More games support Linux than ever, thanks to Steam for Linux. But, like on Windows, many of these games require the latest graphics drivers for optimal performance and the fewest bugs. The latest versions of Ubuntu may include fresher drivers, but not necessarily the most recent ones.
Ubuntu packages and tests certain versions of the graphics drivers for each release, and doesn’t perform major updates. For maximum stability–particularly if you don’t care about gaming–stick with the graphics drivers Ubuntu provides.
You can install the most recent drivers yourself, but be careful: you may run into issues if you do this. Ubuntu packages and tests certain versions of the graphics drivers for each release, and doesn’t perform major updates. For maximum stability–particularly if you don’t care about gaming–stick with the graphics drivers Ubuntu provides. You may bump into bugs even if you download the latest graphics drivers directly from the manufacturer.
Are You Using a 32-bit or 64-bit Version of Ubuntu?
RELATED:How to Check if Your Linux System Is 32-bit or 64-bit
You’ll need to know whether you’re using a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Ubuntu before continuing. To check this on Ubuntu’s default Unity desktop, click the gear in the top-right corner of the screen and select “About This Computer.” You’ll see this information displayed to the right of “OS type.” You can also check this from the terminal.
You should also install any available updates for Ubuntu from Update Manager before continuing. You’ll see an “Install Updates” button that will take care of this for you in the About This Computer window.
NVIDIA
RELATED:How to Install Software From Outside Ubuntu’s Software Repositories
The official Graphics Drivers Team PPA–that’s short for personal package archive–is designed to solve this issue in the long term. It’ll provide updated graphics drivers. Gamers will be able to enable this optional repository and get an updated graphics stack without hunting it down, and normal Ubuntu users will be able to ignore it and continue using the stable version included with the current version of Ubuntu.
That’s the long-term goal, anyway. For now, this PPA is in testing. It also only provides NVIDIA drivers at the moment, so you’ll have to get your drivers elsewhere if you have AMD or Intel graphics hardware.
To add this PPA to your system, open a terminal window and run the following command:
After you have, run the following command to download the latest package lists:
Updated NVIDIA graphics drivers will now be available for installation. You can check the PPA’s description page to see what the latest version available is, or type the following command and press the “Tab” key to see a list:
For example, at the moment version 361 of the NVIDIA graphics drivers is the most recent one available. You’d run the following command to install it:
Check Graphics Driver Ubuntu
It’s also possible to download and install graphics drivers directly from NVIDIA using NVIDIA’s own installer. This tool is designed to be distribution-agnostic, compiling and installing the latest drivers on any Linux distribution. There’s a README for each graphics driver version that provides installation instructions and much more information.
However, it’s best to stick with packages built specifically for your Linux distribution, if possible. Vinyl express r series r31 driver. We recommend the PPA unless that doesn’t work for you for some reason.
AMD
AMD’s Catalyst driver–now known as Radeon Crimson, but still just the old fglrx driver–is required for the best Linux gaming performance on AMD hardware. AMD is working on a new open source driver architecture for the future, but it’s not competitive with the old fglrx driver yet.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t currently seem to be a PPA with that latest version available. They should eventually be part of the Graphics Driver Team PPA mentioned above, but for now, it isn’t.
You’ll have to install use the official fglrx driver packages provided by AMD. Visit AMD’s Linux download center and download the drivers for your graphics processor.
The exact method you’ll use to install these drivers depends on the version of Ubuntu you’re using. AMD currently provides pre-built .deb packages for Ubuntu 15.04, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. If you’re using an older version of Ubuntu, or a new one (AMD doesn’t yet support Ubuntu 15.10), you’ll need to select the generic “Linux” option on the download page and use AMD’s tool to compile and build the packages yourself. AMD’s official Linux graphics driver installer notes will walk you through the process of downloading the drivers, installing them, and troubleshooting any issues that might occur.
Intel
Intel provides an “Intel Graphics Installer for Linux,” which will download and install the latest open source Intel graphics stack on Ubuntu. At the time of writing, the latest version was Intel Graphics Installer for Linux 1.2.1, which supports Ubuntu 15.10. Intel’s graphics installer doesn’t support any other version of Ubuntu, including Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. It’s likely to always support only the latest version of Ubuntu. There’s no PPA with this stuff, either.
Thankfully, it’s at least a graphical tool. Download and install the package and you’ll be able to launch the “Intel Graphics Installer” from your applications menu. It’ll download the latest graphics packages from Intel and install them for you.
There’s a good chance you’ll need to reboot after this. External hard drive driver windows 10. At the very least, you’ll have to sign out and re-launch the graphical X server before the new drivers will function. Rebooting is the fastest way to ensure your system is using the new graphics drivers and libraries.
If you used a software repository to install the drivers, you’ll receive updates in Update Manager when new versions are added to the PPA. If you used a manufacturer-provided installer, you won’t receive updates automatically–you’ll have to re-download and re-run the installer in the future to get the latest releases.
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Video Card Driver Types
To determine your video card make and model, run this command from terminal:
More detailed information can be found by running
For a list of supported video cards, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCards.
Basic Installation Instructions
The easiest way to install binary drivers is to use the built in Hardware Drivers manager in Ubuntu.
In Ubuntu 10.04 and 9:10 this is found under System->Administration->Hardware Drivers.
Note:In Ubuntu 10:10 Hardware Drivers is now named Additional Drivers
More Detailed Installation Instructions
Here are some useful links and related pages.
Help!
