Arch Linux

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

Hello. I just got a new GPU (AMD 6750 XT) to replace my 3060 Ti. Before I installed it I installed mesa and vulkan-radeon. I was under the impression that this was all I had to do because Linux should provide a smooth transition to AMD afterwards.
But when I booted up my PC it just took me to a black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left. I switched to a tty then deleted /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then tried to generate a new xorg config file with

Xorg :0 -configure

And it tells me to test the new config file with

X -config /root/xorg.conf.new

Which takes me to a black screen. I have no idea what to do now. Can anyone help? Thanks

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

For X you need both Mesa and xf86-video-amdgpu for a working video setup.  You shouldn't need an xorg.conf file, just let X autoconfigure itself as your computer boots.  If you were running a Wayland environment you would only need Mesa.

Last edited by headkase (2023-07-01 01:12:36)

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

For X you need both Mesa and xf86-video-amdgpu for a working video setup.  You shouldn't need an xorg.conf file, just let X autoconfigure itself as your computer boots.  If you were running a Wayland environment you would only need Mesa.

Hey, I actually got it to work by moving the new xorg config file to /etc/X11.
But now I'm having some more issues:
1. My mouse is now very laggy.
2. When I move my mouse cursor past the edge of my right monitor (I have two monitors), it disappears until I move it back into the left monitor.
Any idea how to fix this?

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

For X you need both Mesa and xf86-video-amdgpu for a working video setup.  You shouldn't need an xorg.conf file, just let X autoconfigure itself as your computer boots.  If you were running a Wayland environment you would only need Mesa.

Hey, I actually got it to work by moving the new xorg config file to /etc/X11.
But now I'm having some more issues:
1. My mouse is now very laggy.
2. When I move my mouse cursor past the edge of my right monitor (I have two monitors), it disappears until I move it back into the left monitor.
Any idea how to fix this?

Install xf86-video-amdgpu?  And try without an xorg.conf file.  It shouldn't be needed.

Last edited by headkase (2023-07-01 01:19:06)

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/multihead

That should keep you busy.   But whatever desktop environment you're using might already have an easier configuration utility.  You haven't mentioned that too: what are you using on top of X?

Last edited by headkase (2023-07-01 01:21:43)

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/multihead

That should keep you busy.   But whatever desktop environment you're using might already have an easier configuration utility.  You haven't mentioned that too: what are you using on top of X?

I rebooted without /etc/X11/xorg.conf and it seems to have improved the mouse problem about 90%. My cursor no longer disappears on the right side of my right monitor, but it's still slightly laggy.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by what I'm using on top of X. Do you mean my desktop environment? If so, I'm using KDE.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/multihead

That should keep you busy.   But whatever desktop environment you're using might already have an easier configuration utility.  You haven't mentioned that too: what are you using on top of X?

I rebooted without /etc/X11/xorg.conf and it seems to have improved the mouse problem about 90%. My cursor no longer disappears on the right side of my right monitor, but it's still slightly laggy.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by what I'm using on top of X. Do you mean my desktop environment? If so, I'm using KDE.

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … d-session/

I'd install the Wayland session for Plasma, the KDE desktop, and in SDDM choose that session.  It is much more modern and supported and may just be a magic bullet.

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/multihead

That should keep you busy.   But whatever desktop environment you're using might already have an easier configuration utility.  You haven't mentioned that too: what are you using on top of X?

I rebooted without /etc/X11/xorg.conf and it seems to have improved the mouse problem about 90%. My cursor no longer disappears on the right side of my right monitor, but it's still slightly laggy.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by what I'm using on top of X. Do you mean my desktop environment? If so, I'm using KDE.

https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x8 … d-session/

I'd install the Wayland session for Plasma, the KDE desktop, and in SDDM choose that session.  It is much more modern and supported and may just be a magic bullet.

I just installed Wayland, then switched to it in SDDM, which definitely fixed the mouse issue. Now I have another problem: in X11 I had a startup script that changed the red/green/blue values on each monitor to make them look identical (using xrandr). Xrandr does not work in Wayland. Is there any equivalent I can use?

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

I just installed Wayland, then switched to it in SDDM, which definitely fixed the mouse issue. Now I have another problem: in X11 I had a startup script that changed the red/green/blue values on each monitor to make them look identical (using xrandr). Xrandr does not work in Wayland. Is there any equivalent I can use?

I'd put up a test-pattern image on all the monitors and then use each monitor's controls to calibrate the colors.

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles

That has a section on monitor calibration and monitor color profiles.

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

I just installed Wayland, then switched to it in SDDM, which definitely fixed the mouse issue. Now I have another problem: in X11 I had a startup script that changed the red/green/blue values on each monitor to make them look identical (using xrandr). Xrandr does not work in Wayland. Is there any equivalent I can use?

I'd put up a test-pattern image on all the monitors and then use each monitor's controls to calibrate the colors.

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles

That has a section on monitor calibration and monitor color profiles.

Hey friend. I actually decided to switch back to my 3060 Ti. I just kept running into seemingly unrelated issues with the 6750 XT, and I'm just not willing to invest potentially hours for a 10-15% performance increase lol. But I really appreciate you reaching out and taking the time to help me!

