Hybrid graphics

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This page details the use of NVIDIA or AMD Switchable Graphics/Intel hybrid graphics.

When are hybrid graphics useful?

• The display is connected to the iGPU.
• There is no hardware multiplexer available (and therefore no BIOS option to switch to one of the cards)
• NVIDIA or AMD cards and Intel SOC are the two graphic cards on the device.

Run:

user $xrandr --listproviders

Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0x6e cap: 0xb, Source Output, Sink Output, Sink Offload crtcs: 4 outputs: 5 associated providers: 0 name:Intel
Provider 1: id: 0x45 cap: 0xf, Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload crtcs: 6 outputs: 0 associated providers: 0 name:Unknown 
AMD Radeon GPU @ pci:0000:01:00.0

What options are available?

• Proprietary NVIDIA drivers
  • with Bumblebee.
  • with PRIME Render Offload.
• Nouveau with PRIME.

Note
Bumblebee does not work correctly with Nouveau.

• AMDGPU with PRIME.

See also

• Nouveau — the open source driver for NVIDIA graphic cards.
• NVIDIA/nvidia-drivers — The x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers package contains the proprietary graphics driver for NVIDIA graphic cards.
• NVIDIA/Bumblebee — an open source implementation of NVIDIA Optimus.

External resources

• http://www.ashmew2.me/#adventures_nvidia - Experiences with setting up a hybrid graphics setup and running into multiple problems.
• https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bumblebee-gentoo/ - Bumblebee Overlay
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PRIME - Arch documentation on switchable graphics using either the Nvidia or AMD open source or closed source drivers
• https://www.linux.ncsu.edu/bumblebee/ - More Fedora documentation on switchable graphics