Hardware based OpenGL on Linux

I am unable to get hardware based OpenGL since the change to HG2 (i.e., R2014b and R2015a) on Linux. Prior to that, I can use hardware based OpenGL. Specifically,

>> opengl info
                        Version: '3.0 Mesa 10.6.5'
                         Vendor: 'Intel Open Source Technology Center'
                       Renderer: 'Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile '
                 MaxTextureSize: 8192
                         Visual: 'Visual 0xac, (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleration, Double buffer, Antialias 4 samples)'
                       Software: 'true'
      SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 1
  SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
     SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 1
                     Extensions: {199x1 cell}
             MaxFrameBufferSize: 8192

I was expecting/wanting "Software" to be false.

$ ldd /opt/tmw/matlab/bin/glnxa64/glren.so | grep libGL
      libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x00007f0a3b871000)
      libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x00007f0a3b5ef000)

suggests that MATLAB is finding the system libraries (which is what TMW says I want) and TMW confirms that the library versions libGL.so.1.2.0 and libGLU.so.1.3.1 are compatible. I have been in contact with TMW technical support and they have decided it is not a MATLAB issue despite

$ glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile

suggesting hardware based OpenGL is working outside MATLAB. I have done most of my testing on Arch Linux with an Intel graphics card, but have also tried ATI and Nvidia cards. I recently installed MATLAB into a Debian 7 chroot with the Intel card. Despite Debian 7 being listed as a supported OS, I still have no luck.

Can anyone get MATLAB R2014b/R2015a to use hardware based OpenGL on Linux? Any ideas of where I should look?

[Pedro Brito]

I'm having the same problem, just installed R2015a, I'm also running Arch Linux:

                          Version: '3.0 Mesa 10.6.5'
                           Vendor: 'Intel Open Source Technology Center'
                         Renderer: 'Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500 (Broadwell GT2) '
                   MaxTextureSize: 8192
                           Visual: 'Visual 0xd5, (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleration, Double buffer, Antialias 8 samples)'
                         Software: 'true'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 1
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 1
                       Extensions: {207x1 cell}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 8192

and

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) HD Graphics 5500 (Broadwell GT2)

and

      libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x00007f7033bc4000)
    libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGLU.so.1 (0x00007f7033942000)

[Maurizio]

I have the same problem with Matlab R2015a.

                          Version: '3.0 Mesa 10.1.3'
                           Vendor: 'Intel Open Source Technology Center'
                         Renderer: 'Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Desktop '
                   MaxTextureSize: 8192
                           Visual: 'Visual 0x20, (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleration, Double buffer, Antialias 8 samples)'
                         Software: 'true'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 1
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 1
                       Extensions: {188x1 cell}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 8192

and the output

$ ldd /opt/Matlab/bin/glnxa64/glren.so | grep libGL
  libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/mesa/libGL.so.1 (0x00007fb5c1c5f000)
  libGLU.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGLU.so.1 (0x00007fb5c19f1000)

and

$ glxinfo | grep render
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) Haswell Desktop

Did you find a way to solve it? Also, I would be interested if you encountered any other problems possibly related to the graphic card while plotting simple 2D graphs ((randomly) crash of Matlab, computer freezes, etc.)?

Answer 1

[Willi Mutschler]

Hi,

I am on Ubuntu 20.04 beta and running the nvidia on-demand prime profile, and get the same error. I can solve this (see the Archwiki) by starting matlab from terminal:

export MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=i965; matlab

Or (additionaly) you can change the EXEC in /usr/share/applications/matlab.desktop to:

Exec=env MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=i965 matlab -desktop

[Batuhan Baserdem]

Thank you for your link; I run archlinux and did not realize that the mesa Iris driver is not supported by Matlab. This is the working solution to hardware rendering on my intel cpu (gen 11).

However; if you are having this issue; then matlab is not triggering on-demand nvidia activation for you. Depending on you wanting to use cuda functions; this may be desirable or not.

[Willi Mutschler]

Yes, I now usually go the other way and set the 'java.opts' file as outlined in the next post.

[Willie Smit]

export MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=i965; matlab

worked for me on Matlab 2019b and Ubuntu 20.04. Thanks WM.

Answer 2

[Willi Mutschler]

I also ran into this issue on my Dell XPS 13 9360 which neither has a NVIDIA or AMD card, but an on-board intel graphics card.

I filed a bug report with MATHWORKS and they proposed two solutions:

1. Create a file with the name 'java.opts' in the directory where MATLAB is executed (for me this is in '/usr/local/MATLAB/R2020a/bin/glnxa64') with the following line: -Djogl.disable.openglarbcontext=1
2. If this does not work, then the above solution using export MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=i965 is working.

For me both solve my issue.

Answer 3

[Rick Irons]

In the three cases listed previously hardware accelerated versions of Mesa are in fact being used. The problem is that the value of the OpenGL info 'software' field is actually incorrect. This issue has been fixed in R2016a.

[Daniel Shub]

Can you explain how you know that hardware acceleration is being used? Further, in my service request (01487101) I was told this was not a MATLAB issue. Now it seems TMW is saying it is a "bug", in fact one that has been fixed, yet I do not see anything in the bug reports.