Gfilui

working through a minefield of information at the moment and need help.

I've got a Dell Latitude E5570 which is setup with Hybrid graphics, Intel/AMD as such

$inxi -Fzx 
Graphics: Card-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 bus-ID: 00:02.0
 Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8750M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
 Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: i915,radeon Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz
 OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Sk

I've tried playing with switcheroo, but this doesn't seem to work.
https://www.dell.com/support/article/au/en/auchn1/sln298475/a-guide-to-hybrid-video-on-dell-pcs-with-an-ubuntu-operating-system?lang=en

Also, I've installed the proprietary drivers from AMD here:
https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/Radeon-Software-for-Linux-18.20-Early-Preview-Release-Notes.aspx

This seemed to work, however when launching steam games I received an error about OpenGL incompatibility. In an attempt to fix this, I ended up with a boot loop and a very unstable system.

EDIT - this is how I ended up boot looping....
https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-the-latest-amd-radeon-drivers-on-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-beaver-linux

I've now completed a fresh install and everything is back to vanilla, no other poking - looking for advice.

I have the exact same setup (Intel Latitude E5570 / Hybrid graphics, Intel/AMD). I have installed Ubuntu 18.04 very recently.

Here are my experiences:

Although I marked Install third-party software for graphics and Wi-Fi hardware and additional media formats during installation, the Additional Drivers tab in Software & Updates (to reach this type software-properties-gtk in a terminal) claims that no additional drivers are available. Did you experience the same? Maybe somebody knows why. Before installing any proprietary drivers I decided to test the vanilla installation before doing anything else.

lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|Display'

gives me the following output

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 530 (rev 06)
 Subsystem: Dell HD Graphics 530
 Kernel driver in use: i915
 Kernel modules: i915
--
01:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Mars [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8750M] (rev 81)
 Subsystem: Dell Mars [Radeon HD 8670A/8670M/8750M]
 Kernel driver in use: radeon
 Kernel modules: radeon, amdgpu

I guess that last line about the Kernel module amdgpu means that the OpenSource drivers are installed (can anybody confirm this?). More information on AMD drivers for Ubuntu can be found here on the Ubuntu help wiki.

Aside from switcheroo there is another possibility to switch between GPUs using xrandr:

• Hybrid Graphics | Ubuntu help wiki


• PRIME | Arch wiki

Using xrandr (as stated in the second link) use the following command to show the providers:

xrandr --listproviders

My output was

Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0x6b cap: 0x9, Source Output, Sink Offload crtcs: 3 outputs: 7 associated providers: 1 name:modesetting
Provider 1: id: 0x41 cap: 0x6, Sink Output, Source Offload crtcs: 2 outputs: 0 associated providers: 1 name:OLAND @ pci:0000:01:00.0

To be able to render GPU-intensive applications by the more powerful discrete card use

xrandr --setprovideroffloadsink 1 0

Now you should be able to choose a GPU for your application. For example you can test this with a command (using glxinfo, sudo apt install mesa-utils) I found here on Ubuntu Forums:

DRI_PRIME=0 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"
DRI_PRIME=1 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

So I have done a benchmarktest (using glmark2, sudo apt install glmark2) for both GPUs using the following commands:

DRI_PRIME=0 glmark2 --fullscreen
DRI_PRIME=1 glmark2 --fullscreen

The resulting score was:

• 
  507 for Intel integrated GPU


• 
  367 for AMD descrete GPU
  

This is strange, since I thought that AMD GPU should be more performant than the integrated Intel GPU. What are your results on this? Can you confirm this?

You might also test starting Steam on the discrete GPU using the stated xrandr commands.

Maybe I will also install the proprietary AMD GPU drivers (amdgpu-pro) and repeat the benchmarks. I hope this is helpful, especially the parts regarding the alternative way of switching GPUs.

You've gone done the exact same path as myself!

Additional Drivers tab in Software & Updates (to reach this type
software-properties-gtk in a terminal) claims that no additional
drivers are available. Did you experience the same?

Thats a big YES from me.

I guess that last line about the Kernel module amdgpu means that the
OpenSource drivers are installed (can anybody confirm this?).

Correct, my understanding is from 17.xx, Ubuntu shipped with the open source AMD drivers out of the box. Proprietary drivers are no longer available in the multiverse sources for additional driver installation - you need to do this manually.

I've also worked through GPU switching by using the PRIME method. IE

DRI_PRIME=1 steam

I've tested this back to back running a light game such as Portal which shows ~40 FPS on Intel graphics and ~100 FPS on AMD.

Not ideal, but a workaround I can certainly live with!

Correct, my understanding is from 17.xx, Ubuntu shipped with the open source AMD drivers out of the box. Proprietary drivers are no longer available in the multiverse sources for additional driver installation - you need to do this manually.

That is right. However Kernel driver in use: radeon tells me that the older radeon driver is in use instead of amdgpu. To make another benchmark test for the open source AMD drivers I forced my system to use amdgpu kernel module by editing grub.

In /etc/default/grub I added amdgpu.si_support=1 radeon.si_support=0 to grub, which is proposed in the arch wiki. The whole line looks like this for me now:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash amdgpu.si_support=1 radeon.si_support=0"

Then I updated grub and did a reboot:

sudo update-grub

Now lspci -k | grep -EA3 'VGA|Display' sais, that Kernel driver in use in use is amdgpu. So I repeated the benchmark test for AMD gpu:

DRI_PRIME=1 glmark2 --fullscreen

Now the result is:

• 
  356 for AMD descrete GPU
  

So there is no significant improvement to the radeon driver. Consequently I will switch back to the old radeon driver. Just for completeness, can you also test your steam game, whether it also runs on 100 FPS on AMD using amdgpu driver?

Just for completeness, can you also test your steam game, whether it also runs on 100 FPS on AMD using amdgpu driver?

I've done this and can confirm that the steam game (Portal) will easily hit 100 FPS with both the radeon and amdpgu drivers - no appreciable difference - but much less headache using the radeon drivers shipped with Ubuntu rather than the proprietary amdgpu drivers.