I’m experiencing a breaking issue with my GPU - AMD Radeon 7900XTX. It’s performance in games went from awesome a few weeks back to a stuttering mess (single digit frame-rate). It is unclear to me what triggered this. I’m unable to diagnose the root cause of the issue and I hope some of you might have some insight, so here goes:
Issue description:
Performance in games is abysmal I’m getting single digit frame rates in main-menus where previously 60+ was the norm.
The issue shows up in every game I have tried so far.
Ixion (steam using proton)
Oxygen not included (steam native linux)
Satisfactory (steam using proton)
Snowrunner (Epic games launcher using lutris)
My observations / thought on the issue
It does not seem to be a hardware issue. When I boot my Windows drive, games run smoothly (It might be running old drivers since I never really use this Windows drive)
My card seems to be limited in frequency or power-mode somehow. I’ve used nvtop to get some insights on the performance of the card:
GPU clock is around 527MHz where I would expect it to be around 1850MHz
GPU Mem clock is around 456MHz where I would expect it to be around 2500MHz
Power shows 48 / 0 W which I’m not to sure about what that figure means. It is a 350W card so it is definitely not utilizing all its power budget (if I can trust this 48W).
I hope someone can provide some insight on this issue. I probably didn’t provide that log that would reveal the issue (I’m no linux gpu-driver expert) so let me know if more command outputs are needed.
Thank you for your reply. I’ll consider switching to an experimental nonfree version of mesa.
However I want to keep that option in reserve, since I’ve switched 1-2 months back from mesa-git to mesa (mainline), since the mesa-git version gave me some trouble. So my preference (for the moment) is staying with the stable mesa version.
In case you do not know - the nonfree repo is maintained for all branches - the commands at the top of the page will pull your current branch - you do not need to be on unstable branch to.
But the repo which is added to the system must be maintained manually - that is if you are using the nonfree build - and then switch branch you need to amend the configuration manually or run the modification command again.
I think your performance will improve by having the nonfree codecs available.
But of course the decision is entirely up to you - it was a subtle suggestion
However I still have the same issue. The GPU is still not switching power states (or something) it still only seems to use 48W with very low clock speeds.
there is a slight difference and a different kernel - The only thing I really know is that my system has no problems - with the only game trilogy I ever played - but yet my primary use is coding and very rarely gaming.
Well that different kernel did something because I’ve now switched to kernel 6.3.5-2 and that seems to have done the trick. My GPU now gets properly utilized again and everything works.
That still does not answer why the other kernel did not work, especially since I’ve been on that kernel for 6+ months where everything worked until in suddenly didn’t.
But anyway, thank you for providing a reference to a working system, trying to setup my system as close to yours solved the issue in the end.
. I’ve executed the commands that were listed on there. And I think I have it installed now. (unstable branch)