Lenovo P52 Optimus laptop and Video driver questions

[PuchoNZ]

Hi all,

I hope someone can bring some light to this matter.

I've got a Lenovo P52, you can see the hardware on this link https://certification.ubuntu.com/hardware/201806-26280/

It's been a while (10-15 years ) since I use Linux with X so I had to read quite a bit of information to get up to speed.

Most of the time, I use my laptop with an external screen. The HDMI port is hard wired to the nvidia chip from what I could find out there.

Occasionally I play some games, from Steam or LOL which I installed from the testing snap.

I understand this is an "Optimus" Laptop and my BIOS setting is set to 'Hybrid'.

Now, after a fresh 18.10 install, my laptop boots up with nouveau driver, all good. I update all packages and now Kubuntu finds proprietary drivers for downloading (nvidia-390) which as it says, are recommended over nouveau.

After I install this nvidia-390 and reboot my machine I can access nvidia settings and more display settings, etc.

Q1. If I got this nvidia-390 working without problems, is there any advantage for me to install bumblebee? I use most of the time the external screen from the hdmi port so it'll always be using the nvidia card, am I right? No much gain for me on that matter.

Q2. Do I get any performance improvement from running bumblebee compared to the nvidia-390? Before I go into testing it and potentially end up breaking the install

Q3. Which one should I pick? OpenGL 2.0, 3.1 or xrender? Does this depend on the app/game?

Q4. Can anyone give a bit of overview or point me out to a good summary I could read about desktop ecosystem? There are so many components, KDE, SDDM, XRANDR, Xorg, etc. If I break something I'd like to understand what, so I can troubleshoot or add/find more details.

Thanks

[claydoh]

The intel gpu is there mostly to reduce battery usage and heat reduction.
Bumblebee adds complexity and possible config hassles that probably are not useful in your scenario. If it is working correctly, it allows you to use Intel for normal desktop stuff, but then run an individual program using the Nvidia GPU/390 driver without having to switch gpus in the Nvidia Settings program, and logging off. and back on.

I think that there may be a performance hit, but I can't recall for sure. It definitely does not add any performance improvements.

I would be surprised if you could not use the Intel gpu with the hdmi port. It may not be good for anything but light gaming loads, but the 630 chip you have can run 1080p video, at least, and dual monitors. The 620 series one in my Lenovo Ideapad outputs my desktop in 4k to my TV as a second screen, though I have not tried playing video at that resolution.

opengl is better then xrender - which is software (CPU) rendering. Opengl uses the GPU, which will be better. 3.1 is preferred, either your Nvidia or Intel gpu will support that

[Snowhog]

First, welcome to Kubuntu Forums . Net. Glad you found us.

As to the use of Bumblebee, you might want to look at Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee

As to Q3: Use the one that doesn't produce 'issues'.

[PuchoNZ]

Thanks @claydoh and Snowhog for your time and answers!

@claydoh you mentioned you've got a Lenovo as well, anything in particular to keep in mind regarding temperature? Any tip on what to install to keep an eye on it? Anything around TLP? I've read somewhere we shouldn't be playing much with this.

This is whole new X world to me, and I got to discover it but I'd like to take shortcuts for some concerns like the temperature. Maybe Ubuntu already installed something by default and I just got to find it, any points there would be appreciated.

I remember back in the days, was so bloody hard to find "info" at all, nowadays what is hard, is to find up-to-date and accurate information. The whole optimus, prime, bumblebee story is good example of it hehe, it feels like Walt Disney waking up from crio

Thanks folks!

[claydoh]

I don't have any temp issues but I don't have a dedicated GPU. It is an i5-8250U.

I also eschew monitoring in general, though, on my laptop.I it is small and boring and doesnt need monitoring. Or rather I don't really care unless there is an issue. I'm just a lazy home user

I have TLP installed. It seems to help, but this machine get poor battery life in general. I just installed the package, no configuration required on my end. ThinkPad ate very popular and are a bit more tweakable if desired. But it might not need any.

Xorg generally needs no user configuration any more, tho some need to tweak a thing here and there. Usually Nvidia cards. Most folks don't have to do a thing with it, however.

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