Gaming ( Steam ) was great then went nvidia now its poo

[FatRakoon]

Ok, I have been a silly sausage the last few days.

I got oen of my setups to run Linux ( Mint Cinnamon ) absolutely flawlessly, and even better, is that the steam games have been running absolutely sweetly, even better, is that I have enabled support for other games and amazingly, I have had very very few games fail on me.

That system has bee na real darling and I have been happy as a pig in sh... mud.

Anyway, I am running it with an ATI RX580 and it plays all the games I need it to, and so thats great, but I thought I would have a play with the nVidia 1650 thats spare to see how they compared.

I installed the recommended nVidia driver, as opposed to the one that it was using ( The Open source one ) but the game tries loading and then just kind of stops. It doesnt crash, it just says its starting but then it stops, and the Steam Icon turns back to show PLAY.

It did this to all the games that did previously play fine.

So, I thought I would go back to the ATI but they sre still not running?

I have removed the nVidia drivers as best I could, but I fear the dammage has been done.

I have looked around the Interwebs and there is a number of people that have had the same thing happen.

But, is there anyone here who can offer me something, before I end up reinstalling Linux in the hope of fixing it ?

Thanks guys.

 

[chili]

i myself am very new to linux and found that some steam games need abit of work to get them to run dayz for example i followed a guide on youtube and got it going, maybe have a look on there.
what game was it? i am using an old laptop with nvidia gtx970 card

 

[FatRakoon]

As I said, it is EVERY GAME on my steam account.

I have had pretty much EVERY game working under steam, and that was under ATI but when I tried to go nVidia, they stopped working and they still wont work under ATI again.

I have found a few methods to get games running under Linux. My main Linux Laptop is nVidia and they run ok. My main Linux Desktop however WAS ok but now its not and thats only because I tried to go from ATI to nVidia.

Anyway, I have been on Youtube and I have also found other methods... I was just hoping that this particular issue has a known fix, rather than just trying to get any particular game running.

 

[Thelric]

Check the kernel boot parameters to see if NOMODESET has been added (press 'e' on the grub kernel selection screen to edit the boot parameters).

If NOMODESET is there then delete it and try booting.

The AMD open source drivers require kernel modesetting.

 

[FatRakoon]

Now, I did NOT know that!

Ok, Ill have a peek now...

I have checked the /etc/default/grub file and there is nothing in there!
I missed the grub startup so I wil ltry it again now...

Ah, well there seemed to be nothing about NOMODESET anywhere, however I did find a nvidia drive 535 still lurking about. The update is also trying to update the nvidia drivers even though there is no nVidia drivers or hardware in the PC, I also did a verify of the game files and in both DOW Dark Crusade and SoulStorm, it wanted a file to be reaquired and they both ran, and I played a bit of SoulStorm for a minute or so and it ran.

Ran like a dog, and jerky as anything, but it ran.

My No2 Linux PC is an old hexcore i7 and I got a spare GTX980 in that and I have used Linux in it until just a few weeks ago, so Ithink I will chuck it back into that and see how these games play on the old 980 cos this ATI 580 is definitely NOT playing all that well Im afraid.

Many thanks guys.

 

[Thelric]

Very slow graphics performance can be caused by the system falling back to software emulation on the CPU for OpenGL rather than using the dedicated graphics card hardware.
You can check by using the glxinfo command, if the correct graphics driver is use then you will see something like this:

$ glxinfo | grep -i 'opengl renderer'
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon Graphics (renoir, LLVM 16.0.6, DRM 3.54, 6.5.8-200.fc38.x86_64)

If the system is using the software renderer you will see something like this instead:

$ glxinfo | grep -i 'opengl renderer'
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 16.0.6, 256 bits)

If you are seeing 'llvmpipe' then the AMD graphics drivers might have been blocked from loading in one of the files in the etc/modprobe.d directory which are used to blacklist kernel modules.
Check the file(s) for mentions of 'radeon' and 'amdgpu', if they are there then those lines should be commented out with a '#' added to the start of the line. At the next boot the system should start using the correct AMD driver again.

 

[FatRakoon]

Not very slow. I would not say that as such, but certainly, when tere is lots of junk on the screen, then yeah, it gets clogged up for sure.

For example, the level I played with last night ( if you know it of care ) was Kaurava, fighting the sisters of Battle.
The game was flawless, and not jerky for quite some time.

I setup a bit of a base and had a couple of scouts go out to claim a few territories with a Squad to protect them again any small sister squads that came along while I buit up my army.. Everything went absolutely fine, when a squad or two attacked everythign went smoothly as I could expect.
Now, I had control over pretty much the entire map, including the middle upper bit, and only needed to finish them off with their main base, and that bit on the right side of the map, and thats when things started to lag.

Admittedly, when I went for the final push, I had filled up my quota of squads, I was filled with Land Speeders and 2 tanks, and what is it? 5 Space Marine squads and 2 termiator squads, all finirngs Heavy bolters and rockets, so there will have been a few hundred bullets flying and several rockets, and then of course the sisters fighting back, so a hell of a lot is going on I fully admit.

The thing is, that I am using an rX580 and yet one card that I have loved ( I still have 4 of them left ) is the old ATI 7770 and this runs SoulStorm in a Dual Core machine just fine in 1080 and it simply does not slow down ( not noticeably anyway ) under windows, but the PC is half decent and the card should also be half decent and definitely more than enough tio play a very old game like SoulStorm.

And it does for 90% of the game, but it simply does not handle the demanding stuff.

Oh wow, I am wafflign again.

The Wales v Barbarians game is on now, so I will check this out shortly. Thanks bud.

