Optimus Technology, nice, but neccecary?

Howdy reviewers!

Im a fanatic gamer with my laptop, however, I was wondering and started experimenting on something.

That optimus technology is nice thought and all, but brings too many problems with for example punkbuster enabled games, or pretty much a lot of security-enabled games.

For example playing punkbuster games, punkbuster kicks Alienware M11x users because they have Optimus, their kickreason: Running multiple Direct3D.

This is obviously caused by the optimus technology, two different video cards active on the system, causing multiple Direct3D samples to run at the same time, which is to a lot of security systems a problem.

Since none of them security companies are willing to really put work in this, many laptop gamers with Optimus, not just Alienware users, are put in a corner and not allowed to play multiplayer games.

I know not everyone experienced this problem, but there are many that do.
So here comes the essence of my thread.

Idea: Can my alienware system run and take the Nvidia card as its primary videocard, and hopefully only videocard?

As gamer I never use my Intel HD integrated card. I know its nice for people that move around a lot and need that extra battery life. However I wondere for those that don't need that integrated card, is there an option to just 'disable optimus' by terminating the integrated card.

I experimented myself by uninstalling the card through Systemmanager: Unsuccesfull. The system logicly blacked out, no video, so a reboot was a must. Then the system booted on a standard VGA card, installing itself automaticly after logging on. It disabled the nvidia control panel completely, but still showed the Nvidia on the systemmanager as a functioning hardware.

After a systemrepair i managed to get my laptop back to normal, and stopped experimenting until hearing other peoples knowledge.

So is it possibe to shut off ur integrated card and let ur system run on the Nvidia GT335M primary, and only? Has anyone experimented or succeeded in doing this???

I'd love to hear it,

With regards,

Qizzi

 

Set the nvidia card as preferred in global settings?

 

I don't have mine yet but isn't there an option in the BIOS to force which card is normally active? I hoped that it would do just what you are wanting, make the OS think that there is only one or the other installed.

 

That still uses the IGP for displaying, S/he wants it totally disabled.

Only the R1 has that option, not the R2.



To answer the OP, Optimus is both software and a hardware layout. Unfortunately, what you're asking is impossible because it's more than software. The whitepaper on Optimus from nVidia explains that the 335m doesn't have access to the display. I'll give some excerpts.

http://imgur.com/VycQD.png
In this first one, notice how the IGP display hardware is the only thing with access to the display.


http://imgur.com/4xHu6.png
Read the one starting with the first full sentence. It says the same thing as the first shows visually.

edit: pics are kind of big, so I'm linking them rather than embedding them.

 

@ corwinicre,

Thanks for clarifying my problem to the others, and what you are saying, that basicly there is no way to put the Nvidia chip as ur main, right?

I was ( damnit ) expecting that. So are you familiar with a ( lately becoming ) common Punkbuster/security problem: Multiple Direct3D loaded? Is there any other solution then what I brought up? So far all I read on forums and support is that optimus users are basicly left no other choice but receiving a smack in their face.

Just like the posts and threads i've been reading: let's hope security like Punkbuster get its head together and starts putting in some work for new technology...

 

>Thanks for clarifying my problem to the others, and what you are saying, that basicly there is no way to put the Nvidia chip as ur main, right?

That's what the Optimus Whitepaper says. The data to be displayed has to be piped through the IGP to get to the display, so it should be necessary to use it when using the Nvidia chip.

>So are you familiar with a ( lately becoming ) common Punkbuster/security problem: Multiple Direct3D loaded? Is there any other solution then what I brought up?

