How to improve the display on Ubuntu 18.04? I have tried many different approaches presented on this website and none of them have worked.
I have a MSI GS60 Ghost Pro with integrated Intel GPU and NVIDIA GTX 970M, and I'm having the lagging effect when scrolling web pages (on Chrome, Firefox) and very noticeable flickering effect when moving windows.
The hardware and drivers:
alex@alex-ubuntu:~$ lspci | egrep ' VGA|3D'
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 530 (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM204M [GeForce GTX 970M] (rev a1)
NVIDIA GPU:
alex@alex-ubuntu:~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GTX 970M/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.77
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60 NVIDIA
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.77
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60 NVIDIA
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: (none)
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 NVIDIA 390.77
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:
alex@alex-ubuntu:~$ lsmod | grep drm_kms_helper
drm_kms_helper 172032 2 i915,nvidia_drm
syscopyarea 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
fb_sys_fops 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
drm 401408 6 i915,nvidia_drm,drm_kms_helper
Intel GPU:
alex@alex-ubuntu:~$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 18.0.5
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:
alex@alex-ubuntu:~$ lsmod | grep drm_kms_helper
drm_kms_helper 172032 2 nouveau,i915
syscopyarea 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysfillrect 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
sysimgblt 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
fb_sys_fops 16384 1 drm_kms_helper
drm 401408 9 nouveau,i915,ttm,drm_kms_helper
I have tested the following approaches:
Best Answer
Assuming the nVidia is causing the issue, a workaround is to run on the Intel IGD exclusively. The following steps achieve this in increasing order of 'exclusivity'. You could check for improvement after each step.
1. Configure Xorg to prefer the Intel
Create file
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-intel.conf
(this may requiremkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
), containing:2. Disable modeswitching out of IGD
Edit
/etc/default/grub
and addxdg.force_integrated=1
toGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX
. When done, runsudo update-grub
before rebooting.3. Blacklist the
nouveau
kernel driverEdit
/etc/default/grub
and addmodprobe.blacklist=nouveau
toGRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX
. When done, runsudo update-grub
before rebooting.4. Uninstall the Xorg nouveau driver
This will trigger removal of the
xserver-xorg-video-all
meta-package, which by default is installed. That is alright, as long asxserver-xorg-video-intel
remains installed. To be sure: