Home / ubuntu / Questions / 68028
In Process
Nic
Asked: 2011-10-18 02:04:33 +0800 CST

How do I check if Ubuntu is using my NVIDIA graphics card?

  • 772

The reason I'm asking is that none of the games I've installed through software center that require 3D accelartion like TORCS for instance will run. When I try to run then, nothing happens. I have a Dell Inspiron N5110 with a nVidia GeForce GT 525M.

I tried the following which I were some suggestions for people with similar problems:

lspci -v

Which gave me:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df5 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Dell Device 04ca
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
    Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
    I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at f6000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nvidia_current_updates, nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

I also tried:

egrep -i " connected|card detect|primary dev" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Which gave me:

[    20.873] (II) intel(0): Output LVDS1 connected

And:

nvidia-smi -a

Which gave:

NVIDIA: could not open the device file /dev/nvidiactl (No such file or directory).
Nvidia-smi has failed because it couldn't communicate with NVIDIA driver. Make sure that latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

I don't really understand what all this means.

drivers

8 Answers

  1. I know the question is old, but I found a solution which I haven't found on any other topic.

    Open a terminal and type

    lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

    Your output will be something like that:

    00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) 

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Chelsea LP [Radeon HD 7730M] [1002:682f] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

    Now look for the [VGA controller] at the end of each device. Whichever device has it, is the active GPU. In my case it's the i7 processor (HD 4000) that's handling the work.

    • 62

  2. I found this (if you have NVidia and intel graphic cards):

    I think the following command should give you an indication of your active chip:

    $ glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer*"

OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile*

    If you switched to NVidia card:

    $ optirun glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"

OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 555M/PCIe/SSE2
    • 54

  3. nvidia-settings utility

    On Ubuntu 15.10, after I installed nvidia-352 and the GPU seems to work (see e.g. these steps):

    nvidia-settings

    shows something like:

    enter image description here

    Note how it shows:

    GPU 0 - (NVS 5400M)

    where NVS 5400M is my GPU model. Also tested on a Quadro K1100M. This did not show up before I had installed the driver.

    Also if I fire:

    sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 vblank_mode=0 glxgears

    the GPU usage goes to > 90%, further sign that it is working.

    Those env vars are there to disable vsync: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17196117/disable-vertical-sync-for-glxgears

    But in the end, the only test that matters is to do a benchmark with / without GPU and see your FPS goes way up or not: How to perform a detailed and quick 3D performance test

    nvidia-settings is open source by the way: https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-settings

    Similar on Launchpad: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/233462

    • 40

  4. The easiest way to check is go to Settings -> Details -> About

    Settings

    • 35

  5. Try this I think it'll work:

    nvidia-smi

    It will give you something like this

    enter image description here

    • 18

  6. I think one of the easiest ways is to run this command prime-select query in the terminal.
    The output will be the graphic card that is used by your PC.
    Here is an example:
    enter image description here If you want to switch between the graphic cards you have, use sudo prime-select <graphic card name>

    • 9 
  7. sudo aptitude install inxi

inxi -G

    Output will be like that: 

    Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 730]
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
           Resolution: [email protected], [email protected]
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.116
    • 4

  8. I suggest nvtop tool, it is easy to watch in real-time. It also shows in a graph.

    $ sudo apt install nvtop
$ nvtop

    enter image description here

    • 1