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

I just installed Wayland, then switched to it in SDDM, which definitely fixed the mouse issue. Now I have another problem: in X11 I had a startup script that changed the red/green/blue values on each monitor to make them look identical (using xrandr). Xrandr does not work in Wayland. Is there any equivalent I can use?

I'd put up a test-pattern image on all the monitors and then use each monitor's controls to calibrate the colors.

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles

That has a section on monitor calibration and monitor color profiles.

Hey friend. I actually decided to switch back to my 3060 Ti. I just kept running into seemingly unrelated issues with the 6750 XT, and I'm just not willing to invest potentially hours for a 10-15% performance increase lol. But I really appreciate you reaching out and taking the time to help me!

You're welcome.  You never did say if you installed xf86-video-amdgpu for X.  If you had that should have given you hardware acceleration - fixed your laggy mouse cursor.  Other than that, none of the problems were insurmountable given a bit of time.

Last edited by headkase (2023-07-02 11:09:58)

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

I'd put up a test-pattern image on all the monitors and then use each monitor's controls to calibrate the colors.

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ICC_profiles

That has a section on monitor calibration and monitor color profiles.

Hey friend. I actually decided to switch back to my 3060 Ti. I just kept running into seemingly unrelated issues with the 6750 XT, and I'm just not willing to invest potentially hours for a 10-15% performance increase lol. But I really appreciate you reaching out and taking the time to help me!

You're welcome.  You never did say if you installed xf86-video-amdgpu for X.  If you had that should have given you hardware acceleration - fixed your laggy mouse cursor.  Other than that, none of the problems were insurmountable given a bit of time.

Yes, I did indeed install xf86-video-amdgpu before I installed the 6750 XT

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

Hey friend. I actually decided to switch back to my 3060 Ti. I just kept running into seemingly unrelated issues with the 6750 XT, and I'm just not willing to invest potentially hours for a 10-15% performance increase lol. But I really appreciate you reaching out and taking the time to help me!

You're welcome.  You never did say if you installed xf86-video-amdgpu for X.  If you had that should have given you hardware acceleration - fixed your laggy mouse cursor.  Other than that, none of the problems were insurmountable given a bit of time.

Yes, I did indeed install xf86-video-amdgpu before I installed the 6750 XT

It's odd that it didn't work.  One thing about AMD is that they've been providing documentation for their hardware for over a decade.  With that documentation support for their hardware is usually very good.  It's odd that that wasn't the case for you.

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

You're welcome.  You never did say if you installed xf86-video-amdgpu for X.  If you had that should have given you hardware acceleration - fixed your laggy mouse cursor.  Other than that, none of the problems were insurmountable given a bit of time.

Yes, I did indeed install xf86-video-amdgpu before I installed the 6750 XT

It's odd that it didn't work.  One thing about AMD is that they've been providing documentation for their hardware for over a decade.  With that documentation support for their hardware is usually very good.  It's odd that that wasn't the case for you.

Yeah I probably just got unlucky, like some unfortunate confluence of factors. The consensus seems to be that AMD GPUs work phenomenally well with Linux, so I'm definitely an outlier. I'm sure I could eventually get it running smoothly, but I really just wanted something I could plug and play because I'm a bit too busy to spend more than a couple hours configuring things lol.

Samueru

Member

Registered: 2023-07-03

Posts: 47

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

Yes, I did indeed install xf86-video-amdgpu before I installed the 6750 XT

It's odd that it didn't work.  One thing about AMD is that they've been providing documentation for their hardware for over a decade.  With that documentation support for their hardware is usually very good.  It's odd that that wasn't the case for you.

Yeah I probably just got unlucky, like some unfortunate confluence of factors. The consensus seems to be that AMD GPUs work phenomenally well with Linux, so I'm definitely an outlier. I'm sure I could eventually get it running smoothly, but I really just wanted something I could plug and play because I'm a bit too busy to spend more than a couple hours configuring things lol.

Nah mate, I switched from a GTX 1060 to an RX580 and that shit is broken on so many levels.

I could not get xorg to start, even though I removed the old xorg config files, reconfigured xorg, reinstalled linux and linux-firmware, reran mkinitcpio, etc, I ended up having to reinstall, just to run into another issue:

I use 3 displays, for some reason when I have the 3 displays at the same time, one display will default to the lowest resolution possible and for even weirder reasons it also causes all the other displays to repeat the same image and default to the lowest resolution possible, I had to create and force a custom resolution to fix that issue.

When I asked about why I had to force custom resolution on xorg to get all the displays working, the only reply I had was some asshole leaving the xrandr wiki article on how to create custom resolutions and that I rtfm lol.

And vaapi is so broken, is borderline unusable, I can't even record my 3 displays like I used to with my GTX 1060 without obs complaining that the encoder is overloaded, someone recommended that I use obs-amf with the proprietary amd drivers and that shit just caused i3 to instantly crash when launching lol. Apparently it can still work but that would require forcing other apps to use mesa while obs uses the proprietary driver though, Haven't tested it yet though.

