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Issues Switching NVIDIA mode on Ubuntu

Ubuntu supports NVIDIA graphics cards out of the box with a proprietary driver that allows you to switch between different modes on your laptop for battery life, called “PRIME profiles”:

  • nvidia (nvidia gpu always on high performance mode)
  • on-demand (turn on nvidia for select tasks only)
  • intel (use only builtin gpu for power saving)

Any change in profile requires a restart.

Pop!_OS does a good job of integrating switching modes directly in the tool bar, but Ubuntu doesn’t offer that option out of the box. In general, switching profiles is possible using the “NVIDIA X Server Settings” application, which also gives you lots of details about your graphics card when in NVIDIA modes. However, I find that the NVIDIA settings app can switch from intel into nvidia modes, but not back to intel mode…

So as an alternative that always works, you can use the command line tool prime-select to switch profiles. Use prime-select -h to list the options:

  • To check the profile currently in use, prime-select query.
  • To switch to a different profile, use sudo prime-select intel (with either nvidia, intel, or on-demand option). Then restart your system!