Re: Free drivers for AMD Radeon (Vaio S)
Hi, Martin,
Martin Steigerwald wrote, on 09/14/11 09:35:
> Hi Jörg!
>
> Am Dienstag, 13. September 2011 schrieb Jörg-Volker Peetz:
>> The status of the free radeon driver is available here:
>> http://wiki.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
>>
>> A very recent kernel and additional firmware (firmware-linux-nonfree)
>> is needed for the discrete graphic adapter. A HP Pavilion DV7 with an
>> integrated and a discrete graphic adapter (5470M) from AMD works with
>> the technique called vgaswitcheroo.
>
> But not without restarting X, or did that change?
Right, this hasn't changed yet.
>
> Actually I do not get the point of that dual gfx card setups.
>
> Either I want to do demanding graphics stuff with the machine and then its
> discrete graphics, or I just use Intel Sandybridge onboard graphics. I
> decided for the later and frankly, it has been speedy enough for me for
> anything that I tried including Freedroid RPG and Supertuxkart at Full HD
> resolution (1920x1080). Sure for more demanding games it can get to slow.
> But I am not interested in those at the moment.
>
As I understand it, the point is energy saving, especially with a mobile device.
With vgaswitcheroo one of the graphic adapters can be switched off. On battery
(e.g., while traveling) the integrated GPU consuming less energy can be used.
With access to a power supply the discrete more powerful GPU could be used if
necessary.
Also, with the discrete GPU deactivated, the noise of the cooling fan can be
reduced.
--
Best regards,
Jörg-Volker.
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