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I recently installed steam on my laptop to play some games but the experience is not that good. I don't play a lot but with the computer I use I would have expected something better. I am getting really low frame rates even on low resolutions.

My computer is a Lenovo Y50-70:

  • Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4710HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz × 8
  • Ram 16Gb
  • Graphics card: GeForce GTX 860M

I want to confirm that my actual graphics card is used and not the intel integrated one. When I check system details it says "Intel® Haswell Mobile". Another question on this site has this answer for how to find the model of the computers graphics card. If I run that command the output is Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller

However the full output of that command also shows NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] as "3D controller".

The low frame rates in the games makes me question whether my graphics card is actually used. What can I do to confirm it is? Or is gaming that bad on linux?

After problem solved:

I reinstalled the nvidia drivers (which I already had installed) and suddenly it worked. Games play much better now. When checking system details it now says "GeForce GTX 860M/PCIe/SSE2" for "Graphics" so if your proper graphics card is not listed here, chances are that is is not installed correctly.

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Ludwig Magnusson
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1 Answers1

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Check the Additional Drivers app. If Nouveau is selected, Intel graphics are most likely being used for games and videos. You can switch to using NVIDIA by selecting one of the proprietary driver options and clicking Apply Changes.

There may be multiple versions to select. Ignore the -updates options, since those are experimental and not fully tested. Use them only if the other proprietary options don't work for you. If there are still a couple proprietary options, start with the newest version.

Once you install the proprietary drivers and reboot, you will be using NVIDIA, but full-time, meaning less battery life. You can open the NVIDIA X-Server Settings app, go to PRIME Profiles and switch to Intel, but that switches everything over, and requires you to relog.

As an alternative to the PRIME Profiles, there is an app called Bumblebee, which acts like the Windows NVIDIA Control Panel, allowing you to select which programs you want to run on which card. It should be available from the Software Center. Be aware, though, this program may not be very stable. I currently have it on my Ubuntu 15.10 installation and have no problems so far, but I haven't really tried it out. Other people have reported that it completely breaks the system or just doesn't work in the first place. It's a hit-or-miss situation. You're welcome to try it. Just don't get your hopes too high.

TheWanderer
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  • Weird. I knew about the additional drivers and I did have the proprietary ones installed. But I tried to install the default one just to compare. After that the graphics didn't work at all after restart. I had to boot in low graphics mode and do a restore to backup settings. But when that was done and I reinstalled the proprietary drivers, the game runs much more smoothly.... – Ludwig Magnusson Feb 11 '16 at 00:25
  • @LudwigMagnusson glad it works. NVIDIA can be finicky on Ubuntu, and I can sympathize with its annoyances – TheWanderer Feb 11 '16 at 00:26