Arch Linux

lonlon

Member

Registered: 2019-09-07

Posts: 23

[SOLVED] Getting Steam to run with Openbox and nvidia-xrun

Hello there,
so as the title states I am in the process of trying to get steam running via nvidia-xrun to get all the performance out of my T490 with the Nvidia MX250 dGPU.

My system runs standard on TTY1 where I have i3 installed.

I followed the instructions on the Arch Wiki entry Nvidia-xrun and thus far I am able to get Openbox running on TTY2. That means, I can start the DE and am connected to the internet.

Now the problem: whenever I try to start steam (via terminal), it first launches a pop up that appears to update something and then (according to the terminal output) crashes

Running Steam on arch rolling 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins up-to-date!
/home/leon/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1579321278)
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1579321278)
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(1579321278)
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast
Steam: An X Error occurred
X Error of failed request:  GLXBadContext
Major opcode of failed request:  151
Serial number of failed request:  49
xerror_handler: X failed, continuing
Steam: An X Error occurred
X Error of failed request:  BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)
Major opcode of failed request:  151
Value in failed request:  0x0
Serial number of failed request:  48
xerror_handler: X failed, continuing
Steam: An X Error occurred
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
Major opcode of failed request:  151
Serial number of failed request:  50
xerror_handler: X failed, continuing
assert_20200130144158_1.dmp[4902]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)
/tmp/dumps/assert_20200130144158_1.dmp
/home/leon/.local/share/Steam/steam.sh: line 722:  4864 Segmentation fault      (core dumped) $STEAM_DEBUGGER "$STEAMROOT/$STEAMEXEPATH" "$@"
assert_20200130144158_1.dmp[4902]: Finished uploading minidump (out-of-process): success = yes
assert_20200130144158_1.dmp[4902]: response: CrashID=bp-0483dda4-084e-4fda-9ce2-01b102200130
assert_20200130144158_1.dmp[4902]: file ''/tmp/dumps/assert_20200130144158_1.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-0483dda4-084e-4fda-9ce2-01b102200130''

First I thought that might be because I installed steam via i3, but after deinstalling and reinstalling via Openbox it did not change the behaviour.  On the TTY1 I can run steam fine, but only on the Intel iGPU (here the power state of the dGPU is stuck in P8 as expected). My system is up to date, running the latest nvidia driver and on the TTY2 the dGPU is 'awake' i.e. in the P0 state according to nvidia-smi and nvtop

Here is the output of nvidia-smi

Mon Feb  3 18:16:23 2020       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.44       Driver Version: 440.44       CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce MX250       On   | 00000000:3C:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   38C    P0    N/A /  N/A |     38MiB /  2002MiB |      6%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0     41500      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                                 38MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

and this is my /etc/X11/nvidia-xorg.conf.d/30-nvidia.conf

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Driver "nvidia"
    BusID "PCI:60:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Device "nvidia"
    #  Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration" "Yes"
    #  Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"
EndSection

So maybe one of you guys is able to give me some assistance or point me in the right direction.

Cheers

Last edited by lonlon (2020-02-03 19:08:32)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,324

Re: [SOLVED] Getting Steam to run with Openbox and nvidia-xrun

You most likely forgot to install lib32-nvidia-utils which contains the 32bit OpenGL drivers Steam needs. (And they just have been updated, so install them as part of a complete system update followed by a reboot into the new kernel, before retesting)

Last edited by V1del (2020-02-03 17:50:00)

lonlon

Member

Registered: 2019-09-07

Posts: 23

Re: [SOLVED] Getting Steam to run with Openbox and nvidia-xrun

Indeed I have not had that package installed, and now that I have it all works. Thank you very much.
And thank you for the quick explanation as well.

I have a quick follow up question to advance my understanding of the TTYs and how my system really runs in general:
When I am done, I switch back to TTY1 and stop the TTY2 with the command

systemctl stop getty@tty2

and this works as expected. But whenever I am in TTY2 and try to stop TTY1 with the analogous command, my laptop basically shuts itself down. Is this because I log in to TTY1 automatically when I start my laptop i.e. the X server gets started and then runs there? And if so, what would be a way to stop the X server on TTY1 and start it back up again on TTY2 without shutting my laptop down?

Last edited by lonlon (2020-02-03 19:01:32)

RocoElWuero

Member

Registered: 2021-07-23

Posts: 1

Re: [SOLVED] Getting Steam to run with Openbox and nvidia-xrun

lonlon
Does your OpenBox currently work well with Nvidia?