[SOLVED] NVIDIA Optimus and kernel module issues

[hubertnnn]

I just got a new Laptop with NVIDIA Optimus and I am trying to make it work.

So far I made everything work in the intel card mode, but not nvidia.
There are errors about nvidia kernel module and some missing drivers in lspci (it may be irrelevant but thats what I foud).
Any ideas, what may be wrong?

The kernel was compiled using "genkernel all" with menuconfig used to modify network cards drivers only (everything else should be default)

My Xorg.log

[Atmmac]

Couple questions.

Which version of the kernel are you running?

Are you using bumblebee with bbswitch?

Have you blacklisted nouveau?

What does eselect OpenGL list show?

You should install bumblebee and bbswitcb. Try an optirun glxgears (you will need mesa utils installed) post the out put of dmesg if it fails.

Also delete the xorg.conf if your going to use bumblebee.

[hubertnnn]

[[n00b@localhost]]

I have a laptop with Optimus and have managed to get it working with bbswitch. I haven't tried using xrandr.

With eselect opengl leave it set to xorg-x11 even if you want GLX for your nVidia card. eselect opengl applies to the primary X server which is running on the Intel chip. Bumblebee maintains its own Xorg configuration that modifies the Xorg module path so the nVidia GLX module is picked up by the secondary X server.

I followed the guide on the Gentoo Wiki to get the Intel card set up before worrying about the nVidia card.

I then installed the proprietary nVidia driver and bbswitch. I've posted my configs below in case they are of any help along with some details of my laptop. I don't have an xorg.conf for the main X server.

I'm currently using tuxonice-sources-3.12.7 configured myself starting from one of Pappy's Kernel Seeds.

[hubertnnn]

My config files are same, so issue is not here.

I also found 2 new things:
1. When I do "modprobe nvidia" the terminal freeze, but there is no output in dmesg (probably important, is there any other kernel log than dmesg that may get more data about that?), lsmod, shows nvidia is loaded, and rmmod says it is in use and cannot be unloaded
2. When running optirun I have:

[[n00b@localhost]]

[hubertnnn]

1. I tried to modprobe from both desktop enviorement and framebuffer and both hanged
2. /proc/acpi/bbswitch by default was on, and I am able to switch it OFF and ON, it changes the colour of my power button led, from orange (ON) to blue (OFF), so it seems to work.
3. I dont have /var/log/everything

edit:
I was so dumb, the issue was in dmesg but long before loading of bumblebee. There is a kernel crash report similar to this one:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/654649/driver-331-20-crashes-with-kernels-3-12-x/
Kernel version seem to fit, just need to find a solution.

My full dmesg: http://pastebin.com/yjA7gfDE

[Atmmac]

331.20 was masked for a while. I was one of the ones that didn't have issues. thankfully. There is a newer version out so add
x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers

to your /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords

then do an emerge -auD @world

This should pull in the new driver. I would recommend always running the unstable video drivers from nvidia. I havent seen to many bugs and found that the extra performance of the newer drivers far outweighs any headaches.

Also it would be a good idea to bump up to the latest 3.12 kernel 3.12.8 is out now. You can follow the directions here http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Kernel/Upgrade just do the make oldconfig method nothing seems to have changed except updated drivers so I don't think you should bother redoing everything with genkernel. Dont forget to regenerate your initramfs.

These video cards are brutal to get working but once its up and running you should be good for a while.

[hubertnnn]

I wont call this issue solved, but I found a way to make optirun work.
The solution is to downgrade the kernel to 3.10.25-gentoo. All the kernels higher than that in portage are crashing when loading nvidia driver.

Just a question, it is a good idea to do "optirun startx", or "optirun gdm" to make the whole system run on good graphics card?

Also another problem came, after trying to launch a game in it.
I did "$optirun playonlinux" launched steam, so far ok, but when I try to launch Portal2 I get a popup error message "failed to lock vertex buffer in CMeshDX8::LockVertexBuffer" and game crash. Console says:

[hubertnnn]

This time I am trying different way, Steam recomends using primus so I installed primus and bumblebee from bumblebee overlay and primus is not working (I changed the bumblebee config to use primus so no -b primus flag is used):

[gienah]

With x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-331.38 Optimus, Nvidia GT-750M, glxgears
full screen says it runs at 1350fps. There are some configuration hints here:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/NVIDIA_Driver_with_Optimus_Laptops

The example configuration I provide might be more complex than necessary,
you could try a simpler configuration first.

[hubertnnn]

Thx gienah, this helped a bit, now I can launch the system (Xfce) using nvidia graphics card, or at least it looks like its using it.
The problem is not everything works:
1. I cant launch gnome session, not sure where are logs, so cant check
2. League of legends not launching. Crash log:

[gienah]

Hopefully you might be able to debug it some more, and someone might know more.
I don't run gnome, and the machine I configured this on is not mine.

I have only tried some simple tests on the machine on loan:

Start KDE (after configuring a Display Manager to run the randr commands to
avoid the black screen)

glxgears runs (says at 1350fps when maximised)

openarena runs, at 1920x1080

[hubertnnn]

I added one more step and almost everything works now: I had to add my user to video group, this made some games run (Portal, LoL), others increased fps (minecraft), but still cannot launch gnome session from xrandr.

I need to test if there are any more issues left, if not, will mark thread as solved, cose with bumblebee everything so far works.

Solution: