Why do people hate Optimus so much?

The graphics switching tech between Intel and nVidia, not the Autobot. I've had it since May this year and I haven't had a single problem. Plus, it's what gives me 4-5 hours of battery life and also great gaming performance when plugged in. I see people complaining about it left and right and wonder what the reasons might be.

 

maybe they don't know how to make games run on the dedicated card?

 

nVidia's driver is pretty good at detecting my games to run on the ded card automatically, otherwise it's not difficult to add an item to a drop down menu.

 

because you are one of the few that havent been affected by it. For example any optimus notebook dont usually go well with any Total War titles specially after empire.

and whitelisting dont always do the trick.

Switchable gpus is another matter, I favor to it. However given the current state that it is, I wouldnt get a laptop with automatic switching. Manual is what is best right now.

I do think that automatic switching is going to be the future.

 

I'm wondering though, does Total War just not register onto the ded card even if you whitelist it manually?

 

because it still has a lot of bugs to work out.

 

I hate it for lack of control. I want to be able to decide what GPU runs what program. The manual switching NVIDIA and AMD used to offer gave you this.

Having to rely on a whitelist for applications is unnecessary and stupid, especially when it doesn't work. With newer games Optimus generally works well, but a lot of older titles won't play nice. Sure, you can run them on the Intel GPU, but you lose the fine detail control (things like anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, etc) that comes with using the NVIDIA GPU.

 

for me the bigest nightmare is with professional applictions that dont deal well with the Nvidia card doing a final output out through the Intel IGP without its own MUX. once you hit enough data running around in the dedicated GPU, you get driver crashes, BSOD's, artifacts and plain strange behavior. ( Photoshop, Avid, Premier, Revit, 3DsMax, CivEng, Maya and Mudbox for example )

#2 is Nvidia is or atleast WAS horribly slow on Optimus driver updates, in 9 months I never got a stable driver update ( not a gamer here ) and I sold any laptops I had with Optimus

#3 the complete inability to display 10 bit color ( ANY dedicated card trying to output through the IGP can not do it without its own hardware MUX

#4 the complete lack of other OS support. Nvidia refused to help the Linux community at all to make it work, in the end basic functionality is working now but left a bad taste in the mouth of all the UNIX/Linux/ AIX etc users.

#5 the amount of whitelisting and mucking required to get many aplications or games working optimally, especially older ones.

since im not a gamer I cant say alot there other than Optimus not working with Punkbuster anti cheats for months on end. but on heavy productivity its nothing but a nightmare.

OP google nvidia optimus problem and have a read, there are THOUSANDS of threads. there are over 1500 in the autodesk forums alone.

agree on both

 

Here is how I would put them:

1. Manually switchable GPUs
2. Automatically switchable GPUs
3. Dedicated GPU
4. Integrated GPU

1. being the best option and 4. the worst

 

Oh OK I see. Thanks for everyone's input. It seems the only thing Optimus does not cause problems are for newer games which I guess is what I play.

Just out of curiosity, manually switchable GPUs require a reboot/relogon right?

 

This doesn't relate to Optimus specifically, but let's not forget the fiasco of AMD's automatic switching and its inability to run OpenGL applications on the discreet GPU. This is a nightmare for graphic and design professionals and a problem for folks who play games running that API.

Credit is due to HP for issuing BIOS updates to address the problem, but it should never have gotten to that point.

Not necessarily. The manual switching on the M11x R1 could be done with a hotkey. AMD's manual setup would be done via the driver control panel. You would simply have to make sure all other applications were closed before making the switching.

The disadvantage to the hotkey method is that you were pretty much reliant on the OEM to provide driver updates, as they needed to package the Intel and NVIDIA/AMD driver together. Users have been able to cobble together sets on their own, but they didn't always work.

Personally, I wouldn't mind having manual graphic switching that requires a reboot as long as it would allow you to always be able to use the latest reference drivers released by Intel and NVIDIA/AMD.

 

No It is just that the Optimus technology is in your hand, namely your finger

 

this would be why I wont go near graphics switching for atleast another year or two.

but in AMD's defence it seemed to be more of how the manufacturers implemented it specifically HP, there was no OpenGL issues with as ASUS I tried as well as a Clevo.

no most machines I tried you exited all applications and pressed a button, screen flashed and you went back to work.

 

Nope. My dv6t with the HP BIOS fix for switching makes it so that I can switch either by changing a setting in CCC or setting it to switch based on AC power state (IGP on battery, DGPU on AC).

 

Interesting. I wasn't aware that Asus and Clevo actually had a proper solution in place. The OpenGL problem is also prevalent on Dell notebooks, specifically the Vostro. See this thread on Dell's Ideastorm site. They're allegedly working on a fix as well, but it's been several weeks already with no results to speak of, at least at the moment.

 

AMD already acknowledged that it was an issue on their end. What kind of dark magics do you think ASUS or Clevo used to make it work that HP/Dell/Lenovo (ALL of which had issues with it) did not have access to?

 

no idea but hands on with those 2 laptops gave me no issues with GL renders in Maya. I would guess possibly something similar to HP's BIOS fix but done before release

 

Are you aware HP's BIOS fix does not make dynamic switching "work"? It just gives you the option to enable/disable it and use manual switching.

 

yes, I was following that thread for one of my coworkers. for our needs manual switching was more than sufficient.

 

The 1st generation of manual switching for pc requires reboot.


Most of the time, I believe most of the hate is how people have so much difficulty using the whitelist when the automatic detection fails on them.

For games, I don't know about professional application like PS, I never use them anyways.

