Nvidia brings Optimus to Linux with a new driver

Nvidia has a new b lwa ta driver for Linux released. The driver is responsible, among other for support Optimus under Linux. Optimus allows switching between the two video cards as possible. From the Linux-community was already eagerly looking forward to the driver.

The driver has N

vidia song 319.12 Beta inherited, reports Phoronix. From the changelog that the new driver comes show that, with the help of Optimus possible for images to render on a discrete Nvidia gpu, and then the scan-out buffer to another gpu to give the images on a screen. The technique would also work with usb-adapters, in addition to the more usual combination of a discrete Nvidia chip and a igp from Intel.

Nvidia presented the Optimus technology in February 2010. Manufacturers of laptops with Windows and Mac OS use the Optimus technology since then, multiple times, because it makes for good graphics performance, by the use of a discrete gpu, while the battery life should be spared is if the Nvidia gpu is turned off. It is still unclear whether the beta driver under Linux for lower power consumption.

The development of the driver has some time to wait for. Linus Torvalds took out in June 2012, already hard from to Nvidia, by the manufacturer, ” the most terrible company we have had to call. He was referring to this on Nvidia’s hardware support under Linux, and the closed attitude the company has towards developers that open-source drivers are trying to develop. In response to Torvalds let Nvidia know that it is purposely proprietary drivers are released and that the open-source community supported by regular code for the arm port of the Linux kernel. Nvidia wanted to then however not confirm whether it worked on an Optimus driver for Linux. In september 2012, it appeared that the case.