What's worse is that when I installed obs-amf, it broke the system beyond salvation, I -Rsn the package, then read the arch wiki on how to remove all traces of proprietary amd drivers (which funny enough they mention can cause desktop sessions to crash), and even though I had them removed and mesa was indeed loaded, i3 was still crashing when trying to launch, good thing that I had a Btrfs snapshot before I installed that holy shit.

Last edited by Samueru (2023-07-03 08:33:47)

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

It's odd that it didn't work.  One thing about AMD is that they've been providing documentation for their hardware for over a decade.  With that documentation support for their hardware is usually very good.  It's odd that that wasn't the case for you.

Yeah I probably just got unlucky, like some unfortunate confluence of factors. The consensus seems to be that AMD GPUs work phenomenally well with Linux, so I'm definitely an outlier. I'm sure I could eventually get it running smoothly, but I really just wanted something I could plug and play because I'm a bit too busy to spend more than a couple hours configuring things lol.

Nah mate, I switched from a GTX 1060 to an RX580 and that shit is broken on so many levels.

I could not get xorg to start, even though I removed the old xorg config files, reconfigured xorg, reinstalled linux and linux-firmware, reran mkinitcpio, etc, I ended up having to reinstall, just to run into another issue:

I use 3 displays, for some reason when I have the 3 displays at the same time, one display will default to the lowest resolution possible and for even weirder reasons it also causes all the other displays to repeat the same image and default to the lowest resolution possible, I had to create and force a custom resolution to fix that issue.

When I asked about why I had to force custom resolution on xorg to get all the displays working, the only reply I had was some asshole leaving the xrandr wiki article on how to create custom resolutions and that I rtfm lol.

And vaapi is so broken, is borderline unusable, I can't even record my 3 displays like I used to with my GTX 1060 without obs complaining that the encoder is overloaded, someone recommended that I use obs-amf with the proprietary amd drivers and that shit just caused i3 to instantly crash when launching lol. Apparently it can still work but that would require forcing other apps to use mesa while obs uses the proprietary driver though, Haven't tested it yet though.

What's worse is that when I installed obs-amf, it broke the system beyond salvation, I -Rsn the package, then read the arch wiki on how to remove all traces of proprietary amd drivers (which funny enough they mention can cause desktop sessions to crash), and even though I had them removed and mesa was indeed loaded, i3 was still crashing when trying to launch, good thing that I had a Btrfs snapshot before I installed that holy shit.

That sounds like a nightmare lol, I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I didn't test OBS, but it would've been a critical issue for me if it didn't work on my GPU because I record my screens when I trade in the markets. Did you end up switching back to Nvidia, or did you manage to fix everything?

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,986

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

It could also be the case that your 6750 XT is just too new.  Mesa has to catch up to new hardware, like give it a year to fully settle, and then support for AMD hardware is good.  I'm running a RX 580 8GB right now, and all my previous cards have been AMD.  I've never had problems.  I never configured X when I used it, no xorg.conf, just let it autoconfig during boot and was always fine.  What you both seem to have in common though is multi-monitor setups.  Under X those are always a nightmare, and for Wayland I don't have an opinion because I've been single-monitor for ages so have no experience.  When I was multi-monitor yeah.

Edit: For a while too I had a 55" 4K TV as my monitor.  HDMI2.0 gets that resolution at 60Hz and it's literally four screens sans bezels.  Sit close to it and it is way more productive than multi-monitors, dragging windows to corners you get four full-size apps.  It was great but I swapped out after a while for a bog-standard 1080P 27" monitor.  When you have one monitor, no matter resolution, you skip many multi-monitor problems.

Edit2: 6750 XT dates to March 2022 so you'd think it should be good by now.

Last edited by headkase (2023-07-03 16:42:51)

axsc

Member

Registered: 2019-02-22

Posts: 37

Re: Black Screen After Switching From Nvidia to AMD GPU

It could also be the case that your 6750 XT is just too new.  Mesa has to catch up to new hardware, like give it a year to fully settle, and then support for AMD hardware is good.  I'm running a RX 580 8GB right now, and all my previous cards have been AMD.  I've never had problems.  I never configured X when I used it, no xorg.conf, just let it autoconfig during boot and was always fine.  What you both seem to have in common though is multi-monitor setups.  Under X those are always a nightmare, and for Wayland I don't have an opinion because I've been single-monitor for ages so have no experience.  When I was multi-monitor yeah.

Edit: For a while too I had a 55" 4K TV as my monitor.  HDMI2.0 gets that resolution at 60Hz and it's literally four screens sans bezels.  Sit close to it and it is way more productive than multi-monitors, dragging windows to corners you get four full-size apps.  It was great but I swapped out after a while for a bog-standard 1080P 27" monitor.  When you have one monitor, no matter resolution, you skip many multi-monitor problems.

Edit2: 6750 XT dates to March 2022 so you'd think it should be good by now.

Yeah, I'll probably just stick with my 3060 Ti for now and look to upgrade in a few years lol.
I kind of need multi monitors, though. I have a 4K TV beside my desk which I sometimes game on, and I like to have my desktop monitors on for other stuff while gaming on it.