Ubuntu – Can’t switch to dedicated nVidia graphics card

15.04graphicsnvidianvidia-prime

I have an ASUS F552CL laptop with Ubuntu 15.04 installed.

The laptop comes with a dedicated nVidia GeForce GT 710M graphics card.

I have installed and enabled all the proprietary drivers suggested in Software Updates – Additional Drivers:

screenshot1

When I try to switch to the dedicated graphics card using NVIDIA X Server Settings, a message pops up asking me to log out and log back in to apply the changes:

screenshot2

And it looks like the dedicated graphics card has been selected:

enter image description here

However, if I log out and log back in the integrated graphics card shows up as the card in use:

enter image description here

I also tried to reboot instead of to log out and log back in but the integrated graphics card keeps showing up as the card in use.

When I run gksudo nvidia-settings in Terminal, after having closed NVIDIA X Server Settings I get the following message:

ERROR: nvidia-settings could not find the registry key file. This file
       should have been installed along with this driver at
       /usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-application-profiles-key-documentation. The
       application profiles will continue to work, but values cannot be
       preopulated or validated, and will not be listed in the help text.
       Please see the README for possible values and descriptions.

Best Answer

There is a known bug to nvidia settings: Bug #1341140.

If you receive the following error message, you are probably affected by it:

ERROR: nvidia-settings could not find the registry key file.
This file should have been installed along with this driver at either
/usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-application-profiles-337.25-key-documentation or
/usr/share/nvidia/nvidia-application-profiles-key-documentation.
The application profiles will continue to work, but values cannot be preopulated
or validated, and will not be listed in the help text.
Please see the README for possible values and descriptions.

There is a workaround to this bug, also contained in the bug report. Execute the following from a root shell, replacing the 340.24 by the actual driver number. (I yet have to find out what they mean...)

mkdir -p /etc/nvidia
cd /etc/nvidia
ln -s /etc/alternatives/x86_64-linux-gnu_nvidia_app_profile_keys nvidia-application-profiles-340.24-key-documentation
ln -s /etc/alternatives/x86_64-linux-gnu_nvidia_app_profile nvidia-application-profiles-340.24-rc

Now the problem should be fixed, according to the bug report.

EDIT: The OP mentioned that he had to alter above commands as follows:

cd /usr/share/nvidia
mv nvidia-application-profiles-340.76-key-documentation nvidia-application-profiles-key-documentation
mv nvidia-application-profiles-340.76-rc nvidia-application-profiles-rc

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – What exactly does “Launch using dedicated graphics card” do

I had the exact same question, none of the valiables like __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia, __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1, __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only, DRI_PRIME=1 produced the same result.

I even tried to search in gnome-shell source code but the functions aren't in gnome-shell repo.

I finally ACCIDENTALLY stumbled upon switechroo-controls package,

I tried switcherooctl launch <command> which replicates the gnome shell behaviour. Then I had an epiphany to search for switcheroo in gnome-shell repo.

