I figured out why some people crash and others don't. The people that crash with 310.XX drivers and Primus have 'cl_showfps' set to enabled. No crashes with the cvar disabled but a crash is caused only a second after enabling it while in game.

nope, i always have cl_showfps set to 1

I always activate it before entering a game....but I don't think it will make such a big diffrence.

Meh, I can play the game fine under primus and latest 310.XX drivers but only if I have it disabled, lol. As soon as I enabled them, instant crash to desktop.

as usual, I'm a lucky bastard

try and use net_graph 1 or cl_showfps 2, does it still crashes?

I'm going to subscribe to this thread. I'm very interested with seeing this game with pirmus now that I've seen how much better it is with the 310 drivers.

why don't you try it yourself and post the results?

You didn't use primus, you used optimus "optirun", to use primus change it to "primusrun"
These are the 4 most probable things that comes into my mind right now
1. Disable Vsync in primus.
2. have you tried running it on your intel HD?
2b. You might have configured your bumblebee wrong.
3. you might wanna try to disable multicore in your settings and see if anything improves
4. verify your game cache integrity(very unlikely)
5. set your CPU in performance mode (again, only improves performance in lower class dualcore CPUs)

While I don't know yet, is there any diffrence in net_graph or cl_show fps from a videocards POV?

Originally posted by Axy_David:

You didn't use primus, you used optimus "optirun", to use primus change it to "primusrun"
These are the 4 most probable things that come into my mind right now
1. Disable Vsync in primus.
2. have you tried running it on your intel HD?
3. you might wanna try to disable multicore in your settings and see if anything improves
4. verify you game cache integrity(very unlikely)

Crap!!! Yep that was stupid, quite the face plam moment. I'm going to delete the post up top since it's not benefical to the thread. Also it apears that primus doesn't even have "-vv".

1. Yep disabled Vsynce and no dice. Same issues as before.
2. Intel card runs fine.
3.Diabling multicore rendering actually worked!!! I was running "cl_showfps 1" while I was playing and had gotten 40-100 fps, no droped frames, no black screens. I did have a good amount of screen tearing though. I'm not sure though if thats because I ran "vblank_mode=0". I did while still in the game enable multicore rendering and as expected my fps shot up to 100-170 fps (on max settings)!!! I did however suffer from 2-3 seconds of blackscreen "blackouts" while on, though not as often as I did before, but also much lower screen tearing.

I would put my terminal output in this thread but it's too long to let me put it in here. So here is a paste bin of it. http://pastebin.com/7tE5gXzb

***Also it looks as if my cpu isn't scaling to meet demand, but that's a diffrent thread.*** Never mind it is scaling corectly.

Ohh and my specs: Intel 3615QM w/ hd4000, Nvidia 650M w/ 1Gb DDR5, 8Gb DDR3 @ 1600, and 128Gb SSD.

1. ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment. ->
disable vsync in game aswell.
2. set your CPU in performance mode my guess its that you have 2.3 GHz, 2 cores and 4 threads
Ctrl + Alt + T and insert
This will reset when you restart your PC.
3. Have you configured primus with your 310 drivers? It's not the same as bumblebee
4. lowering your resolution might fix the screen tearing thing.
5. fps_max 60, this also might help against screen tearing and maybe even blackouts.
6. try a performance cfg, i posted one in tips & tricks, but I think any hl2 high fps config might do the trick
7. Another last resort to fix that screen tearing is to disable triple buffering.
I know that some of the options might make the game look worse, but don't forget that TF2 is a competitive game, and not some Crysis. Looking forward to see if one of these might help you. The problem with your PC might be that your graphics cards drivers are not too happy with your LCD and CPU. They are after all, only experimental.

