Nvidia Optimus bug in 285.62 WHQL DRIVERS

[Natalia.123]

I don’t know whether this problem exist for all user or only for me. Right now I own Asus laptop which came with Nvidia Optimus technology because it integrated with an Nvidia Dedicated graphics processor. Everything was working fine with stock installed driver’s v280.26. Yesterday the Nvidia official site pointing toward new drivers for my laptop. For that reason I have updated it to 285.62 from 280.26 WHQl drivers. After the update it becomes completely impossible to right click in Firefox when it is not set for high performance. One more problem is all video players automatically set to Intel onboard graphics. There is no option to switch back to Nvidia. Does anyone else seeing this problem?

[Avikshit Sinha]

It is possible for you to run all your games with the graphics card:

• Right click on the desktop and when the panel appears, click "Nvidia Control Panel"; Then, click on "manage 3d settings" on the right get a page with two tabs: the first indicates "global parameters", it is of interest here. Under "Global Settings", there are "preferred graphics processor" click on the rollout just below and select "Nvidia high performance", bottom right, click on "apply" and you can safely play your games videos. Only downside, if you want to launch small software like VLC or if you like watching videos in full screen via the internet (YouTube etc) the display will switch to the nvidia card, which loses some of the interesting "Optimus" Technology.
  
• Let's say you start again the first step to the tab "Global Settings" but this time click on the "Program Settings", click on "Add" and find the executable of your video games ; to "select the preferred graphics processor for this program", click on the rollout just below and select "Nvidia high performance"; click on "apply" at the bottom right.

[Mariah-Simpson]

I think that in your case, the IGP is not turned off. It is only the GPU that is turned off when not in use. And hybrid crossfire is only advantageous when you have about the same performance between the same types of cards. It works only hybrid crossfire between cards within the same range, or a slower card with single. In fact, heavier things sent to the GPU as it calculates and sends to the IGP who forwards it to the screen. If the GPU directly had to send you had problems like flicker when switching, multiple connections etc. That's the whole problem with the old version of exchange, which you so could not switch if something was loaded into one of the memories.

[Baby-Oye!]

The Intel Graphics is given to me in the Control Panel as hybrid crossfire. If I disable it in the BIOS or in the Control Panel, it will automatically reactivate. This thing is so confusing for me. Even if I set manually at the games setup, I can only see the Intel onboard HD graphics, I cannot see the Nvidia but there is indeed a option to choose the Nvidia. In practice, this is somewhat more complicated. Furthermore the problem is that if nVidia has developed drivers to manage Optimus for Windows Os only, they completely dropped Linux. So by default, on Linux, the two graphics cards are never turned off, while only the integrated one is used.

[Sharanya]

Nvidia's Optimus technology presented for the laptops can automatically switch between IGP and discrete GPU. The real change happens and is dependent on the graphics processing power that the application requires. The new Optimus technology from Nvidia, the shortcomings of its predecessors has been solved. Instead of 5 to 10 seconds to 200 milliseconds of laptops gpu exchange and the Optimus driver determines each application or IGP or the additional GPU must be enabled. The technology is supported by GeForce 300M series, while 200M-Ion models and the hardware support in house. Nvidia calls the appropriate hardware 'Optimus Copy Engine'. This copies the frame buffer of the discrete GPU and put it through the PCI-e bus on to the frame buffer of the IGP. The latency of only 3ms would thereby increase, claims Nvidia. On the motherboard and the IGP would be no further demands, although it appears from the presentation to make only Intel CPUs supported.

[|Gyani|]

I don’t know whether this problem exist for all user or only for me. Right now I own Asus laptop which came with Nvidia Optimus technology because it integrated with an Nvidia Dedicated graphics processor. Everything was working fine with stock installed driver’s v280.26. Yesterday the Nvidia official site pointing toward new drivers for my laptop. For that reason I have updated it to 285.62 from 280.26 WHQl drivers. After the update it becomes completely impossible to right click in Firefox when it is not set for high performance. One more problem is all video players automatically set to Intel onboard graphics. There is no option to switch back to Nvidia. Does anyone else seeing this problem?

The same issue happened to me as well. I have also installed the latest 285.62 WHQL drivers from the Nvidia site for my Lenovo y470 and also on Alienware M14x. both were running Geforce 550M and 555M respectively, with Optimus technology). The result was almost the same. However the Intel HD graphic is somewhat capable to take care of each and every one type of video but the quality was lot worse. There was no problem with the framerate but the rendering quality is just bad.

[Tikoo]

Did you try to see if there are any 285.62 WHQL drivers in Asus website rather than the Nvidia. Sometimes, the Asus will offer slightly customized drivers with same version of their models so that they could be firmly compatible with all their laptop without any issues. Customization could be anything depending the hardware configuration and BIOS on Asus laptops. I assume that you can use these modded drivers safely. Sometimes you might need to update BIOS for the new drivers to work. Also see if there are any updated drivers for Intel HD graphics. Better always download the drivers directly from Asus.

[Aaryan2011]

That is not true. The Nvidia takes over as the video needs to be tough for Intel. Thus, the battery savings when only light tasks performed. So I think it's just a driver issue, so the Nvidia Optimus thing not working properly. But I do not know if you are setting options for Optimus Solutions different from the standard solutions. What I would do: Clean all drivers (do not remove, but clean, with driver cleaner) and then take your drivers from the Asus site (I assume that Asus offers this as a model). These are often somewhat outdated drivers, but at least it works though. Make sure that not all the graphics drivers are made for Nvidia Optimus. There might be different or separate drivers for Optimus to work in laptop.