Asus U41SV hybrid graphics linux -- acpi_call DSDT info

One of the team members posted the DSDT info for a ASUS U41SV laptop. The two calls to turn on/off the card are like this:

                                                    \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DOFF

                                                    \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DON

Code snippet:

        If (LEqual (_T_0, 0x03))

                                        {

                                            And (Local0, 0x03, Local0)

                                            If (LEqual (Local0, 0x01))

                                            {

                                                \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DON ()

                                                Return (0x01)

                                            }

                                            Else

                                            {

                                                If (LEqual (Local0, 0x02))

                                                {

                                                    \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DOFF ()

                                                    Return (0x00)

                                                }

                                                Else

                                                {

                                                    Return (\_SB.PCI0.PEG0.GFX0.DSTA ())

                                                }

                                            }

                                            Return (0x01)

                                        }

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Alienware M18x with hybrid graphics @ news.cnet.com

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HP dv6z with hybrid crossfire @ www.engadget.com

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Sony VAIO Z series 2011 includes hybrid graphics option via a docking station

For the seasoned Linux users, the Sony VAIO Z series has seen 3 updates in the last 3 years, the sony-vaioz-09, sony-vaioz-10, and now the sony-vaioz-11, sporting a docking station with a discrete AMD graphics card:

 

 

Sony’s New VAIO Z Series Is Available Now, Lightest 13-inch High Performance Notebook

Sony’s much anticipated VAIO Z Series ultraportable notebooks have arrived. This new VAIO Z Series is touted as the “world’s lightest 13-inch standard voltage PC” and features an ultra slim design that’s thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air while packing in high performance specs with Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors.

 

The new VAIO Z Series notebook is designed to work in tandem with a Power Media Dock that delivers the power of an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics card with 1GB VRAM, a slot loading optical drive, one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, and VGA ports. Thanks to this pairing, the new Z Series is now a half pound lighter than its predecessor and weighs only 2.5 pounds.

The sleek chassis measures just 0.66-inch thin and is made of a combination of aluminum and carbon fiber. It is designed to be fully flat without any protruding ports or unnecessary seams. Battery life is rated for up to 8 hours and can be boosted to 16 hours with the purchase of an optional large-capacity sheet battery that attaches flush on the bottom.

The notebook is equipped with the latest Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors that can be turbo boosted to 3.4GHz and has dual-channel SSD drives with RAID tehcnology. It also sports Intel’s Light Peak port, also known on Apple products as the Thunderbolt port, that promises up to 10Gbps of blazing fast bi-directional data transfer speeds.

Other things to note include the notebook’s 16:9 aspect ratio display that’s available in either 1920×1080 or 1600×900 resolution levels with anti-glare coating. The notebook comes in three colors carbon black, carbon indigo, and premium carbon black. It is available now for pre-orders at Sony’s website and retails starting at around $2000. 

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Hybrid graphics Linux on Samsung sf310-S03

One of the team members reported that acpi_call works with samsung sf310-S03:

acpi to turn on:

echo _ON $(acpi_call "\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._ON")
echo _PS0 $(acpi_call "\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._PS0")

acpi to turn off:

echo NVOP $(acpi_call "\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._OFF")
echo _PS3 $(acpi_call "\_SB.PCI0.P0P2.PEGP._PS3")

PS0 & PS3 are power state values: PS0 is fully powered and PS3 is powered off.

vsync needs to be disabled or your tests with the intel card will be useless:
$ export vblank_mode=0

Thanks @alphac for your post!

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Promising prospects for linux hybrid graphics in Google Summer of Code 2011 @ www.phoronix.com

[Phoronix] Multi-GPU PRIME & GPU Hot-Switching Proposal

a Russian student developer has just voiced two ambitious proposals: Multi-GPU PRIME support and GPU hot-switching.

The Russian student developer, Антонов Николай, is interested in either open-source PRIME multi-GPU support or multi-graphics card hot-switching support to be worked on as this year's Google Summer of Code.

