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I had installed bumblebee 3.0 for my nVidia geforce 635M card in ubuntu 12.10 and got instant results - temp ad fan speeds reduced, batt backup extended to almost 6 hrs. (from 1.5-2 hrs earlier) and upon comparing glxspheres with and without optirun, got the fps to jump from ~60 to ~130.

But when bumblebee updated to version 3.2, I suppose it updated fine and was active, but the batt life reduced to about 4 hrs. Also optirun glxspheres gave an fps of ~60, although it did recognize the nvidia card and mentioned it in the output.

is this a bug or some limitation on 3.2? should i revert to using 3.0?, and if so, how to fix it.

PLease help as I loved the long batt backup and higher fps earlier.

Also, I saw in some post on the internet that someone got an fps in the range of 1300 - 1600 fps after starting nvidia hardware acceleration whereas I had got only 130 fps...whats the catch there?

charlie
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2 Answers2

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Disable card on boot

These options can be useful to disable the card on boot time. in /etc/modules file can be used to load modules on boot time. Adding the below line to the file makes the card get disabled on boot:

 bbswitch load_state=0

You have to update your initial ramdisk (initrd) for the changes propagate to the boot process. On Debian and Ubuntu, this can performed by running update-initramfs -u as root.

Disable card on exit

Edit the line in /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf, Set it to true, By default it set it to false

 TurnCardOffAtExit=true

I hope this work for you ....

Also please check Is there a power saving application similar to Jupiter?

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Qasim
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  • Okay, I got what to do. But I dont get what would be the potential impact of the steps above. Sorry if it sounds noobish, but how does disabling my GPU on boot or exit actually help improve the FPS? Yes, there may be battery save, but I want better battery saving ALONG with using the card when needed, the way I used to on Bumblebee 3.0 – charlie Apr 30 '13 at 14:08
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    by the way bumblebee 3.2.1 has been released http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/bumblebee-321-released-with-ubuntu-1304.html – Qasim Apr 30 '13 at 14:10
  • also please check http://askubuntu.com/questions/285342/why-does-vblank-mode-improve-framerate-drastically-in-benchmarks/288263#288263 – Qasim Apr 30 '13 at 14:25
  • Thanks, but still out of curiosity - I dont get what would be the potential impact of the steps above. How does disabling my GPU on boot or exit actually help improve the FPS? Yes, there may be battery save, but I want better battery saving ALONG with using the card when needed – charlie May 03 '13 at 09:24
  • what a use of more fps if you cannot see it... – Qasim May 03 '13 at 09:35
  • feel-good factor :) But seriously, that is a good thing to know...how to check how many fps my machine supports? And can I increase it? – charlie May 03 '13 at 09:45
  • vblank_mode=0 optirun -b primus glxspheres < check in terminal – Qasim May 03 '13 at 09:53
  • Thanks Qasim - but what is the expected outcome of this command...please append some explanations. – charlie May 03 '13 at 10:01
  • you will see the fps in terminal ... like i am having 220.803560 frames/sec - 246.416773 Mpixels/sec – Qasim May 03 '13 at 10:07
  • Okay, I'll post my output when I get off work, but is this the max fps supported by system hardware or the current fps supported by the software? – charlie May 03 '13 at 10:10
  • good question ...that i do not know – Qasim May 03 '13 at 10:22
  • Hey, I checked the command you gave and I got the below : `vblank_mode=0 optirun -b primus glxspheres [ 3150.710319] [ERROR]Accel/display bridge primus is not installed.` – charlie May 03 '13 at 20:52
  • okay its optional to install primus sorry ... just " optirun glxspheres " the output will be OpenGL Renderer: GeForce GT 525M/PCIe/SSE2 103.518983 frames/sec - 115.527185 Mpixels/sec – Qasim May 04 '13 at 02:32
  • Okay! now I have ~920 FPS in glxgears and ~120 FPS on glxspheres....So now whats my correct number and why the difference? – charlie May 04 '13 at 12:45
  • 920 +120 / 2 = 540 ,,,, jokin 120 is correct – Qasim May 04 '13 at 12:49
  • :D Thanks a lot to get me through this @Qasim, although I do wonder why glxgears shows that enhanced count? Is that normal, or a known bug? – charlie May 04 '13 at 18:07
  • i have never used glxgears , i always use glxspheres so i do not know much about it – Qasim May 04 '13 at 23:38
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Thanks Qasim for the news, bumblebee 3.2.1 released with bugfixes specially for Ubuntu Raring Ringtail 13.04 solved all the perf issues.
https://raw.github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/master/doc/RELEASE_NOTES_3_2_1

charlie
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