Optimus Notebooks (hybrid graphics)

Find out if you are on such system run this from terminal:

lspci -vnn | grep '\''[030[02]\]'

if it gives out something like this with two devices:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0a16] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

01:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] [10de:0fe4] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

It will be that you have such hybrid system with a combination of NVIDIA and intel GPU.

Some basic information on that: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hybrid_graphics

DRM Modesetting:

As of 2021 the proprietary Nvidia Driver supports handling of Optimus hybrid systems per default.

It will boot on intel integrated per default. Modesetting DRM needs to be enabled Archlinux packaging does this by default for latest Nvidia drivers.

Only the old legacy drivers nvidia-470xx-dkms and older would need to have it added to boot kernel options to get loaded:

With systemd-boot:

create a dropin config:

sudo nano /etc/dracut.conf.d/nvidia.conf

and add the following line:

add_drivers+=” nvidia nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm ”

rebuild kernel images:

sudo reinstall-kernels

With Grub Bootloader:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

and add it to the CMD line (adding not removing anything thats already there):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia nvidia-drm nvidia-modeset nvidia-uvm" (only example line yours may look different)

sudo dracut-rebuild

Switching decent GPU on:

To be able to switch between the two GPUs usage, you can use one of the options to have this available in different ways:

Switcheroo-Control D-Bus service to check the availability of dual-GPU, integrates with the settings of KDE/plasma Gnome, and Cinnamon: “Launch using Dedicated Graphics Card” menu item appears on application starter contextual menu per example. switcheroo-control

Supergfxctl is a useful utility provided by ASUS Linux. It helps with managing GPU switching functionality on hybrid laptops. _{(While supergfxctl was originally designed with ASUS Optimus laptops in mind, it has since evolved into a standalone tool that functions with any laptops with hybrid graphics.)}

Supergfxctl

EnvyControl is a CLI tool that provides an easy way to switch between GPU modes on Nvidia Optimus systems:

Envy-Control

Optimus-manager is one solution currently where you can switch between the two GPU’s:

Optimus-Manager

Optimus Switch is completely powerdown Nvidia GPU and will save more power, but needs to reboot system to do so:

Optimus-Switch

Render Offload is a new mechanism build inside the Nvidia Driver:

Render-Offload

Overview (may more recent) on Archwiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA_Optimus#Available_methods