[Sequel] Switching graphics on MSI GP62 6QE Leopard Pro in Fedora 25

It seems that none of the linux distributions are stable yet, on this particular piece of hardware and my earlier blog post got a bit old. So, I've decided to post a new one.

This time I have created a github repository to smoothen things up. I encourage you people to use it as a starting point and make/suggest necessary changes. This is a pretty straighforward method of setting things up but the important point is that it works. :)

So, you can start of by cloning the repository:

       https://github.com/utkarsh009/Switcher

Then follow the steps given in readme.md. I'll repost it for you.

Prequisites:

1. You need to have make, git, dkms and kernel-devel installed.

# dnf update
# dnf install make git dkms kernel-devel
# reboot

2. You will need to clone the bbswitch git repository.

# git clone https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/bbswitch

3. You need to install the bbswitch module. I'd recommend to install it in such a way that it survives kernel upgrades and hence saves you from the trouble of having to set it up everytime you update your system. Change your current directory to bbswitch directory and execute the following command.

# make -f Makefile.dkms
# reboot

4. You need to set up your system to have passwordless sudo access.

# sudo visudo

Then move to line where it says:

# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

Comment out that line and add the following lines at the end of the file (or anywhere you want :-P)

# %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL
# YOUR_USERNAME ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Replace YOUR_USERNAME with your username.

Further Instructions:

Now that you're done with prequisites let's move ahead and run the install script (assuming that you've already cloned or downloaded the files and changed your current directory to this one.)

# chmod 755 install.sh
# ./install.sh

Edit: I use xfce as my window manager in fedora 25. So, I can't guarantee that the code will work with other Window managers. For that you need to check where the autostart configuration file is stored. (The file/folder related to Session and Autostart Applications.

Update 1: Here's yet another sequel: https://bumblebeesky.tumblr.com/post/161314575892/setting-up-ubuntu-1704-on-a-laptop-with-hybrid

Gaming on a budget with HIS Radeon RX 460 2GB model

Disclaimer: This is not a regular review. This post is just to share some benchmark results with my fellow budget gamers.

New cards featuring the AMD Polaris architecture have been around the corner for quite some time now. With the RX 460 from HIS digital being the cheapest one available in India currently, I decided to buy one of those for my ancient PC replacing the Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 (GDDR5 model). Since the budget was tight, I wasn't able to go for any significant upgrade other than the graphics card. So, I decided to pair that card with my ancient (almost 6 years old) AMD Athlon II X4 635 processor and check how much of a bottleneck it was. Here's the test system specification:

Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 635
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H (Rev 1.3)
RAM: 2x2GB Corsair value ram (dual channel)+ single 4GB Kingston HyperX Fury
Chassis: As basic as it can be. It's a generic case with one fan pulling air into the case and one throwing air outside. The PSU (and of course the GPU) has it's own fan. The CPU fan is also the basic one I got with it.
PSU: Tagan 500W Stone Rock 

It turned out that the processor was a bottleneck for this card. So, I decided to overclock it.
Here are the settings that I used:


As you can see, I've set the FSB to 230 MHz. and the multiplier to 14.5x (which was the maximum I could get with this processor. So, it turns out to be 3335 MHz. in total. That's a 15% overclock from the base frequency of 2900 MHz. The memory clock was set to 1532 MHz. and I had to overvolt everything to make that stable. The system is quite stable as of now and the temperatures are OK. Here's the temperature after performing a few benchmarks:

 

Considering that the maximum operating temperature for this CPU is 55-71 degree Celcius, These temperatures seem to be OK. 
So, now let's have a look at some scores:

Here's the score for Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Ultra Settings @1080p)



That looks good enough. Somewhat comparable to the test systems using better CPUs. Although there's some drop in performance but still, quite playable.

Next up is Metro: Last Light

I've used 4 different presets for testing. So, here are the results:









I think the performance is good enough and it's delivering playable frame rates. 

Next up, Unigine Heaven using DX11 API:





Decent enough performance in both the presets.

Conclusion

I'll completely leave the decision up to you to decide if this performance satisfies you. If you have a better chassis with bigger fans or some custom cooling solutions, you might be able to overclock it a bit more and get some extra performance out of the CPU. Although, I'd recommend that if you have the budget to go for a better CPU, just go for it, but, in case you're out of budget, this performance is fairly good enough.