 

[Thelric]

It is worth doing the check just to make sure, but from what you are saying it sounds like the AMD drivers are working correctly with the 580.
I've not used Steam but I suppose the performance on Linux will be different from Windows because of having to use Proton/Wine to run the games.
Trying different hardware is a good idea, I hope you have better luck with the 980.

 

[FatRakoon]

Still not had the change to do anything.
I have just been setting up the other PC.
Its hell. I have copied loads of the steam games over, and I tried to run soulstorm, but its been trying to launh for about 15 minutes so far.
I gave up on it.

I have taken the extra HD out and I am copying the files over
I use SSD for / and Swap, a 2TB for /home and another 2TB for /home/data and on that other one, I have the steam folder.
So its doing that for now, and I just realised that its gone 5:30am and Im up at 9 - oops! - seriously thinking I will just O.D on Coffee and stay awake.
Its just doing a load of vulcan shader etc, and updating and its a very fresh install and so it needs to settle in I think.. it did this one the other one, so...

I do have Wine and I also use PlayOnLinux as thats a great utility that works incredibly well, but yes, that Proton thing is surely going to affect it somewhat?

I do however remember getting Unreal Tournament running in Linux some 15+ years ago, and it ran really really well. I know that it ran pretty much identically to the Windows PC.

I know that I had it running on WINE with some slowing but I also remember having a shell to run it and that ran it much better.

I am sure I was using Mandrake though? - it IS going back a bit.

 

[Ice Tea]

Don't you like making snapshots with Timeshift or CloneZilla?

 

[FatRakoon]

Nothing against them, but simply didnt do one before I messed with it as I did not think it would be so bloody horrible.

Weirdly, right now, I have the ATI setup running again.
I have then deleted the nVidia files and copied the ones from, the ATI setup directly to the nVidia setup.
When I run them, they do work, however the time they take to load up, is simply horrific.

I do know, that when I go from my main Windows PC playing SoulStorm, to then play it on my main Linux PC ( The ATI one ) it does have a bit of a delay, and the same going back. This is something Im not at all concerned about... I just put it down to the cloud stuff catching up on different machines maybe? But loading it with the nVidia Linux PC is taking about 30 seconds.

As a comparison, it must be cached, but on the Windows PC, it takes maybe 4 to 5 seconds if I dont play the intro videos and even less if I play no other game betyween each loading, the ATI Linux PC takes a good 15 seconds and the nVidia one... double that!

I managed to play last night and annoyingly, I was unable to continue a game as it kept crashing, but hey ho, I loaded in another saved game and that was ok, but it was a tiny tiny bit iffy. Noit smooth like I hoped it would be but rather jaggedy... You had to look for it because 1it was not like it was on the ATI under load, but its as if its only playing at 95% speed and then catching up every half a second!

Anyway, Its gettign there, its getting smoother and its slowly doing what I need it to do.

The ATI PC is the one that was fine and is now back to here it was! perfect until under load.

Yeah, Im, just wafflign right now, cos Im typing this as quick as I can, as I have a ton of things to do.. Why do I do this?

 

[FatRakoon]

Ok, I thought I would update anyone who gives a monkeys...

I know I have not been updating as and when. I have been a bit weird the last week. I even lost Thursday and Friday and I genuinely thought that Friday was in fact wednesday, so my head has taken a turn for the worse. This happens often with me so please dont judge.

Anyway, I have both the Linux PCs setup as very much clones of each other, with one being and AMD/ATI setup, and trhe other being Intel/nVidia.

I have come to the conclusion, that ATI are much much better under Linux then nVidia are, certainly for these cards anyway, and I am happy to accept that higher end cards are going to be different, but for me, for these cards, there is simply no excuse for the nVidia card to be this jerky and for its performance to be so bad.

The ATI is silky smooth and only struggles when there is a hellishly large amount of crud going on, and then it suffers, but the nVidia is stuttering even when there is nothing really going on and I am just moving around the map.

Its not as if I am asking much of it either, hell, its on 1920x1080 so not like Im asking super duper hirez ( Hell, I remember going up to 800x600 on my Voodoo and thinking it was hirez - Much has changed my padwan )

Anyway, nothign to report as such cos I simply dont really know what I did, other than twiddle with this and that and basically stabbing in the dark.

 

[O.Giroud]

Woa you still have old ATI cards ?

 

[FatRakoon]

Is that a problem?

I have a lot of PCs and my main PCs have good cards, the rest dont need them.

 

[O.Giroud]

No problem i think that's great

 

[FatRakoon]

Im kind of annoyed really.
I got a fairly half decent PC, its got a nice 2.6Ghz 6 core I7 so its not slow. Its got a 1650 nVidia and so its also not slow ( When I say not slow, Im also not calling it quick either, just not slow LOL )
Anyway, Its got Intel 630 and nVidia and so I have had Windows on it and I chucked a fresh install onto it to give to the charity where I volunteer for them to play with ( Its definitely overkill for them, but hey ho )
But I thought I would play with Linux on it the other day, because my main Windows Laptop is also an Intel/nVidia doubler and I just thought about this twin thing.. See what it does?

I have had some funjky results, but I can play games or any apps with the nVidia or Intel. It does give me the option of running with the other card, but Im not sure if its actually always running on one or the other because they kind of play the same, and they play just fine.

Maybe its running 100% on the nVidia, or the Inmtel is quick enough for the few basic games that I have tried on it.
My main Linux PC is my old Asus ROG and that runs only nVidia and that plays games just fine... Again, older games. Im not into much newer games as they are simply the same games just better graphics and so, Id rather not bother with them. Bring back Pong and PacMan!