How do I switch to Nvidia GPU in Ubuntu 18.04?

I just dual booted my Win 10 laptop with Ubuntu 18.04.The laptop has both the integrated Intel® HD Graphics 530 and a Nvidia GTX960. I was able to successfully install the Nvidia drivers but for some reason I can not seem to switch to the GPU from the Intel. Under Software&Updates > Additional Drivers it shows the nvidia-driver-415 as the driver being used. Is my display on the info page wrong and I am actually using the Nvidia GPU or am I still stuck with the Intel? If it is the Intel how do I switch to the GTX960?

3 Answers

You can check in System Settings -> Details which graphic card you are using.

And to switch between graphics use:

sudo prime-select intel

and for nvidia use

sudo prime-select nvidia

As @Ali Rasooli said it, the tool you want to use is the prime-select command. Unfortunately on 18.04 you have to reboot to put into effect the change.

You can benchmark your GPU by installing glmark2 (sudo apt-get install glmark2) and see if after reboot it actually switched between your dedicated and integrated graphics. I did not find another reliable way to see which card is active.

You can look into this repo on github if you want to switch without having to reboot.

Pretty sad answer to this but upgrading to 18.10 fixed the issue however it introduces new issues such as the native terminal and file explorer not opening. Might be some conflict with other software as it was working up until the point I was installing Python and R packages.