How to use the discrete Nvidia Graphic Card with the Optimus Technology

Edit:

The Ironhide project seems a little outdated. I suggest to use the Bumblebee Project which is a more automatic configuration, but has no graphical application to specify power rules.

http://bumblebee-project.org

Introduction

The proprietary Nvidia Optimus technology is a dual Intel/Nvidia graphic card system supposed to save battery life on laptops. On Windows, an automatic balance switch the Nvidia GC on when an application needs 3D rendering or video decoding. The Nvidia GC is switched off automaticly to save power when the application is closed. The Ironhide project is an experimental application on Ubuntu distros to launch softwares on the Nvidia card.

Basically, to deal with the Nvidia card, a second hided X graphic server is launched, and frames are send to the desktop by compressed images.

Each laptop model have specific commands to deal with the Nvidia card power switching (called ACPI). So, an online database is coming with Ironhide to share successfull settings between Optimus users.

1.Install the Ironhide project from PPA

The Ironhide project come from the Bumblebee project creator but only available on Ubuntu based Linux distros (like Linux Mint)

In the PPA repository come an new applet to configure some applications to be launched on the discrete graphic card.

To install them, you can add ppa:mj-casalogic/ironhide in your sources list and install it from Synaptic or Software Manager. The applications are named "ironhide" and "ironhide-ui".

Or you can just type this command in your terminal:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mj-casalogic/ironhide && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ironhide ironhide-ui

2.Configure the Optimus server

On the installation, the settings are not fully set.

Before launching the configuration a reboot is necessary to setup easily the Nvidia driver module.

Then you can launch and follow steps in a terminal with :

sudo ironhide-configuration

This tool will detect your laptop model and suggest tested configuration. For X64Jv (and may N61Jv), you can use the first one.

Then a compression method is asked. You can use the XV, wich is the default one.

In case of problem, you can re-run this utility, and test different settings. An second application is available for working configuration named ironhide-settings for further settings.

3.Run application with the discrete card

To run an application on the Nvidia graphic card, you can use the optirun command followed by the application name, like:

optirun glxgears

You can specify the bits system to use with optirun32 (for 32bits) or optirun64 (for 64 bits).
Some applications won't run in some mode by their implementations.
For example, wine must be launch with optirun32, because of the 64bits mode in not implemented (yet).

4.Use the Ironhide applet

In your main menu shortcuts appears the "Ironhide Indicator" and "Ironhide Applications Settings" launchers.

With the Ironhide Indicator, an icon will appear in the task bar. From this, you can access to the preferred applications configured with Optimus support, and the configuration panel "Ironhide Applications Settings".

From here, you'll see the application from your main menu. Select one and press apply. On the next panel, you can specify the way to use the graphic card, the bits mode, and the compression type.

To get this applet on the launch of your gnome session, you can add it to the "Start Launched Applications" from the Control Center. Add a new line, and type ironhide-indicator in the command line.

5.Links

Ironhide PPA
Ironhide Git Repository
Nvidia Optimus page
Follow the progress on Optimus on Phoronix
 

Enjoy!