card before starting graphics. System (installed with `bumblebee-nvidia` in debian testing repos): ``` Debian Testing GTX 965M Nvidia Proprietary Driver: 352.79 Laptop: SAGER NP7258 ``` Optirun --version: ``` optirun (Bumblebee) 3.2.1 Copyright (C) 2011 The Bumblebee Project License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. ``` My laptop seems to not work without optimus, the intel drivers work fine, but trying to run w/o the intel drivers (nvidia only) seems to result in a frozen screen. Using the workaround works perfectly for me, however. Steps to Reproduce: 1. `systemctl start bumblebeed` 2. `systemctl start lxdm` 3. Freeze occurs Workaround: 1. `systemctl start bumblebeed` 2. `echo "ON" >/proc/acpi/bbswitch` 3. `systemctl start lxdm` Unfortunately, any X11 log files don't seem to survive after my system freezes (they show everything completed successfully, probably from the previous successfull boot). If you know any way of retreiving them I'd be happy to supply them though! (When the system freezes, even my shell history file gets corrupted). I did have to make some changes to my config files to get things to work in my situation though, I'll post anything I remember changing below. Let me know if you need any more information, I am happy to supply it! Without bumblebee, my laptop would be unusuable :+1: ### bumblebee.conf ``` # Configuration file for Bumblebee. Values should **not** be put between quotes ## Server options. Any change made in this section will need a server restart # to take effect. [bumblebeed] # The secondary Xorg server DISPLAY number VirtualDisplay=:8 # Should the unused Xorg server be kept running? Set this to true if waiting # for X to be ready is too long and don't need power management at all. KeepUnusedXServer=false # The name of the Bumbleblee server group name (GID name) ServerGroup=bumblebee # Card power state at exit. Set to false if the card shoud be ON when Bumblebee # server exits. TurnCardOffAtExit=false # The default behavior of '-f' option on optirun. If set to "true", '-f' will # be ignored. NoEcoModeOverride=false # The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty), # auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau # (See also the driver-specific sections below) Driver=nvidia # Directory with a dummy config file to pass as a -configdir to secondary X XorgConfDir=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.d ## Client options. Will take effect on the next optirun executed. [optirun] # Acceleration/ rendering bridge, possible values are auto, virtualgl and # primus. Bridge=auto # The method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers. # Possible values are proxy, jpeg, rgb, xv and yuv. VGLTransport=proxy # List of paths which are searched for the primus libGL.so.1 when using # the primus bridge PrimusLibraryPath=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/primus:/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/primus:/usr/lib/primus:/usr/lib32/primus # Should the program run under optirun even if Bumblebee server or nvidia card # is not available? AllowFallbackToIGC=false # Driver-specific settings are grouped under [driver-NAME]. The sections are # parsed if the Driver setting in [bumblebeed] is set to NAME (or if auto- # detection resolves to NAME). # PMMethod: method to use for saving power by disabling the nvidia card, valid # values are: auto - automatically detect which PM method to use # bbswitch - new in BB 3, recommended if available # switcheroo - vga_switcheroo method, use at your own risk # none - disable PM completely # https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Comparison-of-PM-methods ## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia [driver-nvidia] # Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset KernelDriver=nvidia-current PMMethod=bbswitch # colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries LibraryPath=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nvidia:/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/nvidia:/usr/lib/nvidia # comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the # default Xorg modules path XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia,/usr/lib/xorg/modules XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia ## Section with nouveau driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nouveau [driver-nouveau] KernelDriver=nouveau PMMethod=auto XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau ``` ### xorg.conf.nvidia ``` Section "ServerLayout" Identifier "Layout0" Option "AutoAddDevices" "false" Option "AutoAddGPU" "false" EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "DiscreteNvidiaj" Driver "nvidia" VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" # If the X server does not automatically detect your VGA device, # you can manually set it here. # To get the BusID prop, run `lspci | egrep 'VGA|3D'` and input the data # as you see in the commented example. # This Setting may be needed in some platforms with more than one # nvidia card, which may confuse the proprietary driver (e.g., # trying to take ownership of the wrong device). Also needed on Ubuntu 13.04. BusID "PCI:01:00:0" # Setting ProbeAllGpus to false prevents the new proprietary driver # instance spawned to try to control the integrated graphics card, # which is already being managed outside bumblebee. # This option doesn't hurt and it is required on platforms running # more than one nvidia graphics card with the proprietary driver. # (E.g. Macbook Pro pre-2010 with nVidia 9400M + 9600M GT). # If this option is not set, the new Xorg may blacken the screen and # render it unusable (unless you have some way to run killall Xorg). Option "ProbeAllGpus" "false" Option "NoLogo" "true" Option "UseEDID" "false" Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none" EndSection # Section "Screen" # Identifier "Default Screen" # Device "DiscreteNvidia" # EndSection ```

