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Mookey
Asked: 2016-04-23 13:53:16 +0800 CST

AMDGPU with hybrid graphics 16.04

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I have an onboard Intel graphics card, and a ATI Radeon accelerator in hybrid graphics. In 1404 LTS, my previous version, I used ATI's catalyst driver, and I could switch betweeen the graphics system in it.

Now, my 16.04 LTS is using onboard Intel as the default VGA controller, and lists ATI as well as display controler, but not in use. Additional drivers don't provide anything. So is AMDGPU being used, or is ATI disabled?

lspci -nnk | grep VGA -A1:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics [8086:1616] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: Lenovo Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics [17aa:3824]

lspci:

04:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Venus XTX [Radeon HD 8890M / R9 M275X/M375X] (rev ff)
graphics

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I had to update to the the mainline kernel 4.6.3 before DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" returned my AMD card. I am on a thinkpad s531 with an i7 processor and a Radeon HD8600.

    I followed this guide to update the kernel.

    As described here you can then use eg. DRI_PRIME=1 blender to run a program with the AMD GPU.

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  2. Since you have the hybrid graphics and the Intel controller is present, your active card will be the Intel one. Support for AMD on 16.04 is, well, none. And there are no plans at this point to support AMD cards unfortunately (I also have a hybrid one). There is also no way to install Catalyst onto 16.04 either, and even if you manage to hack it in, it will likely break things.

    For now you can do as other have, including myself, and just disable it. This is to preserve a bit of power when running on battery, but mainly (for myself) it's to keep my laptop running cooler.

    Here's how I disabled my AMD card (this method is using the default lightdm Display Manager for Unity)

    Note: In my examples I use "username". Replace that with your actual user name.

    Create a script, place it somewhere in your home folder.

    Mine is /home/username/scripts/radeonoff

    In this script, put the following

    chown username /sys/kernel/debug
chown username /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo DIS > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

    Save it and make the file executable either using the properties tab in the gui, or in terminal with chmod 755 radeonoff

    Now edit this file as sudo using your fav editor : /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

    And add this line: session-setup-script = /home/username/scripts/radeonoff and save.

    Now when you reboot, after you login, your radeon card should be disabled.

    Verify this in terminal by running sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

    You should see an output with a line like this 0:DIS: :Off:0000:01:00.0. And what you're looking for is the line that has "DIS" to also show ":Off".

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