❯ grep -ri 'switcheroo' 
Binary file .git/index matches
data/dbus-interfaces/net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.xml:      net.hadess.SwitcherooControl:
data/dbus-interfaces/net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.xml:      check the value of net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.HasDualGpu to see
data/dbus-interfaces/net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.xml:      The object path will be "/net/hadess/SwitcherooControl".
data/dbus-interfaces/net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.xml:  <interface name="net.hadess.SwitcherooControl">
js/ui/appDisplay.js:        this._switcherooNotifyId = global.connect('notify::switcheroo-control',
js/ui/appDisplay.js:        this._switcherooProxy = global.get_switcheroo_control();
js/ui/appDisplay.js:        if (this._switcherooProxy) {
js/ui/appDisplay.js:            let prop = this._switcherooProxy.get_cached_property('HasDualGpu');
src/meson.build:dbus_generated += gnome.gdbus_codegen('switcheroo-control',
src/meson.build:  '../data/dbus-interfaces/net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.xml',
src/shell-app.c:#include "switcheroo-control.h"
src/shell-app.c:  proxy = shell_global_get_switcheroo_control (global);
src/shell-app.c:      g_warning ("Could not apply discrete GPU environment, switcheroo-control not available");
src/shell-app.c:  variant = shell_net_hadess_switcheroo_control_get_gpus (SHELL_NET_HADESS_SWITCHEROO_CONTROL (proxy));
src/shell-app.c:  g_debug ("Could not find discrete GPU in switcheroo-control, not applying environment");
src/shell-global.c:#include "switcheroo-control.h"
src/shell-global.c:  GDBusProxy *switcheroo_control;
src/shell-global.c:  GCancellable *switcheroo_cancellable;
src/shell-global.c:  PROP_SWITCHEROO_CONTROL,
src/shell-global.c:got_switcheroo_control_gpus_property_cb (GObject      *source_object,
src/shell-global.c:        g_debug ("Could not get GPUs property from switcheroo-control: %s", error->message);
src/shell-global.c:  g_dbus_proxy_set_cached_property (global->switcheroo_control, "GPUs", gpus);
src/shell-global.c:  g_object_notify (G_OBJECT (global), "switcheroo-control");
src/shell-global.c:switcheroo_control_ready_cb (GObject      *source_object,
src/shell-global.c:  ShellNetHadessSwitcherooControl *control;
src/shell-global.c:  control = shell_net_hadess_switcheroo_control_proxy_new_for_bus_finish (res, &error);
src/shell-global.c:        g_debug ("Could not get switcheroo-control GDBusProxy: %s", error->message);
src/shell-global.c:  global->switcheroo_control = G_DBUS_PROXY (control);
src/shell-global.c:  g_debug ("Got switcheroo-control proxy successfully");
src/shell-global.c:  cached_props = g_dbus_proxy_get_cached_property_names (global->switcheroo_control);
src/shell-global.c:      g_object_notify (G_OBJECT (global), "switcheroo-control");
src/shell-global.c:  g_dbus_connection_call (g_dbus_proxy_get_connection (global->switcheroo_control),
src/shell-global.c:                          g_dbus_proxy_get_name (global->switcheroo_control),
src/shell-global.c:                          g_dbus_proxy_get_object_path (global->switcheroo_control),
src/shell-global.c:                                         g_dbus_proxy_get_interface_name (global->switcheroo_control),
src/shell-global.c:                          global->switcheroo_cancellable,
src/shell-global.c:                          got_switcheroo_control_gpus_property_cb,
src/shell-global.c:    case PROP_SWITCHEROO_CONTROL:
src/shell-global.c:      g_value_set_object (value, global->switcheroo_control);
src/shell-global.c:switcheroo_appeared_cb (GDBusConnection *connection,
src/shell-global.c:  g_debug ("switcheroo-control appeared");
src/shell-global.c:  shell_net_hadess_switcheroo_control_proxy_new_for_bus (G_BUS_TYPE_SYSTEM,
src/shell-global.c:                                                         "net.hadess.SwitcherooControl",
src/shell-global.c:                                                         "/net/hadess/SwitcherooControl",
src/shell-global.c:                                                         global->switcheroo_cancellable,
src/shell-global.c:                                                         switcheroo_control_ready_cb,
src/shell-global.c:switcheroo_vanished_cb (GDBusConnection *connection,
src/shell-global.c:  g_debug ("switcheroo-control vanished");
src/shell-global.c:  g_clear_object (&global->switcheroo_control);
src/shell-global.c:  g_object_notify (G_OBJECT (global), "switcheroo-control");
src/shell-global.c:  global->switcheroo_cancellable = g_cancellable_new ();
src/shell-global.c:                    "net.hadess.SwitcherooControl",
src/shell-global.c:                    switcheroo_appeared_cb,
src/shell-global.c:                    switcheroo_vanished_cb,
src/shell-global.c:  g_cancellable_cancel (global->switcheroo_cancellable);
src/shell-global.c:  g_clear_object (&global->switcheroo_cancellable);
src/shell-global.c:                                   PROP_SWITCHEROO_CONTROL,
src/shell-global.c:                                   g_param_spec_object ("switcheroo-control",
src/shell-global.c:                                                        "switcheroo-control",
src/shell-global.c:                                                        "D-Bus Proxy for switcheroo-control daemon",
src/shell-global.c: * shell_global_get_switcheroo_control:
src/shell-global.c: * Get the global #GDBusProxy instance for the switcheroo-control
src/shell-global.c:shell_global_get_switcheroo_control (ShellGlobal  *global)
src/shell-global.c:  return global->switcheroo_control;
src/shell-global.h:         shell_global_get_switcheroo_control    (ShellGlobal  *global);

Which confirms it, more intuitive proof (I am a fedora user):

TLDR

In answer to your exact question: Gnome does it by using a library switcheroo-control.

Practical answer: you can do the same thing with switcherooctl launch <command>

EDIT: I am not sure if the command works on ubuntu, but debian and ubuntu repositories have the package switcheroo-control.

This is the tree of extracted switcheroo-control package (deb).

.
├── etc
│   └── dbus-1
│       └── system.d
│           └── net.hadess.SwitcherooControl.conf
├── lib
│   ├── systemd
│   │   └── system
│   │       └── switcheroo-control.service
│   └── udev
│       └── hwdb.d
│           └── 30-pci-intel-gpu.hwdb
└── usr
    ├── libexec
    │   └── switcheroo-control
    └── share
        └── doc
            └── switcheroo-control
                ├── changelog.Debian.gz
                ├── copyright
                ├── NEWS.gz
                └── README.md

Edit: Ok I found the problem, when setting the variable if you set like VAR=value, this is a regular variable, while export VAR=value makes it accessible to subprocesses (REF)

after this,any one of the variables work for me,export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia,export __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1,export __VK_LAYER_NV_optimus=NVIDIA_only,export DRI_PRIME=1 (they have their own different functions)

so use switchrootctl launch <command> or, export above variables and launch the process. you can even create a alias

Ex:

alias dgpu="export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia && export __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 &&"

and then dgpu <command>

this is the environment variables set by switchroot-control (in my case).

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – What *exactly* does “Launch using dedicated graphics card” do

TLDR

Related Question

Ubuntu – What exactly does “Launch using dedicated graphics card” do