Here is a guide.

hesxenon · April 14, 2020, 8:31am

hey, I’ve seen the guide and can’t follow it because it freezes completely as soon as I install nvidia-intaller -b and reboot.

The github issue however is new to me and sounds exactly like what’s happening here, am going to comb through this this evening, thank you

hesxenon · April 16, 2020, 10:07pm

so after reading through that megalodon of an issue I think it is unrelated for several reasons:

they mostly describe problems when the card is off, I’m quite sure my card is on but have no real way to test it because of the instant freeze
~~for them it’s always related to xorg, but running gdm on wayland causes the same problem, so even without starting xorg at all the freeze happens~~

Sadly I don’t really understand everything from the issue, and I don’t think creating a custom kernel with an untested patch from 2016 is a good idea?

So yeah, anybody out there that can help here?

EDIT: sorry, I did not run gdm with wayland, but disabled it. So yeah, might be related to xorg. Will play around a bit more

hesxenon · April 21, 2020, 6:59am

Update: Installed the april iso with xfce, booting with nvidia drivers installed no longer freezes the system, and I can switch TTYs. The original TTY (2, for what reason actually?) however is just showing a blinking cursor.
When I switch back to TTY2 the login comes up, trying to start lightdm then results in a frozen cursor. Switching away and back to TTY2 reveals a message “failed to use bus name org.freedesktop.displaymanager, do you have appropriate permissions” (recited from the top of my head, sorry).

Having said that, if I reboot with an external display plugged in lightdm starts normally. Will update the description accordingly.

EDIT: seems I can’t edit the original description anymore, can some admin maybe tell me if it is ok to open a new thread since the situation has changed?

ricklinux · April 21, 2020, 12:36pm

The latest ISO is nvidia enabled so you should be able to install from it with your card. If you are trying to set up multiple monitors along with bumblebee or primus i would be getting to work with one first then try to set it up on a second monitor.

hesxenon · April 21, 2020, 1:56pm

that’s the point, it’s ONLY working with a second monitor. Question is: should I open another issue for this?

ricklinux · April 21, 2020, 5:01pm

Have you gone through this? The one thing i find with Arch is it spews a lot of information. There are so many different things here. If prime render is what you are after start here. I don’t know what else to tell you?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME#PRIME_render_offload

hesxenon · April 23, 2020, 8:59am

I have gone through this a article numerous times (hence the title of this thread), but with further research I’ve been able to extract more information from it.
Anyway, with this now I’m able to use the nvidia card on the internal display or the external display.
I have two different xorg config files now, one with

only the nvidia card as a single device

Section "Device"
	Identifier "Nvidia Card"
	Driver "nvidia"
	VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
	Option "NoLogo" "true"
EndSection

both the nvidia card and the intel gpu as devices with bus ids and a screen for the iGPU
To switch the displays I am renaming the files from .conf to .bak and vice versa and restart the lightdm service.

Section "Device"
	Identifier "iGPU"
	BusId "PCI:00:02"
	Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "iGPU"
	Device "iGPU"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier "Nvidia Card"
	BusId "PCI:01:00.0"
	Driver "nvidia"
	VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
	Option "NoLogo" "true"
EndSection

So at least now I’m able to use the nvidia gpu with the internal display, but I don’t have switchable graphics and I have to log out every time I’m switching between internal and external displays.

Any ideas on how I can switch these configs without having to restart the xserver?

Oh and btw, the TTYs are always on the internal display, but I guess that’s ok.

ricklinux · April 23, 2020, 2:55pm

Are you not able to have one xorg.conf file with all of the info for both cards? I am not the expert on this but i know there are others that have the same or similar set up and should be able to help. You shouldn’t have to be switching back and forth between files.

I’m just looking at that section specifically and it’s a lot as Arch leads you down many rabbit holes. I wish i could be of more help.