3D acceleration broken on Sony Vaios with dual graphics adapters

[Michael Doube]

Some older Sony Vaios have 2 graphics adapters, usually one from Intel and one from nVidia (e.g. on the Vaio SZ650N, there is an Intel GM965 and an nVidia GeForce 8400M GS), which you can select with a hardware switch when the notebook is off: so-called STAMINA and SPEED modes.

Ubuntu supports acceleration of both chips with open source (Intel) and proprietary (nvidia) drivers, but installing both means that the 3D setup gets clobbered. The current workaround is to have two xorg.conf files, one for each adapter, a couple of backed-up 3D libraries and a script that selects the right combination. The script in its current state is specific to particular nvidia driver versions (even a minor version change would break it), so is limited, but does work.

Karmic and Jaunty are slightly more difficult to configure than Hardy as installing nvidia-glx-180 removes /usr/lib/libGL.so.1.2 (needed for the Intel 965), which is not replaced by simply reinstalling the deb for libgl1-mesa-glx. Instead, you have to extract the file manually from the deb and copy it to /usr/lib.

see http://doube.org/hardy-vaio.html#video and http://doube.org/jaunty-vaio.html#video for details.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub [8086:2a00] (rev 0c)
     Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:9008]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2a02] (rev 0c)
     Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:9008]

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hi michael-doube,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (and maybe Xorg.0.log.old) file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

For the nvidia adapter on a Vaio SZ650

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Interestingly, although in Jaunty all the links are set up properly and Xorg.0.log tells me that:

(II) GLX: Initialized DRI GL provider for screen 0

And there is no sign that GL initialisation has failed, I can't enable desktop effects on the Intel adapter (this is just Jaunty, Hardy is fine).

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Even though hardware acceleration is provided on the Intel 965, desktop effects are not enabled because the adapter is blacklisted by Compiz:

http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Hardware/Blacklist

so to test GL, one can use:

]$ glxgears

or play a round of Extreme Tux Racer.

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

More on Compiz being disabled on Intel 965's for Jaunty is at LP #359392

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I've posted a new version of the -nvidia driver to our xorg-edgers PPA,
would you mind testing it either on Jaunty or Karmic and see if it
resolves this bug?

Get nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 - 185.18.14 here:

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Bryce

Which packages should I install to test the new nVidia drivers? I checked out the PPA but there isn't a deb called nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 - 185.18.14.

Mike

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

This bug is still present in Karmic alpha 3

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

This bug is still present in Karmic alpha 4

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

This bug is still present in karmic beta.

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Architecture: amd64
CheckboxSubmission: d6587df64f5abea33dcf94c42360ad73
CheckboxSystem: b633b4f40868d491c2ae5b50030ce6f3
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
MachineType: Sony Corporation VGN-SZ650N
Package: nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 (not installed)
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-15-generic root=UUID=43f0e794-3fd0-4252-be90-3759ab22e397 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-15.50-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu10
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
 libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-15-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip fax fuse lpadmin netdev plugdev root sambashare tape video
XorgConf:

dmi.bios.date: 04/04/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies LTD
dmi.bios.version: R0122S5
dmi.board.asset.tag: N/A
dmi.board.name: VAIO
dmi.board.vendor: Sony Corporation
dmi.board.version: N/A
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Sony Corporation
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologiesLTD:bvrR0122S5:bd04/04/2008:svnSonyCorporation:pnVGN-SZ650N:pvrJ002UR2M:rvnSonyCorporation:rnVAIO:rvrN/A:cvnSonyCorporation:ct10:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: VGN-SZ650N
dmi.product.version: J002UR2M
dmi.sys.vendor: Sony Corporation
fglrx: Not loaded
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: x86_64kernel: 2.6.31-15-generic

[Patrick Hernandez (spookievision)]

I would like to confirm that this affects me also.

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

Perhaps the emerging nouveau nVidia drivers might eventually help with this issue?

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Kernel-Log-Linux-2-6-33-to-include-Nvidia-graphics-driver-nouveau-885001.html

[elko (baterista)]

I would like to confirm that this affects me also.

[Patrick Hernandez (spookievision)]

I have experimented a little with the nouveau drivers and have found that the performance isn't anywhere near the performance of the official nVidia drivers. Maybe when the nouveau drivers are more mature would they be an acceptable replacement.

[Michael Doube (michael-doube)]

I stopped caring about a fix for this since I almost always use the Intel adapter these days. But, while testing a new HDTV I was fiddling with different modes and find that this bug still exists for Ubuntu 10.10, and reverting is the same as in the description (manual extraction and copying of library).