I don't play any games using PB, but I've gone through the threads a bit. I also troll the nVidia forum section on Optimus, and there is mention there of other programs that detect cheats as having the same problem, so it's not unique to Punkbuster but something common to detecting cheats. From what I understand, some cheats will render multiple instances of models, which uses multiple direct 3d windows, so PB and others check for that. The question is why does Optimus render to multiple windows or produce an overlay? The short answer is it doesn't do either. That fact says it's not exactly Optimus but rather how PB and others detect multiple devices rendering at once. Rather than check for multiple windows or overlays, I think PB and others are trying to check for multiple devices in use. It probably does something like ask Windows for the current GPU, which responds with the IGP (notice how Windows always gives IGP as the GPU), then every so often checks to see the name of the device doing the rendering (every so often in case the cheats are activated later, past when the game starts, which is why you get kicked after 10-15 minutes or whatever), which shows up as the nVidia GPU. If this is the case, the solution is for PB and others to check for two GPUs doing the rendering, not two GPUs existing. I have no idea how easy this is to change over. Or, perhaps PB asks Windows for the GPU and then checks the GPU doing the rendering and if those are different, it decides there are two GPUs doing rendering and kicks you, though those two situations aren't mutually exclusive anymore now that Optimus exists. Again, PB would need to redo how it checks for GPUs doing rendering. Another potential solution might be for nVidia to work with Microsoft (or perhaps the game companies) to get Windows to detect the 335m as the GPU when its active and "respond" to PB and others when prompted with its name as the active GPU, rather than the current situation, which is to always detect the IGP.

 

Thanks for the input.

Yes that would to me also be the most logic way PB and other AC programs work. In that case, the faith is in their hands.

However, back to my first post. I know what the whitepaper says, but despite that, I know this is just an ideal and have no idea how much work this could possibly be to get it done but: wouldn't there have to be a way to let the 335m bypass the optimus system, and putting it as the main renderer, say replacing the IGP as main renderer with itself, the Nvidia GPU? Therefore you would be doing something likewise as I tried myself. I would still see a logic sense in bypassing this, by making the 335m the pilot of your system. I don't believe this is possible or well I at least do not own the knowledge to make something like that happen. But it would be a cool idea to make this possible.

 

The theory is, since nVidia is touting Optimus as the future, it will recieve better driver support, hopefully in future packages, as it (in theory) shouldn't require any special driver packages to work.

We know how well that theory works out, right now, but it's the new stuff, and OEMs have to follow along.


At any rate, Optimus ONLY connects the nVidia GPU via the PCIe link. There are no display outputs directly from the GPU to any output. It requires another, active, GPU to output to a display.

You cannot bypass this limitation. Well, unless if Intel offers an "output only; DX renderer off" functionality into their future drivers specifically for Optimus.


This is just my take on this.

 

>wouldn't there have to be a way to let the 335m bypass the optimus system, and putting it as the main renderer, say replacing the IGP as main renderer with itself, the Nvidia GPU

That's exactly what Optimus does already; when the 335m is active, it does all the rendering. The IGP is split into two pieces, the rendering portion and the displaying portion. When the 335m is active, it does the rendering and passes it to the displaying portion of the IGP. Because there is no displaying portion of the 335m, the IGP is necessarily always in use. If the 335m could do the displaying itself, then it would be possible to totally disable the IGP and let the 335m take over completely, but that's not the case.

 

So that would still conclude to sit and wait until either the security of online games or Nvidia/Intel provides us a solution...which is a situation that is never fun but inevitable, so it seems.

 

I think optimus is a useless technology aimed to bring more money to nvidia through propaganda (it is the future, ohhh!). Switchable GPUs is necessary, but the biggest "benefit" brought by optimus is to make unnecessary to click fn+f6, but how lazy one can be to see it as a real benefit...

 

I've been loving Optimus so far. Very easy to use, and I don't have to constantly worry about forgetting to switch my graphics card off when I'm writing a paper, or taking notes in class when battery life is key. Being a forgetful person, this is an awesome feature to have. Constant performance requires this thing to be plugged in all the time, if I wanted that, I would just use my PC. (Much better performance to $ ratio)

Though I suppose I haven't had Optimus mess with me too much so far either. All of the games that weren't already on the white list, took little to no effort to add myself and I don't play any games that use punk buster, so I suppose I'm fortunate.

I guess it couldn't hurt them to make Optimus optional. It may be very useful to me, the forgetful person that doesn't always game on this thing... but may be seriously inconvenient to others that game a lot and run into issues with certain games.