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glxgears seems to be much faster when using my integrated graphics chip, than when I activate the graphics card using bumblebee's optirun or primusrun.

When I run glxgears with optirun, I get ~1250 FPS. Primusrun gets the same framerate. When I run it without the graphics card, I get ~5500 FPS.

Why is it slower with the graphics card? I'm using a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04. The graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce GT 650M.

Running it with optirun:

mkg@loam:~/projects/external/Theano$ vblank_mode=0 optirun glxgears 
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
5921 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1184.094 FPS
6359 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1271.791 FPS
6258 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1251.515 FPS

Running without optirun:

mkg@loam:~/projects/external/Theano$ vblank_mode=0 glxgears 
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
28295 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5658.941 FPS
27970 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5593.883 FPS

1 Answer 1

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Glxgears is not good for benchmark, you should use glxspheres instead. These results similar in my system but no need to worry there is no problem.

Compare two card with glxspheres and check that you have a problem or not.

To install glxspheres:

Download VirtualGL (.deb) from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualgl/files/VirtualGL/

Navigate to the folder containing the deb package and install it with

sudo dpkg -i VirtualGL_*.deb

Run glxspheres:

cd /opt/VirtualGL/bin/

vblank_mode=0 ./glxspheres

to run with nvidia card:

vblank_mode=0 optirun ./glxspheres

Note: "vblank_mode=0" is for disable the v-sync and it spends much battery power. You don't need to use generally.

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    You really should explain why "Glxgears is not good for benchmark" & "no need to worry there is no problem". I presume the real answer is: github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/issues/… "bumblebee has to copy the frames over the PCIe bus when using the nvidia gpu and with enough data, the pcie link isn't fast enough to provide the required bandwidth. That's why every high fps benchmarks or high fps OpenGL application will see really bad performance with bumblebee" - i.e. crunching polygons and such will show benefit, but simply spamming frames won't. Mar 4, 2018 at 20:00

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