Originally posted by Axy_David:

1. ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment. ->
disable vsync in game aswell.
2. set your CPU in performance mode my guess its that you have 2.3 GHz, 2 cores and 4 threads
Ctrl + Alt + T and insert

sudo cpufreq-set --cpu 0 --governor performance && sudo cpufreq-set --cpu 1 --governor performance && sudo cpufreq-set --cpu 2 --governor performance && sudo cpufreq-set --cpu 3 --governor performance

This will reset when you restart your PC.
3. Have you configured primus with your 310 drivers? It's not the same as bumblebee
4. lowering your resolution might fix the screen tearing thing.
5. fps_max 60, this also might help against screen tearing and maybe even blackouts.
6. try a performance cfg, i posted one in tips & tricks, but I think any hl2 high fps config might do the trick
7. Another last resort to fix that screen tearing is to disable triple buffering.
I know that some of the options might make the game look worse, but don't forget that TF2 is a competitive game, and not some Crysis. Looking forward to see if one of these might help you. The problem with your PC might be that your graphics cards drivers are not too happy with your LCD and CPU. They are after all, only experimental.

Thanks for the support Axy_David. And sorry it took so long to get back, I live in Alaska and I'm in the middle of a week long snow storm that's dumping 2-3 feet of snow. I have to stay on top of shoveling or else I'll get snowed in, literally, this makes 4-5 feet so far this winter.

1) I have had the game's Vsync disabled, my guess is that this is popping up due to menus in the game requesting Vsync.
2) I set my quad-core 8 thread cpu to performance mode on all 8 threads and saw no diffrence. Also I did use "indicator-cpufreq" to both verify and change my cpu govenor.
3) Yes otherwise primus would not run in the first place.
4) Change of resolution did little to nothing.
5) fps_max 60 and even fps_max 30 had no effect on tearing or blackouts.
6) I edited your script to work with my machine and applied it. Still no effect.
7) Triple buffering is offered as an option in other Valve games but not in this one. Or at least this is what I'm seeing in the menus. I also don't see a way to change it in the dev terminal.

Other things: I changed the OpenGL settings in the Nvidia X server settings to "High Performance" to see if that fixed screen tearing. It did not. I was originally trying to find if there was a way to disable triple buffering in these settings, which there wasn't.

WHAT CAUSES THE ABILITY TO EVEN RUN THE GAME IS "MULTICORE RENDERING"!!!

It seems that the ability to run the game without dropped frames and suffering black screens is enabling the "mulicore rendering", with this setting off I can play for hours with out issues, I still have screen tearing but it runs. Of course with out multicore rendering my fps is lower than if i just optiran the game with it enabled.

So at this point we havn't been able to get primus to run with the game with multicore rendering enabled, but at least we no know what the problem is.

And now I feel stupid. https://github.com/amonakov/primus/issues/32

indeed, i think primus doesn't support multicore rendering, tried optimus + multicore, runs but with lower fps. For me, multicore rendering in primus means instant crash.
By disabling tripplebuffering i ment video -> advanced settings -> filtering mode -> billinear.
the above options always fixed screen tearing when I was playing in windows....this is very fishy. Try enabling vsync, both ingame and in primus, my guess it's that it will either fix the tearing or it will crash the game sooner or later.
However, if vsync works, make sure you enable raw input for mouse.
My goal is to get TF2 running at a stable 60 fps. That's all there is to it.
Now about that snow......don't complain, I happen to live in sweden, so we're even.

Originally posted by Axy_David:

For me, multicore rendering in primus means instant crash.

Huh.... If you enable multicore rendering but have cl_showfps set to 0 do you still crash (near) instantly/? And if it doesnt crash near instantly does it crash shortly later?

I also just noticed this little note in the drivers change log:
What happens if you comment out that variable in the script? I am currently in class right now and can not try it at the moment.

EDIT: Just tried it. Commenting out that variable allows the game to run with multicore rendering enabled and appears to have a higher FPS than singlecore rendering. Can anyone confirm?

Originally posted by CyberXZT:

Originally posted by Axy_David:

For me, multicore rendering in primus means instant crash.

Huh.... If you enable multicore rendering but have cl_showfps set to 0 do you still crash (near) instantly/? And if it doesnt crash near instantly does it crash shortly later?

I also just noticed this little note in the drivers change log:

Added experimental support for OpenGL threaded optimizations, available through the __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS environment variable. For more information, please refer to the "Threaded Optimizations" section in chapter "Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings" of the README.

What happens if you comment out that variable in the script? I am currently in class right now and can not try it at the moment.

EDIT: Just tried it. Commenting out that variable allows the game to run with multicore rendering enabled and appears to have a higher FPS than singlecore rendering. Can anyone confirm?

If you could please share the path to the variable to comment out I'll give it a try.