Nvidia GPU Running But Performance Worse Than Integrated Graphics

New to Linux. I have tried various methods for getting steam to use my discrete gpu. Two now consistently work: prime-run %command% and Optimus manager. To test that my gpu is working I run a game and then nvidia-smi – this shows that the process is indeed using my gpu. However, performance is horrible; I am getting less frames than my integrated apu. This should not be the case, as I am running a new laptop with an RTX 3060 and an AMD Ryzen CPU.

The laptop is plugged in when I try to benchmark so there is no battery throttle there. I am using the driver “video-hybrid-amd-nvidia-prime” and all my packages and my kernel are up to date.

So to summarize, my drivers, packages, and kernel are up to date and my GPU is running the intended process, but it is throttled to sub-APU performance. I have been trying to fix this for days now. Any ideas?

Hello,
Some laptops require custom ACPI kernel parameters to perform as they are intended to. How to Choose the Proper ACPI Kernel Argument
Some laptop models require even more custom kernel boot parameters than that. Unless you check How to provide good information and do that, nobody will know what to suggest to you.

Just to make sure,in optimus manager you have hybrid mode selected right?

And by less fps do you mean stuttering? because stuttering is normal the first time you play the game because of shader compilation,this is only the first time you load the game and load models and stuff,should go away the longer you play so no need to worry about that,even Steam has a shader compilation before the game start up to avoid during gameplay.

image

Hi, thanks for the info. Here is my inxi:

