I noticed recently that now there is a new method for hybrid graphics laptops, ie: Intel/NVIDIA (iGPU/dGPU). I remember that this was one of the things that I really wanted to set up in GNU/Linux but I never found such information, most of the people talked about setting up NVIDIA in a desktop computer but not on a hybrid laptop. It was not until I found about Bumblebee that I finally could set up things correctly in most of the distributions (Arch, Debian) but not in Slackware. Then someone on this forum told me about PRIME/xrandr, and finally, I could use my gpu in Slackware, but there is a problem about it, it is that by using the gpu as the primary gpu things are just a little bit buggy (I would say that not in functionality but visually), specially if using a desktop environment such as plasma-kde. That was the method of "Offloading Graphics Display" but now there is another one: PRIME Render Offload.
PRIME render offload is only supported in recent versions of NVIDIA and XOrg, luckily for me (us) we have a recent version of Xorg in Slackware-Current (15) and the minimum NVIDIA driver is 450.57 which can be installed as well, that way one can use the iGPU as the primary and the dGPU for some specific applications, which by the way, is the expected behavior for hybrid graphics, the same behavior that Bumblebee offers but also offered by that tool that I could never set up (using SlackBuilds) in Slackware. But now, I have tested this method out in Slackware Current (15) and everything is working really fine, I would call it even better than the previous method (Offloading Graphics Display).
Now that PRIME Render Offload can be used in Slackware,
I want to know opinions about:- Is there still any reason to try to set up Bumblebee?
- Which method would you use: PRIME Render Offload or Offloading Graphics Display?
... And I know there are other tools to use a GPU in a hybrid laptop if you prefer to use one of those methods: which would it be and why?
PRIME Render Offload or Offloading Graphics Display?
