Is it sensible to get a laptop with Nvidia Optimus graphics?

English Hardware
#1

Hi all,

I want to get the new Lenovo T440s laptop, and it comes in two flavors: Intel HD4400 or Nvidia GT 730M. I intend to run openSUSE on it, and I would like to get the Nvidia version for some casual gaming. Am I just asking for trouble?

I searched around and found many threads of people having problems with Optimus graphics, but also possible solutions. I’m not really sure what to expect from the current state of Nvidia drivers, either official or not. I’m guessing full automatic switching of Optimus is not an option, but can I reliably use Bumblebee to keep the discrete graphics off, manually switching them on when needed? Or am I walking into an unstable system where the laptop drains unneeded power, emits heat, settings need to be reconfigured after each restart, and the next update might very well break all the graphics?

Being stable but stuck on discrete graphics wouldn’t be great either, as I don’t game that much. But I could live with only Intel graphics in openSUSE, and boot to Windows if I need Nvidia. Unfortunately the bios switch for selecting the graphics card has been removed in T440s…

Could anyone share their experience with Optimus?

Thanks!

#2

On 2013-11-16 02:26, marekgrey wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I want to get the new Lenovo T440s laptop, and it comes in two flavors:
> Intel HD4400 or Nvidia GT 730M. I intend to run openSUSE on it, and I
> would like to get the Nvidia version for some casual gaming. Am I just
> asking for trouble?

It is rather a personal question…

For me, in a laptop battery life is more important, and games are
tertiary, or even less. What I do on a laptop is mail, some internet
browsing, office work (libreooffice things). Watch some movies. I need
it for doing things when not at home, there I have a good desktop machine.

Price is also important. So I went for a simple laptop with only Intel
graphics. Added benefit is no need to install any driver, it works out
of the box.

Well, I would like to be able to also play some games, but I had to choose.

But you do want to play some games. In that case, I would go for the
optimus. If people tell you that it is quite difficult to make it work,
then consider going for nvidia or amd only video.

I do like the Optimus idea, to be able to choose what to use, to have
power optimization both ways. In time, it will work in Linux just fine.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

#3

Let me say that this is just an opinion on the subject.

Without a doubt, I would use a single graphic chipset Laptop. If that could be a single nVIDIA one, that would be a good choice, but going Intel graphics is not a bad choice anymore. To that end, I would flee from any dual graphics laptop. Optimus is a personnel pain and suffering choice I would stay away from if you main OS is Linux.

Again, this is just my opinion on the subject.

Thank You,

#4

I wouldn’t .

#5

Anyway, the Lenovo laptops should have a BIOS (UEFI) option to select the graphic card to use (integrated, dedicated or optimus graphics).
So one could use optimus in Windows and the integrated card in Linux …

#6

I was hoping for that as well, but the new T440s doesn’t have that option, apparently due to different Optimus architecture.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Looks like to Nvidia for me…

#7

On 2013-11-16 20:46, PiElle wrote:
>
> Anyway, the Lenovo laptops should have a BIOS (UEFI) -option- to select
> the graphic card to use (integrated, dedicated or optimus graphics).
> So one could use optimus in Windows and the integrated card in Linux …

I understand that the current Optimus specification say to remove that
option.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)

#8

I have the optimus on my Dell, and I just stick with the Noveau drivers, kind of a waste, but it works. I would not get another optimus machine for what I do.

#9

I’m on 13.1-RC2 on my optimus netbook and tried out PRIME, see her Optimus
Performance is acceptable on nouveau, but powermanagement is a disaster, about 50% higher on idle compared to running bumblebee with bbswitch.

#10

I have a Dell XPS with Nvidia Optimus. It works fine with openSUSE. The Nvidia card is off on boot and my battery life is the same running under Linux as it is under Windows. There is a little bit of work involved in getting bumblebee to work but it’s not bad. There are instructions posted here. You might want to read through them before hand. I did try Mint for a little while and installing bumblebee was extremely easy on Mint, I just searched for it in the repos and installed. Done. But, I liked openSUSE better so I ended up with this distro instead. Other distros might be more difficult to get bumblebee working or you may have to install it from source.