Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purpose is infuriate you

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by kevinbowman on Saturday January 25, 2014 @09:27AM (#7120846)

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad W520, with nVidia Optimus. What they didn't tell me was that the external VGA port is hard-wired to the nVidia GPU, so I can't use it at all when on the Intel GPU. Choice: battery life or external VGA? To make matters worse, it's a reboot to switch between them, and since I use Ubuntu which isn't supported (although props to the Bumblebee people for the progress they've made) it's hit-and-miss if even that will work.

If the rest of the W520 wasn't such an awesome laptop, I'd be really quite upset. As it is, I just live with it and boot into Windows if I want to use a projector.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by _delirium on Saturday January 25, 2014 @09:32AM (#7120862)

Any idea why it needs a reboot? Some MacBook Pro models have that kind of switching (integrated Intel + discrete nVidia) but don't need a reboot to switch between them. Is it some architectural thing, an issue with the nVidia drivers, an issue with Windows, ...?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by thristian on Saturday January 25, 2014 @09:38AM (#7120878)

Modern Mac OS X is a bit smarter about things, but I believe the original versions of Mac OS X that supported Optimus required you to restart the windowing system when switching GPUs. That required quitting all your apps, logging out, and logging back in, which is effectively a reboot for people who stick to GUI interaction.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by _delirium on Saturday January 25, 2014 @09:45AM (#7120895)

Doing a little searching, it seems it might be tied to the hardware as well, not just the OSX version (not sure if that's a real hardware limitation or a driver issue though). The dual-GPU MacBook Pros from mid-2010 onwards have "automatic graphics switching" that does it on the fly: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4110

You're right that the 2008/09 models required logging out/in to switch manually; I hadn't realized that: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3207

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by fatrachet on Saturday January 25, 2014 @10:08AM (#7120962)

There is a OSX tool called gfxCardStatus that can switch GPUs without logging out on the 08 and 09 models, works great on my 09 MBP, so it only seems to be a driver issue not a hardware limitation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by masklinn on Saturday January 25, 2014 @10:13AM (#7120979)

> I believe the original versions of Mac OS X that supported Optimus

OSX never supported Optimus, it's been a home-grown solution from the start.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by masklinn on Saturday January 25, 2014 @10:15AM (#7120986)

> I have a Lenovo Thinkpad W520, with nVidia Optimus. What they didn't tell me was that the external VGA port is hard-wired to the nVidia GPU

FWIW, mixed-GPU Apple laptops have the exact same issue (although there's no reboot necessary), external displays can only be driven from the discrete GPU not the integrated one.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by nly on Saturday January 25, 2014 @01:22PM (#7121660)

> Choice: battery life or external VGA?

If you're using external VGA, aren't you by definition tethered? When are you likely to use external VGA and yet don't have access to power?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by kevinbowman on Thursday February 06, 2014 @02:14PM (#7192292)

Meetings, presentations etc - I may not have my power brick with me.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Buying a laptop, check if it has nVidia Optimus, its purp... by seanalltogether on Saturday January 25, 2014 @09:34AM (#7120866)

I don't know about other PC laptops but I do know this is the case with macbooks, as soon as you plug in an external display you are kicked off the internal GPU and placed on the discrete one.

[ Parent | on HN ]