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i have a workstation with intel core i7 4790 8 mega cash intel HD graphics 4600 2 GPUs nvidia GTX 760 4 Giga RAM 1152 Processing core i have problems with installing nvidia proprietary drivers it causes the screen to disappear the desktop to not show up every time i reinstall ubuntu and nvidia driver after each upgrade it causes problems i am doing a research in molecular structures i am looking for writing software like VMD visual molecular dynamics or PyMol

i want to write OpenGL code that displays 3D spheres on screen and do transformations handle input from keyboard and mouse

i want to use the latest OpenGL version 4.4 for this research but i have found intel HD driver which use the built in small GPU to accelerate OpenGL i used it and upgraded the system and done many updates it didn't cause problems it works will but the problem is it uses Mesa3D which Opengl 3.3

my question is is Mesa's implementation of Opengl 3.3 works well on Linux is it enough for molecular dynamics i read on the internet that new features in OpenGL for games developing not basic things like molecular dynamics rendering atoms rotation transformation someone said to me you you will never use everything in OPengl api 3.3 it is enough for you to use intel hd GPU and use nvidia GPUs for numerical computing and algorithms

Belal Medhat
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  • Rendering the atoms is easy; it's just some spheres and cylinders. If you're trying to do numerical computing on the GPU, though, that't not very well suited for OpenGL; OpenCL would probably be better. – Colonel Thirty Two Oct 30 '14 at 18:24
  • @ColonelThirtyTwo yeah i think so rendering the atoms is easy and it can be done well with intel hd graphics and mesa using OpenGL 3.3 also mesa will finish OpenGL 4.3 very soon and i know scientific computing will be done using CUDA – Belal Medhat Oct 31 '14 at 00:20

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Unfortunately you can't (easily) mix the NVidia proprietary drivers with Mesa. The problem is, that there can be only one libGL.so in use by programs and Mesa and NVidia each bring their own implementation of that interface library. This is a limitation of the current Linux GPU and OpenGL driver model.

My recommendation: Completely disable the Intel on board graphics and do everything on the NVidia GPU.

datenwolf
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  • Nvidia proprietary cause unsolved problems for Ubuntu after each update or upgrade or installing new software and restart i didn't see anything the desktop doesn't appear many people uninstall nvidia driver then reinstall it after each upgrade many people believes bumblebee is the cause of all problems – Belal Medhat Oct 31 '14 at 00:10
  • @BelalMedhat: You don't need Bumblebee, if you don't make use of the Intel OnBoard graphics. The GTX 760 is a Desktop GPU so apparently you don't use a Notebook that depends on hybrid graphics to work (of course if you use a notebook then you're kind of SOL). Anyway, Mesa's OpenGL support is not nearly as far as NVidia's and the performance, especially when it comes to GPU computing is not even in the same ballpark. –– Just install the Nvidia drivers through the Ubuntu launchpad repository, which takes care of Ubuntu upgrades not messing with the driver installation. – datenwolf Oct 31 '14 at 08:26
  • i have installed nvidia driver from ubuntu software and updates additional drivers nvidia proprietary tested driver 331.38 these driver supports Opengl 4.4 was released by nvidia in Jan 2014 it has been tested for 8 months to be recommended by Ubuntu now i know the mean of please install it from ubuntu and don't try to install the latest driver manually because it may have problems with manythings like you kernel version xorg version so i have installed nvidia from Ubuntu and it works fine after i do reboot the desktop shows up – Belal Medhat Oct 31 '14 at 13:41
  • now i think i will write opengl 4.4 not 3.3 but in any case of course nvidia Opengl implementation and performance are better than mesa3D Opengl 3.3 + intel HD graphics but nvidia don't support linux like windows because its open source its for free but windows i think everyone do for them everything with money i think LInux is the best OS for research science but companies like NVIDIA AMD don't want to help linux and its open source drivers even amd help linux better than nvidia – Belal Medhat Oct 31 '14 at 13:45