[HowTo] optimum Optimus Manager settings (for pre-Turing laptop graphics only)

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Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆

Lost in Optimus Manager settings? This tutorial will show you the most efficient ways to set it up. However, the second method (in the spoiler below) is less stable and reliable than the other one.

1st method, custom scrips

Don’t be afraid of wording. Those scripts are extremely simple.

  • First, before enabling optimus-manager.service, remove the config you might have already installed by mhwd:

    sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-mhwd.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/90-mhwd.conf.bak

  • Now enable the service:

    systemctl enable optimus-manager.service

  • Edit /etc/optimus-manager/optimus-manager.conf :

    [amd]
DRI=3
driver=modesetting
tearfree=

[intel]
DRI=3
accel=
driver=modesetting
modeset=yes
tearfree=yes

[nvidia]
DPI=96
PAT=yes
allow_external_gpus=no
dynamic_power_management=no
ignore_abi=no
modeset=yes
options=overclocking, triple_buffer

[optimus]
auto_logout=no
pci_power_control=yes
pci_remove=no
pci_reset=no
startup_auto_battery_mode=integrated
startup_auto_extpower_mode=hybrid
startup_mode=auto
switching=custom

  • Find PCI bus of your Nvidia GPU by issuing the following in the terminal:

    lspci -k | grep -E 'VGA|3D'

    Hereinafter it will be referred to as 0000:01:00.0 just to make this writeup easier to follow. Usually it is the most common dGPU PCI address but yours may be different.

  • Open a file /etc/optimus-manager/nvidia-disable.sh and insert there the following line:

    echo -n 1 > '/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/remove'

  • Now edit /etc/optimus-manager/nvidia-enable.sh by adding the following line:

    echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/rescan

    That’s it.

2nd method, bbswitch
  • Begin with installing bbswitch module for your kernel. There’s one for each kernel version in Manjaro repository. If you are using a custom kernel, head over to packages.archlinux.org and download bbswitch-dkms there.
  • Next all you need to do is to set bbswitch as switching method in Optimus Manager settings.
    The main drawback of using bbswitch is that sometimes it cuts power from dGPU too fast which makes display manager (like SDDM or GDM) fail to restart when you log out.
1 Like
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Well, as is said, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing…

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Is there a way to auto install the right bbswitch when switching to a different kernel version?

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Go to packages.archlinux.org. Search for bbswitch-dkms, donload it and install with pacman -U bbswitch-dkms-%VERSION%.

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