How to check which GPU is active in Linux?

Question

I have 2 GPU's in my netbook. How do I know which one I'm actually using at any given moment?

score 86 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 23 '24 at 17:06

I've just gone through a hell of a time trying to get my discrete graphics to work in Ubuntu, and answering this question was constantly a challenge, since the lspci method mentioned earlier can sometimes say that both are [VGA controller].

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

$ glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile

For me, this is telling me that my Intel graphics are running the show.

glxinfo is available from the mesa-utils package, so you will need to install it if you haven't already. On Ubuntu 22.04, for example, run:

sudo apt-get install mesa-utils

If you're using an NVIDIA chip, and you're using the bumblebee package, you can put optirun in front of that line, and it should tell you that you're running the NVIDIA chip (optirun is basically telling the computer to use the discrete chip to run whatever command follows, but everything else is still using the integrated chip).

$ optirun glxinfo | grep -E "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer"
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce GT 555M/PCIe/SSE2

glxheads is another helpful command from mesa-utils that tells you some useful information about which graphics card is in use (mostly repeats glxinfo in a more compact and easy-to-read form, though), and it gives you a nice rendering of a rotating triangle.

score 31 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 18 '12 at 17:27

31

To check which GPU is currently in command (that means which is an active VGA controller) type in

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

Any controller with [VGA controller] at the end is your currently active GPU. The others are switched off. In the following example the Intel card is active while the nVidia one is not in use:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor
Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA 
controller])
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GF108 [GeForce
GT 540M] [10de:0df4] (rev ff) (prog-if ff)

answered Apr 18 '12 at 17:27

ubuntudroid

427

24

Um... so what does it mean if both cards have VGA controller at the end? – naught101 Nov 11 '14 at 05:38
1

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0416] (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK106GLM [Quadro K2100M] [10de:11fc] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) what does it mean? – Asaf Magen Jul 09 '15 at 11:36
1

Maybe you're using SLI? – ubuntudroid Jul 09 '15 at 11:58
3

in my case both has that at the end: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:591b] (rev 04) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GP106M [GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile] [10de:1c20] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller]) – Aftab Naveed Oct 21 '18 at 11:28
1

In my case, both are end with [VGA controller], so how can I know the exact one? – Bonn Nov 25 '20 at 03:50
This doest work. it lists both on my xmg neo. – RichieHH Apr 12 '21 at 22:56

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com · Answer 3 · 2021-01-22T08:02:24.573

12

nvidia-settings GUI

On Ubuntu 15.10, after I installed nvidia-352 and the GPU seems to work:

nvidia-settings

shows something like:

Note how it shows:

GPU 0 - (NVS 5400M)

where NVS 5400M is my GPU model.

Then if I fire glxgears, the "GPU Utilization" goes to > 90%.

So I expect that if you had multiple GPUs, you could see how much each one was being used at a time.

edited Jan 22 '21 at 08:02

answered Oct 31 '15 at 23:44

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com

18,092
4
117
102

What is nvidia-352 exactly? Is is a bunch of drivers or just a driver for a specific GPU? – cosbor11 May 10 '18 at 05:27
@cosbor11 nvidia-352 is the version of the driver / Ubuntu package n, each version supports many GPUs as listed on the official website: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/90279/en-uames NVS 5400M is the GPU model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com May 11 '18 at 07:16
2

This answer is Nvidia-specific, but the OP didn't specify a vendor. What about AMD? I have an AMD laptop with integrated and dedicated GPUs. – unfa May 05 '21 at 14:54
@unfa sorry, I don't know how to do it there, let me know if you find a more general method, I don't like lock-in either. Also, I like your YouTube channel :-) – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com May 05 '21 at 15:05

score 11 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 16 '18 at 04:50

11

nvidia-smi -L

This gave me what I wanted. This command shows the list of GPUs present on your machine. This might help you figure which are active ones.

got the command from thread here: Ubuntu Box with multiple NVIDIA GPU Cards | devtalk.nvidia.com

edited Apr 16 '18 at 04:50

answered Dec 27 '17 at 14:32

Hardhik

219

1

anybody figured out how to find the free GPUs out of the ones returned by this command? – pcko1 Jan 21 '20 at 16:02
Just curious, will this command list an Intel integrated GPU if you decided to disable your Nvidia GPU? – kas Nov 14 '20 at 18:11
1

This only lists Nvidia GPUS and gives no indication if active for desktop or not.. – RichieHH Apr 12 '21 at 22:57
This answer is Nvidia-specific, but the OP didn't specify a vendor. What about AMD? I have an AMD laptop with integrated and dedicated GPUs. – unfa May 05 '21 at 14:54
Again, this is Nvidia specific. Not a usable answer. – Balázs Börcsök Feb 25 '22 at 17:23

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 29 '22 at 11:38

2

Just type nvidia-smi in the terminal. Then check for the percentage of usage. That will indicate which GPU is in use.

edited Apr 29 '22 at 11:38

AdminBee

22,803

answered Apr 28 '22 at 22:20

Olanrewaju O

51

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 11 '11 at 03:18

1

Which OS are you using? If you use lspci on most linux machines you get a list of your pci devices, just grep for graphics devices and it should pop up both of them. After that just check out the config on each of them, you should see details of up/on/active or something to that nature.

answered Jul 11 '11 at 03:18

baweaver

354

1

ubuntu 11.04. and lspci is showing all two gpu's. – LanceBaynes Jul 11 '11 at 03:41

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 14 '18 at 22:30

nvidia-smi is very useful, but at times I've found that it doesn't always include everything. It seems when processes crash they aren't always listed.

sudo lsof /dev/nvidia* has always worked for me. It will also work without sudo, but will only show processes owned by you. If you are working on a multiuser machine or are using docker, you will probably get better results with sudo.

If you see a discrepancy between the 2 commands, you may want to consider killing the extra processes found with lsof.

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered May 10 '20 at 14:29

0

In Ubuntu 20.04 this can be done from the GUI with the NVIDIA settings application:

answered May 10 '20 at 14:29

Sergio

101

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 27 '22 at 01:20

I found another method, just in case anyone needs to detect the model of your NVIDIA graphics card and the recommended driver.

ubuntu-drivers devices

I got this from here: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-the-nvidia-drivers-on-ubuntu-20-04-focal-fossa-linux

score 0 · Answer 10 · edited Sep 29 '22 at 10:40

0

Another method:

sudo cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

Discrete card (DIS) will be Off (or DynOff) when not in use. Integrated card (IGD) is always energized (Pwr).

edited Sep 29 '22 at 10:40

AdminBee

22,803

answered Sep 28 '22 at 18:37

mmm

1

How to check which GPU is active in Linux?

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