Hello all,
I have just installed the KDE s6 installation of Artix Linux on a new desktop that I built and I am having some issues with what seems like the graphics card. I get subpar performance in games on it in both X and wayland sessions and have the correct drivers installed. I have been testing it with subnautica on steam. I'm sure something is just not configured properly, but I can't figure out what. I have direct rendering and DRM enabled correctly (at least I do believe) and have the amdgpu module set to early boot on my system.
When I try the same system with chimeraos, the performance is as should be expected and is massively different than my Artix install. This is on the standard Linux package with an amd rx 6800xt.
Here (https://pastebin.com/7gV4KraR) is a list of lspci and pacman -Q. Please let me know if there is anything else I should post.
Thank you very much for any help!
The two things that are going to matter the most here are the kernel and mesa versions. What does your Chimera OS install have for those?
For the kernel: Linux chimeraos 6.1.27-1-lts #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon, 01 May 2023 18:18:27 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
For Mesa:
$ glxinfo -B
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
Device: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (navi21, LLVM 15.0.7, DRM 3.49, 6.1.27-1-lts) (0x73bf)
Version: 23.0.2
Accelerated: yes
Video memory: 16384MB
Unified memory: no
Preferred profile: core (0x1)
Max core profile version: 4.6
Max compat profile version: 4.6
Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):
VBO free memory - total: 15851 MB, largest block: 15851 MB
VBO free aux. memory - total: 15870 MB, largest block: 15870 MB
Texture free memory - total: 15851 MB, largest block: 15851 MB
Texture free aux. memory - total: 15870 MB, largest block: 15870 MB
Renderbuffer free memory - total: 15851 MB, largest block: 15851 MB
Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 15870 MB, largest block: 15870 MB
Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):
Dedicated video memory: 16384 MB
Total available memory: 32305 MB
Currently available dedicated video memory: 15851 MB
OpenGL vendor string: AMD
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (navi21, LLVM 15.0.7, DRM 3.49, 6.1.27-1-lts)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 23.0.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.0.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 23.0.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
To also test, I booted into EndeavourOS from the usb iso to see if gaming would also have this issue and it doesn't. So, I'm going to be trying different artix desktop isos to see if I get a different result just to see if it's a different configuration issue.
The current kernel version is 6.4.2 which is quite different. I'd suggest trying the lts kernel first (6.1.37 currently) before hoping around different isos.
Interestingly, I have found that if I don't load the Plasma session that I have pre-installed and go to a tty and load sway directly, I don't have these weird issues. It is only after I load the Plasma session, that I have this issue, and it persists even if I log out of the plasma session and load another sway session. It seems like some kind of setting is set when I log into a plasma session. The graphics run fine if I load sway, then load plasma without logging out of sway, but as soon as I logout and back into sway, I have this issue.
What could this be?
EDIT: Actually scratch this, this only appears to happen some of the time. I just tried this again and it didn't work again. I'll try the lts kernel
EDIT2: It looks like it may have been the kernel. I switched to the lts-kernel and games are running fine now. Kind of crazy something as simple as that was the problem! Thanks for your help with this
@Dudemanguy. Needless to say, I'll be leaving chimeros on the machine as well to play games in case later lts kernels adopt this problem.
You could consider reporting the issue to amd's gitlab (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues). Or maybe someone else reported it already for you. Unfortunately, it seems like the kernel has been having more regressions lately.
I have never reported an issue like this, but I will look into it. It doesn't look like anyone has reported it, so it would probably be good for me to at least bring it up. Thank you for all of your help!