For additional troubleshooting resources, please also see the Ubuntu X Team wiki
Xorg.conf.d
The xorg.conf.d directory (or xorg.conf file for older versions of Ubuntu) is the place that stores the configuration information for your input devices and output devices, such as video cards and monitors, as well as mice, keyboards, and tablets. This section focuses on the video card and monitor set-up.
In Ubuntu, the X configuration directory can be found at /usr/lib/X11/xorg.conf.d. Many of the configurations settings in use aren't explicitly set by the files in this directory, but are rather hard-coded into the system. If you want to generate an old-style xorg.conf, you can boot into recovery mode, select root shell, and do:
In older versions of Ubuntu (through 9.10), the xorg.conf configuration file can be found in the /etc/X11 directory.
You can back it up:
To revert to the backup you simply reverse the order like this;
Before you start modifying your xorg.conf.d directory or xorg.conf file, it is strongly suggested you print out this page. While care is taken by your fellow user to ensure that everything will work, it is more often than not likely the case. Things do go wrong as you try to optimize your graphics driver and monitors.
Also it helps if you become familiar with <ctrl>+<alt>+F1 and similar key combinations. In older versions of Ubuntu, F1 to F6 were full screen terminals like the old terminals. F7 was the first x-window, F8 the second, F9 the third, etc. If you pressed <ctrl>+<alt>+F1 to F6 you would go into a terminal screen and then if you were to press <ctrl>+<alt>+F7 you would return to your graphical user interface. In newer versions of Ubuntu, <ctrl>+<alt>=F3 now takes you back to your graphical user interface.
The information below was written about pre-9.10 versions of Ubuntu, but can be analogous information for newer versions still applies:
When you restart your machine you should be able to recover quickly by simply restoring your xorg.conf file. Another good idea is to perform the two above copy command before you modify xorg.conf. That way the commands will be in your terminal history. You can then simply press up arrow on your keyboard to recover the key combinations.
If you have changed your xorg.conf file before having backed up and are experience problems, you can copy the /etc/X11/xorg.conf from the Ubuntu LiveCD to your hard disk /etc/X11/xorg.conf file (before this, backup the file as described before).
If reverting back to the original xorg.conf file does not work for whatever reason and you are stuck in the terminal, you can execute the following command:
This will reconfigure your X server. Note: This will overwrite your current xorg.conf file. This command will not function in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) due to bug #474455.
Before you start modifying xorg.conf
It is important to know what the capabilities of your hardware is before you start. It is a good idea to find out maximum resolution, vertical and horizontal sync ranges and have them close at hand for both the monitor and video card. Without that information it will be difficult to configure your hardware correctly.
Monitors running at low resolution
Often if your running CRT monitors you find that the video card only seems to have options to display in low resolution mode. The trick to this is being able to edit the xorg.conf file in low resolution mode. There are two ways this can be done. Either in one of the terminal text editors or in the GUI (graphical user interface). You can use programs like vi, pico, with a command line like for terminal;
If you not familiar with vi or pico the you could use a GUI like this;
Remember if the editor window is too large in the GUI you can hold down the <alt>+Button1 (left button) on your mouse to move the window about.
The method shown here is not foolproof. Configuring xorg.conf can be very tricky. But starting with the simplest method is sometimes the best. The first approach is to look for and modify a line that looks like one of these
or
and change it to something that looks like this;
You should aim to only go up one resolution step at a time and be prepared to use the <ctrl>+<alt>+F1 key combination. It is not a good idea to drive a monitor out of range for too long, it may cause permanent damage.
There are other approaches to that require substantial editing and understanding of xorg.conf files formats. A search of the Ubuntu forums first for similar examples and then the linux forums may yield results.
Twin View or Dual Head displays
Try using the GUI found in System->Preferences->Monitors, or for NVIDIA users check the solutions found in NvidiaMultiMonitors before you use the following approach. Most users will not need to edit xorg.conf in order to use multiple monitors.
The approach to getting Twin View or two monitors working in Ubuntu is much the same as getting a low resolution monitor working as described above.
The first step is to enable the proprietary drivers and getting them to work. Once you have the driver working you need to try and enable the second monitor. So long as you can enable the second monitor you have an easier chance of getting the second monitor working. (Note: Different video manufactures have different ways of enabling the second monitors and detailed information will be presented for each proprietary driver at some later date here.)
Like in the single monitor you are looking for a line in the xorg.conf file that looks something like this;
which could be changed to this;
What is interesting about this approach is that it seems to activate all the other resolutions as well.
You may also need to add other sections to your xorg.conf file such as this example;
It can be frustrating to configure xorg.conf because there is little information and each linux distro video card manufacture handles xorg.conf files sightly differently.
Ubuntu Graphics Driver AmdHow to recover a non-booting system due to driver malfunctionUbuntu Graphics Driver
If your computer does not boot when you have upgraded drivers, press escape at the GRUB bootloader, then choose 'recovery mode' for your latest kernel. Drop down to 'root shell' and then run the ATI uninstaller:
Intel Graphics Drivers Ubuntu
NOTE: Please, please, please be careful with the 'rm -rf' command - if you get this wrong, it could break your system!! Proceed with caution.
Then run this to restore your xorg.conf file to default:
The computer should boot now using the open source 'radeon' drivers, (it is important to keep these installed for a backup for this exact reason). If it doesn't boot with the radeon drivers automatically, go:
Where it says 'Device' you want to type 'radeon' or 'ati' in the 'Driver' field, so it looks like this:
Once you have booted back into Ubuntu, revert to an older version of the fglrx drivers, or continue to use the open source drivers if you like.
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