Nvidia: Difference between revisions

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 }
 </nowiki>}}
+==== booting with an external display ====
+Most Optimus laptops have the HDMI port for an external display wired directly to the Nvidia chip, in which case you need a configuration to use the Nvidia driver directly without offload mode. Fortunately, NixOS has an amazing feature called specialisations which allows you to do this easily. Here is an example configuration:
+{{file|/etc/nixos/configuration.nix|nix|<nowiki>
+  specialisation = {
+    external-display.configuration = {
+      system.nixos.tags = [ "external-display" ];
+      hardware.nvidia.prime.offload.enable = lib.mkForce false;
+      hardware.nvidia.powerManagement.enable = lib.mkForce false;
+    };
+  };
+</nowiki>}}
+Once you rebuild your configuration, an extra <code>external-display</code> configuration will be built and placed in your boot menu.
+To use this, boot your laptop with the lid open, choose the <code>external-display</code> configuration in the boot menu, and continue to keep the lid open until your desktop appears on the external display. At this point you can close the lid.
 ==== sync mode ====