Open-source GPU PRIME support came about a few days over a year ago as an attempt to provide multi-vendor graphics processor offloading / multi-GPU rendering. The PRIME name comes from David Airlie, the author of the original code, dubbing it off NVIDIA's Optimus Technology that was introduced a month prior. Unlike Optimus, PRIME could theoretically work with any open-source graphics driver regardless of hardware vendor. However, the only active work on PRIME lasted for a matter of days and so David looked for someone else to take over this work. Now there may be that chance with the 2011 Google Summer of Code.

The other alternative project that Antonov has expressed interest in is graphics card hot-switching for X.Org. This would be interesting for being able to pop-in a second GPU without blowing out an existing X.Org Server or simply for dual-GPU notebooks to flip from the integrated to discrete graphics seamlessly. It's along the lines of last year's switcheroo work, but more integrated into the X.Org Server for seamless switching.

With these two features, however, there is some display-server-specific work, so any X.Org Server code wouldn't necessarily provide direct benefit to the Wayland Display Server.

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Good news for linux hybrid graphics on nvidia -- nouveau drivers leap forward @ www.phoronix.com

This is good news for those on hybrid graphics laptops that got them to work with nouveau drivers but are unable to install and use the binary closed-source nvidia drivers. As you can read here:

[Phoronix] On Low-End GPUs, Nouveau Speeds Past The NVIDIA Driver

the results of the phoronix benchmarking show that nouveau, steadily improving since it was merged into the Linux kernel, promises to deliver great performance on different nvidia GPUs.

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Testing AMD Catalyst 11.4 pre-release on Linux hybrid graphics

A new version of the Catalyst binary driver has been pre-released:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTI3Mg

This is AMD's closed-source binary driver, nothing to do with vga_switcheroo.

One of the team members has submitted a bug report here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/745955

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AMD Llano brings "Fusion" to hybrid graphics laptops @ arstechnica.com

Here is an interesting read from arstechnica.com. AMD's Llano CPU/GPU combo starts shipping...

AMD ships Llano, the ultimate HTPC processor

 

It has been five years since the AMD/ATI merger promised us the "Fusion" of a CPU and GPU onto a single die, and on Monday AMD finally made good on that promise with the shipping of the company's first true multicore CPU/GPU combo parts, codenamed "Llano." Sure, the Brazos platform launch was technically the first time that AMD put a CPU and GPU onto the same die, but Llano is supposed to be what the company originally intended with Fusion—a combination of CPU cores and vector hardware that's somehow more "integrated" than a normal on-die GPU. (The exact way in which the latter is true is not clear to me; if anyone knows, feel free to enlighten.)

The picture above is from AMD's blog post announcing that Llano is shipping to OEMs, and it shows the workers in the company's Singapore factory surrounding a box that presumably contains one of the first batches of Llano processors.

AMD is calling Llano's combination of a CPU and GPU on the same die an APU, for "accelerated processing unit." Whatever you call it, it's pretty certain that even tech-savvy customers are never going to see Llano as anything other than another CPU/GPU combo part like Brazos and Sandy Bridge. No matter, though—the Llano parts will have their own place in the processor ecosystem, and it will be different from that of Sandy Bridge.

There is no chance that Llano's CPU core will outperform that of Sandy Bridge, given that the former is a straight-up derivative of AMD's existing Phenom II core. But Llano's GPU is another matter entirely. AMD has used their considerable experience in building best-in-class integrated graphics processors (IGPs) to pack a ton of GPU performance onto each Llano die. Llano will be a great gaming portable, and Llano desktops should offer extremely good price/performance ratios for gamers.

If Intel can get the performance of Sandy Bridge's trailing-edge GPU design up to the point where it can outperform low-end discrete graphics cards, then Llano should do even better. Llano's DirectX11-class GPU will beat Sandy Bridge's GPU by a comfortable margin, and should compete with mid-range discrete solutions. Intel won't have anything comparable until its Ivy Bridge launch early next year.

So from now until Ivy Bridge comes up, AMD will have the budget performance notebook and desktop segment pretty much to itself with Llano. Llano will also make a monster of a home theater PC chip, because you'll be able to build a relatively cheap HTPC with some serious gaming chops.

AMD has said that the first Llano parts will show up in laptops, with desktop parts likely to follow later in the summer. The company isn't giving out any details on which specific products are shipping, though—we'll probably get this info as part of an official launch, soon.

 

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