On a different post, @Yochanan asked me to create a new post to avoid an XY problem, so here it is.
Data: Using XFCE on an Nvidia GeForce GT710 video card.
$ inxi -zv8 ## graphics
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GK208B [GeForce GT 710] vendor: Micro-Star MSI
driver: nouveau v: kernel non-free: series: 470.xx+
status: legacy-active (EOL~2024-09-xx) arch: Fermi-2 code: GF119/GK208
process: TSMC 28nm built: 2010-2016 pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 8
ports: active: HDMI-A-1 empty: DVI-D-1,VGA-1 bus-ID: 2d:00.0
chip-ID: 10de:128b class-ID: 0300 temp: 41.0 C
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.13 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver:
X: loaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: nouveau gpu: nouveau
display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.00x11.22")
s-diag: 582mm (22.93")
Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-1 model: Dell SE2717H/HX serial: <filter>
built: 2019 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 82 gamma: 1.2 chroma: red: x: 0.639
y: 0.341 green: x: 0.294 y: 0.624 blue: x: 0.153 y: 0.051 white: x: 0.314
y: 0.329 size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9
modes: 1920x1080, 1920x1080i, 1600x900, 1280x1024, 1152x864, 1280x720,
1024x768, 800x600, 720x576, 720x480, 640x480, 720x400
API: OpenGL Message: Unable to show GL data. glxinfo is missing.
$ lspci -k
2d:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK208B [GeForce GT 710] (rev a1)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device 8c93
Kernel driver in use: nouveau
Kernel modules: nouveau
$ mhwd -li
> Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NAME VERSION FREEDRIVER TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
video-linux 2024.05.06 true PCI
Warning: No installed USB configs!
$ mhwd-kernel -li
Currently running: 6.6.47-1-MANJARO (linux66)
The following kernels are installed in your system:
* linux66
Problem: Over the past months, two main kinds of graphics problems have started appearing, and new symptoms show up only after a system upgrade (pacman -Syu
).
-
Desktop environment would randomly (once every 10 minutes or so) stop updating part of the screen, so one rectangle would update but the rest of the screen would freeze, irrespective of where the windows were. I learned to work around this with a
pkill xfwm4
in a terminal (using Ctrl-Alt-F3 to go outside the desktop environment so the command is visible on screen). The file$HOME/.xsession_errors
does not show anything relevant. -
More recently, display update frame rate would fall a lot in specific circumstances. Running the GPU drawing test in
hardinfo
showed a huge slowdown in the “Shape Drawing” test where it draws a lot of empty rectangles on screen, where it would only show 2 to 3 frames per second. Other parts of the GPU drawing test were fast enough, even the “filled rectangles” test. In VLC, sometimes the video would freeze with the console errornouveau: kernel rejected pushbuf: no such device
and VLC would need to be killed. I have worked around it by using only software rendering and checking various “Hurry Up” checkboxes in VLC to improve performance.
What I have tried so far:
Searching online for “nouveau” and the error messages I get, I found these pages:
- https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/712639/linux-mint-20-3-laptop-freezes-randomly-because-of-nouveau-driver which raised the topic of the effect of firmware for nouveau performance
- Applications crashing after adding hardware acceleration for nouveau / Multimedia and Games / Arch Linux Forums which focused on video workarounds specifically
Following the above, I updated the nouveau firmware for my card using the instructions at VideoAcceleration · freedesktop.org and tried re-enabling hardware acceleration in VLC and Firefox and elsewhere, but they didn’t do anything (i.e., they still cause the same freezes and errors), so I disabled hardware acceleration again and re-enabled by workarounds described above.
Help request: If someone has solution suggestions for the problems I described, I am happy to try them out.