System:
  Kernel: 5.10.36-2-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
  parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64 
  root=UUID=ddbfd7c3-b58a-498a-8450-0e86b5cdc5e7 rw quiet apparmor=1 
  security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3 
  Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.24 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm4 vt: 7 
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: ROG Strix G513QM_G513QM v: 1.0 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: ASUSTeK model: G513QM v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
  UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: G513QM.300 date: 01/12/2021 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 91.8 Wh (99.0%) condition: 92.7/90.0 Wh (103.0%) 
  volts: 17.6 min: 15.9 model: AS3GWAF3KC GA50358 type: Li-ion 
  serial: <filter> status: Charging 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 15.13 GiB used: 4.91 GiB (32.4%) 
  RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Info: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 
  type: MT MCP arch: Zen 3 family: 19 (25) model-id: 50 (80) stepping: 0 
  microcode: A50000B cache: L2: 4 MiB bogomips: 105453 
  Speed: 1242 MHz min/max: 1200/3300 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 
  1: 1242 2: 1871 3: 1146 4: 1133 5: 1338 6: 1132 7: 1302 8: 1722 9: 1127 
  10: 1136 11: 1153 12: 1189 13: 1117 14: 1207 15: 1148 16: 1115 
  Flags: 3dnowprefetch abm adx aes aperfmperf apic arat avic avx avx2 bmi1 
  bmi2 bpext cat_l3 cdp_l3 clflush clflushopt clwb clzero cmov cmp_legacy 
  constant_tsc cpb cpuid cqm cqm_llc cqm_mbm_local cqm_mbm_total cqm_occup_llc 
  cr8_legacy cx16 cx8 de decodeassists erms extapic extd_apicid f16c 
  flushbyasid fma fpu fsgsbase fsrm fxsr fxsr_opt ht hw_pstate ibpb ibrs ibs 
  invpcid irperf lahf_lm lbrv lm mba mca mce misalignsse mmx mmxext monitor 
  movbe msr mtrr mwaitx nonstop_tsc nopl npt nrip_save nx ospke osvw 
  overflow_recov pae pat pausefilter pclmulqdq pdpe1gb perfctr_core 
  perfctr_llc perfctr_nb pfthreshold pge pku pni popcnt pse pse36 rdpid rdpru 
  rdrand rdseed rdt_a rdtscp rep_good sep sha_ni skinit smap smca smep ssbd 
  sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 stibp succor svm svm_lock syscall tce 
  topoext tsc tsc_scale umip v_vmsave_vmload vaes vgif vmcb_clean vme vmmcall 
  vpclmulqdq wbnoinvd wdt xgetbv1 xsave xsavec xsaveerptr xsaveopt xsaves 
  Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected 
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected 
  Type: mds status: Not affected 
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected 
  Type: spec_store_bypass 
  mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
  Type: spectre_v1 
  mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, 
  STIBP: always-on, RSB filling 
  Type: srbds status: Not affected 
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA106M [GeForce RTX 3060 Mobile / Max-Q] vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: nvidia v: 460.80 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus-ID: 01:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10de:2520 class-ID: 0300 
  Device-2: AMD vendor: ASUSTeK driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus-ID: 05:00.0 
  chip-ID: 1002:1638 class-ID: 0300 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting,nvidia 
  display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1 
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") 
  s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 hz: 144 dpi: 142 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") 
  diag: 395mm (15.5") 
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0 5.10.36-2-MANJARO LLVM 11.1.0) 
  v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus-ID: 05:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1637 class-ID: 0403 
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: ASUSTeK 
  driver: N/A alternate: snd_pci_acp3x, snd_rn_pci_acp3x bus-ID: 05:00.5 
  chip-ID: 1022:15e2 class-ID: 0480 
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel 
  v: kernel bus-ID: 05:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3 class-ID: 0403 
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.36-2-MANJARO running: yes 
  Sound Server-2: JACK v: 0.125.0 running: no 
  Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
  Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.28 running: no 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet 
  vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel port: e000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 
  chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200 
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: e000 
  bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723 class-ID: 0280 
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global 
  broadcast: <filter> 
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link 
  WAN IP: <filter> 
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-4:3 
  chip-ID: 8087:0029 class-ID: e001 
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running 
  rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: see --recommends 
Logical:
  Message: No logical block device data found. 
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found. 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 59.96 GiB (12.6%) 
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: SK Hynix model: HFM512GD3JX013N 
  size: 476.94 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s 
  lanes: 4 rotation: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 41000C20 temp: 37.9 C 
  scheme: GPT 
  Message: No optical or floppy data found. 
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 476.64 GiB size: 468.09 GiB (98.21%) 
  used: 59.96 GiB (12.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 
  label: N/A uuid: ddbfd7c3-b58a-498a-8450-0e86b5cdc5e7 
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) 
  used: 296 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 
  label: NO_LABEL uuid: 96AD-D347 
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found. 
Unmounted:
  Message: No unmounted partitions found. 
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Device-1: 1-3:2 info: ASUSTek N-KEY Device type: Keyboard 
  driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  power: 100mA chip-ID: 0b05:1866 class-ID: 0301 
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s 
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900 
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 4 rev: 2.0 
  speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900 
  Device-1: 3-2:2 info: Acer Peripherals (now BenQ ) BenQ ZOWIE Gaming Mouse 
  type: Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s 
  power: 100mA chip-ID: 04a5:8001 class-ID: 0301 
  Device-2: 3-4:3 info: Intel AX200 Bluetooth type: Bluetooth driver: btusb 
  interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 100mA chip-ID: 8087:0029 
  class-ID: e001 
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 2 rev: 3.1 speed: 10 Gb/s 
  chip-ID: 1d6b:0003 class-ID: 0900 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 47.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Info:
  Processes: 379 Uptime: 1h 05m wakeups: 4 Init: systemd v: 247 
  tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: pacman: 1140 lib: 329 
  flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.04 

Hi, yes Optimus is running in hybrid mode. I do notice the stuttering, but no I mean te games consistently run 15 frames or so lower using the discrete GPU.

Have a look at this comment, but please read the entire topic, as it will reveal a few things
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1951080#p1951080

Thats really weird,i can give you some ideas

  1. Try turning off the compositor,i don’t know if XFCE turn it off automatically when there is a fullscreen application,but do it manually just in case and start the game,this guy is using XFCE but on Linux Mint but should work as well, in case is not there search for compositor in the menu,it should be somewhere there.
  1. Try using gamemode to set CPU to performance mode when the game starts just in case is using max performance.