The reason I'm asking is that none of the games I've installed through software center that require 3D accelartion like TORCS for instance will run. When I try to run then, nothing happens. I have a Dell Inspiron N5110 with a nVidia GeForce GT 525M.
I tried the following which I were some suggestions for people with similar problems:
lspci -vWhich gave me:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df5 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) Subsystem: Dell Device 04ca Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M] I/O ports at e000 [size=128] Expansion ROM at f6000000 [disabled] [size=512K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: nvidia Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nvidia_current_updates, nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafbI also tried:
egrep -i " connected|card detect|primary dev" /var/log/Xorg.0.logWhich gave me:
[ 20.873] (II) intel(0): Output LVDS1 connectedAnd:
nvidia-smi -aWhich gave:
NVIDIA: could not open the device file /dev/nvidiactl (No such file or directory).
Nvidia-smi has failed because it couldn't communicate with NVIDIA driver. Make sure that latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.I don't really understand what all this means.
08 Answers
I know the question is old, but I found a solution which I haven't found on any other topic.
Open a terminal and type
lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGAYour output will be something like that:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Chelsea LP [Radeon HD 7730M] [1002:682f] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)Now look for the [VGA controller] at the end of each device. Whichever device has it, is the active GPU. In my case it's the i7 processor (HD 4000) that's handling the work.
I found this (if you have NVidia and intel graphic cards):
I think the following command should give you an indication of your active chip:
$ glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer*"
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile*If you switched to NVidia card:
$ optirun glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 555M/PCIe/SSE2nvidia-settings utility
On Ubuntu 15.10, after I installed nvidia-352 and the GPU seems to work (see e.g. these steps):
nvidia-settingsshows something like:
Note how it shows:
GPU 0 - (NVS 5400M)where NVS 5400M is my GPU model. Also tested on a Quadro K1100M. This did not show up before I had installed the driver.
Also if I fire:
sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 vblank_mode=0 glxgearsthe GPU usage goes to > 90%, further sign that it is working.
Those env vars are there to disable vsync:
But in the end, the only test that matters is to do a benchmark with / without GPU and see your FPS goes way up or not: How to perform a detailed and quick 3D performance test
nvidia-settings is open source by the way:
Similar on Launchpad:
1The easiest way to check is go to Settings -> Details -> About
Try this I think it'll work:
nvidia-smiIt will give you something like this
I think one of the easiest ways is to run this command prime-select query in the terminal.
The output will be the graphic card that is used by your PC.
Here is an example:If you want to switch between the graphic cards you have, use
sudo prime-select <graphic card name>
sudo aptitude install inxi
inxi -GOutput will be like that:
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 730] Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,nouveau) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1200@59.95hz OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.116I suggest nvtop tool, it is easy to watch in real-time. It also shows in a graph.
$ sudo apt install nvtop
$ nvtop
