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The reason I'm asking is that none of the games I've installed through software center that require 3D accelartion like TORCS for instance will run. When I try to run then, nothing happens. I have a Dell Inspiron N5110 with a nVidia GeForce GT 525M.

I tried the following which I were some suggestions for people with similar problems:

lspci -v

Which gave me:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0df5 (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: Dell Device 04ca
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
    Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
    Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
    Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
    I/O ports at e000 [size=128]
    Expansion ROM at f6000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: nvidia
    Kernel modules: nvidia_current, nvidia_current_updates, nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

I also tried:

egrep -i " connected|card detect|primary dev" /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Which gave me:

[    20.873] (II) intel(0): Output LVDS1 connected

And:

nvidia-smi -a

Which gave:

NVIDIA: could not open the device file /dev/nvidiactl (No such file or directory).
Nvidia-smi has failed because it couldn't communicate with NVIDIA driver. Make sure that latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

I don't really understand what all this means.

BenMorel
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Nic
  • 1,411

9 Answers9

72

I know the question is old, but I found a solution which I haven't found on any other topic.

Open a terminal and type

lspci -vnnn | perl -lne 'print if /^\d+\:.+(\[\S+\:\S+\])/' | grep VGA

Your output will be something like that:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) 

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Chelsea LP [Radeon HD 7730M] [1002:682f] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

Now look for the [VGA controller] at the end of each device. Whichever device has it, is the active GPU. In my case it's the i7 processor (HD 4000) that's handling the work.

Shabahat M. Ayubi
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Geo
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63

I found this (if you have NVidia and intel graphic cards):

I think the following command should give you an indication of your active chip:

$ glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer*"

OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile*

If you switched to NVidia card:

$ optirun glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"

OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 555M/PCIe/SSE2
Community
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Jorge Valcal
  • 629
56

nvidia-settings utility

On Ubuntu 15.10, after I installed nvidia-352 and the GPU seems to work (see e.g. these steps):

nvidia-settings

shows something like:

enter image description here

Note how it shows:

GPU 0 - (NVS 5400M)

where NVS 5400M is my GPU model. Also tested on a Quadro K1100M. This did not show up before I had installed the driver.

Also if I fire:

sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 vblank_mode=0 glxgears

the GPU usage goes to > 90%, further sign that it is working.

Those env vars are there to disable vsync: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17196117/disable-vertical-sync-for-glxgears

Run a benahcmark and see FPS

In the end, the only test that matters is to do a benchmark with / without GPU and see your FPS goes way up or not: How to perform a detailed and quick 3D performance test e.g.:

sudo apt install glmark2
glmark2

which shows:

enter image description here

and should raise your usage to 100% no matter what as it renders as many times as possible. If we run for one second:

glmark2 -b build:duration=1

it outputs to the terminal:

glmark2 Score: 4551

which is the average FPS.

Similar on Launchpad: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/233462

Related:

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
  • 31,312
48

The easiest way to check is go to Settings -> Details -> About

Settings

Maduka Jayalath
  • 1,133
30

Try this I think it'll work:

nvidia-smi

It will give you something like this

enter image description here

rhoitjadhav
  • 824
  • 7
  • 14
13

I think one of the easiest ways is to run this command prime-select query in the terminal.
The output will be the graphic card that is used by your PC.
Here is an example:
enter image description here If you want to switch between the graphic cards you have, use sudo prime-select <graphic card name>

singrium
  • 7,320
5
sudo aptitude install inxi

inxi -G

Output will be like that: 

Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GF108 [GeForce GT 730]
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: nvidia (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1200@59.95hz
           OpenGL: renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 390.116
ephemerr
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3

I suggest nvtop tool, it is easy to watch in real-time. It also shows in a graph.

$ sudo apt install nvtop
$ nvtop

enter image description here

Zstack
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2

Also these commands are useful, if you have installed nvidia driver correctly:

find any graphic card:

ls -l /proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/

and

check installed NVIDIA GPUs:

cat /proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0000:01:00.0/information

For example for me:

Model:       NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
IRQ:         152
GPU UUID:    GPU-dadf78f5-afd8-b3fd-c64f-1e3a2b6fc9bc
Video BIOS:      94.06.2f.00.bd
Bus Type:    PCIe
DMA Size:    47 bits
DMA Mask:    0x7fffffffffff
Bus Location:    0000:01:00.0
Device Minor:    0
GPU Excluded:    No
BarzanHayati
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