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by wjoe 3604 days ago
For desktop PCs, not at all, Nvidia GPUs are very easy to get working and will give the best performance.

In modern laptops, you usually have the complication of 'optimus' which allows you to switch between the onboard Intel graphics and the Nvidia GPU. This can be a bit awkward to get working, but it's improved recently. I've had plenty of issues getting it working right on Windows too.
2 comments
ultramancool 3604 days ago
Yeah... the optimus crap has serious problems. It causes my GPU driver to crash on Windows while I'm trying to give demos at work (not exactly a great look when your screen goes black and then your application's 3d display dies). It's not exactly the most stable thing, but can be great for power consumption.
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wildmusings 3604 days ago
On my T530, there's a firmware option to set the graphics to discrete-only, integrated-only, or optimus. The downside to discrete-only is the power usage. The downside to integrated-only is that the displayport won't work.

All three work great in Windows of course. For Linux, integrated-only is best, followed by discrete-only, and I've never had success with optimus.

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jlgaddis 3604 days ago
I have a W530 that allows you to set it the same way. In my experience, you are ALWAYS better off to pick one or the other and leave it there. Some folks have had success with Bumblebee [0], however.

It's my understanding that newer Thinkpads don't have the BIOS option to switch and that this is much more of a PITA to get working.

[0]: http://bumblebee-project.org

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