The whitelist does work, as I managed to get older games to run with the Nvidia card ie Medieval War 2, R6, FS2 ...., as long you point it to actual binary that main portion of the application is on.

The whitelist and the run on option only runs on parent level. It will not use your setting if that process happen to call and use a child process, most likely it use whatever is the default is on.

The issue is finding that meat which isn't always conveniently located right next to the launcher, sometimes buried in several folders in.

So far, I haven't got a problem with selecting cards to run as of yet.

I been though pros and cons for both Optimus and manual switch. I favor the Optimus than the AMD manual switch since manual switch required more labor for me in the long run.

When you care less about switching, either manual switch or traditional. Though traditional would do much better in both reliability and ease of use in the long run.

(I might suggest this thread should to be merged with manual switch vs automatic switch thread we had few weeks ago. The responses seem to be the same as before )

 

2nd gen manual switching doesn't require reboot.

 

Unfortunate to hear. As a Mac user, I've enjoyed the graphics switching specifically because it's so easy to switch from integrated to discrete. I simply push a button in the drop down, select and I'm done. 3 seconds, tops. And no bugs. and if I don't want to do it automatically, the thing has never failed to detect an app that wants discrete graphics. If anything, it's too easy for software to trigger the discrete graphics, but it's better that way than the other way around if it's going to be automatic.

I was hoping Optimus was just as good and consistent. Sounds like its a lot more complicated if you have to create special profiles just to get the damn thing to react as expected. Not difficult; just unnecessarily more complicated. Optimus has been around long enough now for those kinds of bugs to have been worked out.

 

Right, what I'm saying though was that there was never an issue with manual switching, except that you couldn't do it. I don't think the other laptops you tried actually had dynamic switching, otherwise they would have had the exact same problem.

 

No, only the very early switchable graphics solutions back during the Windows XP (and part of Windows Vista) time required reboots/relogons. My T500 switches from the ATI Radeon 3650M to the Intel GMA 4500MHD with two clicks from within Windows 7 or Windows Vista; the only requirement is that 3D applications are closed first.

 

Just thought I'd chip in that I don't know what all the fuss is about either (555M). Optimus seems to suit me well so far.

 

Dynamic switching is something you just don't have any problems with... until you have a problem. Try running an executable it doesn't pick up on correctly and watch as it does nothing.

 

I don't hate Optimus, I just hate Nvidia.

 

That still a requirement even with that current generation switchables with Intel on manual/fixed mode.
It is easier to close everything first and reload than finding the hardware accelerated applications which are getting difficult as time goes by.

At least, CCC implemented Switching Prevention, introduced since 10.6, which blacklist applications so that it would not allow switching, even by user force, so that that application would not crash or display odd video behavior.

CCC (not the driver) updates contains fixes and improvements pertaining to Switchable Graphics.

I agree. Luckily, Optimus whitelisting and Nvidia GPU Activity are much more reliable than the AMD's version

 

I just found out, on my Sony laptop, I can simply install AMD's newest drivers over the Sony package, and it will work. There is even (in the custom install options) an package I have never seen before during the AMD GPU driver install process (sometihng called PX switch? module? something like that), that is most likely the actual swiching program/setup

 

Are you suggesting that you can't force dedicated or integrated for certain programs?

You of course should always have the option to force iGPU via power settings, so that's not a problem.

I assume, right clicking and forcing to run with your NVIDIA processor doesn't always work? I've used it once on a program that has iGPU set to default and it made the change without an issue.

 

Right, it doesn't always work.

Optimus is a little more polished than AMD's dynamic switching, which is a hot mess, but it still has problems.

 

I've never had any issues with AMD/ATI's switchable graphics. I found it really easy to turn on and turn off. It is annoying that you cannot do it during a game so it needs to be done before a game loads.
I look forward to AMD's new APU + dedicated GPU CFx in the near future.

 

Well, that more of an issue with you are running two different type of architectures to render the same routine.

For an inhouse AMD to AMD, shouldn't be much a problem for them but with Intel to Nvidia/AMD is just not really feasible.
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@Dealmaster
That work if that shortcut is the main binary that you going to be mostly be in.
But if it just a launcher to load something before going where it should use the card you forced it to, that new "main" process would just use the default selection instead.

Optimus has a funny way of a "manual" switch if you set the global settings to always use whatever card for any application that isn't in the whitelist.

 

Yeah, but that "manual" switch cannot force a noncompliant program over. That's the main issue. If a program doesn't work with Optimus, then there is no way to force it to render it on the nVidia GPU - it simply will just render via the Intel IGP, since that's all it can see.

EDIT: I still like nVidia's old switchable GPU better (between AMD and nVidia old style). Why? Because if there was a blocking application... nVidia would actually list it. AMD? Just says there is a blocking applications, and tells you to close it. Really? Which one? Everything?

 

Switchable Graphics has its issues across the board.

The two approaches to switchable graphics for the most part are software and hardware based.

Hardware based switching relies on a multiplexer to physically switch the screen input from one GPU to the other. This approach is great because you either have one or the other. It is bad for a few reasons one of the biggest IMO being minimally supported proprietary drivers. The hardware approach also causes the screen to flash/blank when switching and sometimes specific applications to be closed.

Software based switchable graphics like Optimus has addressed many of the issues with hardware based switching but has a few of its own. Optimus for the most part relies on detection mechanisms, in most cases they work and in some they fail. You don't have the one or the other approach like with the hardware based tech. Also since both GPUs are running more or less in tandem there are situations where applications may not detect the Nvidia GPU properly.

 

What does Apple use?

 

...that's fixed mode. We're talking about dynamic mode.