PS: In case you don't have enough for a CPU/Motherboard Combo, I'd recommend sticking to the basic 2GB model (which is slightly more than what this CPU can handle), lower the graphics settings a bit and invest in a good gaming mouse like the logitech g402 hyperion fury (that's the one i have ^_^) rather than spending that extra money to go for the 4GB model.

This post is all about setting up Bumblebee on MSI GP62 6QE Leopard Pro. I personally don't find many tutorials on the internet that address this problem while there are many who seem to be stuck with it.
Disclaimer: I take absolutely no responsibility if you manage to somehow screw your system. Although, I'd be happy to help if you encounter any problems. ^_^
Note 1: Please make sure that you have the latest kernel installed. It is advised that you run
dnf update
before proceeding.
Note 2: This method has been verified to work on the above mentioned laptop. It has a core i5-6300HQ processor with nvidia gtx950m. So, this may work on any other machine with similar specifications.
Note 3: Try this method only if the regular method doesn't work out for you.
Note 4: I use xfce. Neither gnome nor kde are working at the moment. So make sure you install dnf install @xfce-desktop before proceeding.
Note 5: I assume that you want to switch to the intel IGP to save battery life and are not going to frequently switch between the cards. Although, It can be done easily, I will not be covering that in this blog post.

So, Let's get started.

1. Install the kde display manager.
   dnf install kdm
   For some reasons GDM is currently not working. Then, reboot the system.
2. Make kdm the default login manager.
   Assuming that you're using GDM.
   systemclt disable gdm.service
systemctl enable kdm.service
3. Now move over to this site: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bumblebee and setup the "Free or Open Source" option.
4. Next move over to this website: http://negativo17.org/nvidia-driver/ and setup the repository. Then install the NVIDIA drivers from there. Although the bumblebee wiki says not to set it up using this but I've found that the bumblebee-nvidia driver makes the system unbootable. If that works for you, then no need of setting up this repo.
5. You need to change the contents of /etc/bumblebee/bumblebee.conf slightly.
   The line where it says Driver=nouveau just change that to Driver=nvidia
6. Now make sure that under the [driver-nvidia] section KernelDriver=nvidia is present.
7. Now move over change the contents of /etc/modprobe.d/bbswitch.conf
   Change
   options bbswitch load_state=0
   to
   options bbswitch load_state=1
8. Now you need to edit the contents of /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
   make sure you have idle=nomwait option present under the kernel version you are booting. It needs to be present at the spot where other options like "rhgb" etc. are present. The order of these options doesn't matter in this case. Also, I'd advice that you remove the rhgb and nomodeset options from that list. Sometimes the system freezes even before the login manager starts and hence I prefer not having the rhgb option.
9. create a script in your home directory and save it by the name, say, bumblebee.sh with the following code.
   #!/bin/bash
sudo rmmod nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
sudo echo "OFF" > /proc/acpi/bbswitch
   then make that script executable(and readable and writable) for all the users using the command
   chmod 777 bumblebee.sh
   Replace bumblebee.sh by the actual path of the script if you did not save it in the home directory.
10. create a file on the desktop by the name, say, bumblebee.desktop with the following code
    Type=Application
Name=Bumblebee
Exec=sudo /home/*YOUR_USERNAME*/bumblebee.sh
Terminal=true
    Replace *YOUR_USERNAME* by your username, of course :-P
11. Now Add an entry in the "Session and Startup" (which you can find under settings manager) with a command
    sudo /home/*YOUR_USERNAME*/Desktop/bumblebee.desktop
12. Finally, Reboot the system.

Any comments, suggestions or corrections are welcomed.
Note 6:If the bumblebee daemon is not running properly or /proc/acpi/bbswitch is not present then remove the packages bbswitch-dkms and bumblebee and then reinstall. Don't forget to verify that bumblebee.conf is set up as mentioned above.

Edit 1: Here's the sequel to this post: http://bumblebeesky.blogspot.com/2017/02/sequel-switching-graphics-on-msi-gp62.html