notebook with nvidia but not optimus

[dansan]

Hi,

I want to buy a new notebook. I'd like it to have a nvidia gfx card, as that seems to have better 3D and video-decoding support under Linux (compared to ATI).

Now the problem is, that all intel i3/5/7 2nd-gen (4 digit numbers) have an IGP, and nvidia created "optimus" (auto-switch-igp/nv), that is not supported under Linux (and nv has no intentions to). There are tools to use the nvidia gfx, but those projects are in infant state.

There are some i7 1st gen notebooks (only ones without igp) with nvidia, but their nvidia-gfx is old :(

Almost no notebook has a hardware/bios switch to enable the dedi-gfx, it's all in software now - basically nvidia killed Linux on notebooks with nvidia-gfx.

So here is my question: does anybody know a notebook with nvidia-gfx that works with Linux? (13/14"TFT)

Edit: Prob. this one would work: Lenovo Thinkpad T410 NUA9UGE

[dansan]

So I went looking for notebooks with ATI gfx, and guess what I found: ATI does the same $%&"$*"%! dynamic hybrid thing as nvidia now :(
A notebook I found, where the IGP can be switched off via BIOS and all works out-of-the-box in Linux is Acer Aspire 3820TG-484G75Nks. I don't like Acers low quality hardware though... But the AMD Radeon HD 6550M is way faster and supports newer shader, etc than the nvidia NVS 3100M... also 200Ôé¼ cheaper...

[jK]

Why not an AMD CPU & Nvidia GPU?

[dansan]

That would be OK too... it's just that my knowledge of AMD (mobile) CPUs is so small... OK... bad excuse... I'll go read something about it :)

[dansan]

There are no notebooks with AMD-CPU and NV-GPU with a display size of 13" or 14".

Would you rather go with a newer ATI gfx (Radeon HD 6550M) or an older NV gfx (NVS 3100M)? (diff. is huge!)

How does spring perform on a NVS 3100M? (Lenovo is ofc way better than Acer...)

[jK]

ATi is not a solution. Better it works with low FPS than having it not working at all. And even when you got luck and it works partly, any future driver update has a 70/30 chance to break it again.

[hoijui]

never ATI for Linux if you want 3D. price and speed and stuff is never worth the trouble you will have. NEVER!
i did this error twice. forget about all the shit you read that sais stuff like: "ATI is now much better under linux, bla bla". they say this since .. 10 years or so, and it never was true. you don't need a performance heavy card for spring anyway.
do not even consider it.

edit: +1 to jk

[jK]

not to forget that ATi stops their driver support for any GPU older than 2 generations. Also ATi doesn't include mobile drivers in their catalyst AFAIK, so you always have to hope the notebook vendor updates them regularly (70% don't).

[dansan]

Thanx guys!
I was kind of hoping you'd say that, as I had a good feeling to get a Lenovo and not an Acer, and my decision needed just a little push :)

So it will be Lenovo ThinkPad T410 NT9K3GE for a good price I think :)

[jeykey]

ja ein thinkpad haben wir auch am laufen, läuft einfach super mit linux! gute Entscheidung

[dansan]

ja ein thinkpad haben wir auch am laufen, läuft einfach super mit linux! gute Entscheidung

Thanx - it's good to know everything works!
Previously I bought a Sony notebook which had the perfect specs, but turned out to be a Linux minefield.

[Forboding Angel]

Why not an AMD CPU & Nvidia GPU?

This is what I did with my laptop and it was an excellent decision.

AMD makes great hardware, but shitty drivers, so buy the shit that doesn't need specific drivers to function properly (like cpus ).

Do amd vid cards actually have propitiatory drivers on *nix like Nvidia does? Or are you stuck with the QQ opensauce drivers?

[dansan]

Why not an AMD CPU & Nvidia GPU?

This is what I did with my laptop and it was an excellent decision.

What notebook is it (exact model pls)?

Do amd vid cards actually have propitiatory drivers on *nix like Nvidia does? Or are you stuck with the QQ opensauce drivers?

The OSS drivers are almost good enough to use with spring (works, but has errors), but 3D performance is to low. On older ATI-cards OSS-drivers are en-par or even faster than the closed-source driver, but on newer cards the catalyst-driver is a must. The 2D-performance & -features of the OSS-drivers is a dream, while the catalysts 2D is a bad joke.

Atm I'm using a notebook with core2duo and ATI-mobility-3400 (3200 core) with the catalyst driver, and for spring and Q3-like-fps works well. But just a year ago it was pure luck if 3D was stable or not...

Anyway: I wasn't able to find any 13" or 14" notebook with AMD-CPU and a dedi gfx other than ATI :(

[jamerlan]

I hate optimus technology, but at work i got this notebook (asus: i7 + nvidia)

So i installed "Bumblebee Project" (http://www.martin-juhl.dk/2011/08/ironh ... g-for-duty)

And i run spring using script file with "optirun spring $@" command. And it works!!!

[Forboding Angel]

Umm its a Compaq presario with a turion 64bit 2.4 ghz dual core CPU and an NVIDIA 7600 go gpu. Excellent laptop, I only paid a little over 400 bucks for it Several years ago. Ubuntu works great on it, but during install you need to have it hard wired to Ethernet so that the install picks up the Broadcom drivers.

Not the flashiest laptop, but its a real workhorse.

[dansan]

I got my Lenovo ThinkPad T410 NT9K3GE - and I'm so super-happy with it!!

Everything works out-of-the-box - even suspend works - love it! Gfx is _way_ better than before - now I can even play Zero-K, which didnt work with ATI for me, and 1440x900 is nice (when not at home :)

Also: love Linux: just copied root and home over to new notebook, installed grub -> works! no reinstall, no reconfiguring all apps, just keep on working - i really pity windows-users for that

I had a core2duo before, system (gentoo) was compiled with -march=core2, so everything was fine. The only thing was to remove ati-drivers, install nvidia-drivers, make a kernel-recompile (add drivers for new NIC and WLAN) - and that's it :)
(also USE+="cg nvidia vdpau"

I bought a OCZ Vertex 2 (120GB), put it as primary disk and moved the HDD into the UltraBay where the DVDR was - nice to have the portage-tree, home and root on SSD and media-stuff and VMs on HDD :) Surprisingly Win7 survived being moved from SATA-0 to SATA-1.

A very happy Dansan