Power saving with free Radeon (ATI) driver

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 11.10 without the proprietary driver for ATI video cards and I like very much the performance.

My only need is activate power saving when I use the laptop with the battery. Thanks

Answer 1

From this blog

You have two options, both involve editing /etc/init.d/ati-power-save options

gksu gedit /etc/init.d/ati-power-save

First method is called “dynpm” and the second method is called “profile” method.

dynpm method

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Dynpm method is more modern and efficient but it might not work with some hardware combinations (like mine for example).

Add these lines:

#!/bin/sh

# ATI power save
echo dynpm > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method

Reboot

Profile method

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Power profile method is based on four power profiles you choose manually or at boot time using script like the one we are creating here. You can choose between 1. “default” 2. “auto” 3. “low” 4. “high”.

Add these lines to the file

#!/bin/sh

# ATI power save
echo profile > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_method
echo low > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_profile

Reboot

Either method

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Save the script and make it executable

chmod a+x /etc/init.d/ati-power-save

See the blog for additional details.