[SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

Silex89 · 2014-05-21 15:41:22

Hi there, dear Arch Forumers!

I switched to Ubuntu a few weeks for a while, but I didn't like the performance of the desktop environment (I had choppy animations on Unity here and there tiling windows or switching virtual desktops) and the workflow wasn't really the best to my taste. So I switched back to Arch and I chose KDE as my DE.

Here is the irony: While in Ubuntu, I had not-so-good performance in the desktop and productivity, but all of my OpenGL games worked flawlessly; Runescape (a Java/HTML5 based browser online game) and Dota2 worked with Unity with absolutely no lag with the AMD open-source driver (using the native steam client for Linux). In Arch, my KDE setup is blazingly fast. I'm very pleased with the KWin effects because they are as smooth as silk, but none of the games I mentioned work.

The sad thing is that I switched to Ubuntu when KDE was on the 4.12 cycle and everything worked; both the games and the smooth effects of KWin, the kernel was 3.13 if I remember right. Now I switched back to Arch with the latest software and I haven't been able to fix the issues with my games.

Steam complaints that I have no direct rendering support, I searched the wiki and installed the 32-bit libraries and I still have the same warning. I can't even start the game (I insist. I did everything the wiki said regarding to this issue, a couple of months ago I didn't have this problem, it's happening now on my fresh install of Arch).

I never got Runescape to work on Arch though. I always get the same error on both Chromium and Firefox. Here's the log file: http://pastebin.com/2qQBXYCE

My PC specs are:

AMD A10 Quadcore 2.8 GHz
AMD RIchland APU HD8620
5 GB of RAM
1 TB of HDD Storage
Arch Linux installed on UEFI mode as the only OS (64-bit of course) booting with gummiboot.
AMD Open-Source driver (I'm not wiling to switch to Catalyst really. I did once with this GPU and I had such a poor performance with KDE. I'm not willing to sacrifice performance on my workflow to get games running). OpenGL 3.3 is more than enough to run the games that I want.
KDE SC with KWin running on OpenGL 3.1 mode.
Default Arch kernel 3.14.4

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by Silex89 (2014-05-25 23:51:55)

weirddan455 · 2014-05-21 20:28:24

I would first confirm the driver is loaded and working correctly. Install the package "mesa-demos" if you haven't already so we can use the glxinfo tool. Then post the results of the following commands:

lsmod | grep radeon

glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"

glxinfo | grep OpenGL

Also confirm that you have all the correct mesa packages installed. Off the top of my head you should need at least: mesa, lib32-mesa, xf86-video-ati, ati-dri, lib32-ati-dri, mesa-libgl, lib32-mesa-libgl

Silex89 · 2014-05-22 15:36:28

Here are the outputs for the commands you told me

$ lsmod | grep radeon
radeon               1330458  3 
hwmon                   3153  2 k10temp,radeon
i2c_algo_bit            5480  1 radeon
drm_kms_helper         35720  1 radeon
ttm                    66913  1 radeon
drm                   242043  5 ttm,drm_kms_helper,radeon
i2c_core               25400  6 drm,i2c_piix4,drm_kms_helper,i2c_algo_bit,radeon,videodev

$ glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
direct rendering: Yes

$ glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD ARUBA
OpenGL core profile version string: 3.3 (Core Profile) Mesa 10.1.3
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 3.30
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL extensions:

I have all the packages you mentioned installed as well.... Confusing....

Lone_Wolf · 2014-05-22 19:26:48

steam & steam apps often come with their own (older) versions of libraries which sometimes don't work well with the versions arch ships.

Post the error log from steam, and it should become clear which library you need to remove.

weirddan455 · 2014-05-22 21:33:55

Those outputs all look good. The next thing I would try is to see if your games work outside of KDE. I've been running into an issue that I posted about a few threads down where Dota 2 works in KDE but is much laggier than expected. I installed Openbox and ran Steam from there and my problem went away. It's very lightweight, few dependencies, and doesn't interfere with KDE in any way. I would try that just as a test to determine weather this is a KDE specific issue or something to do with the core driver/kernel/configuration.

EDIT: Actually check out this thread first:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=181743

This person fixed their issue simply by deleting a library in the Steam folder because of a version mismatch.

Last edited by weirddan455 (2014-05-22 21:39:11)

sertsa · 2014-05-23 01:12:35

If you are playing games fullscreen (probably), also try under KDE system settings->Desktop Effects->Advanced, check "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows"

Silex89 · 2014-05-23 02:07:12

Ok guys, an update here!

@Lone_Wolf: You were right. As weirddan455 said, deleting libstdc++ allowed me to start the game, but I still had a suboptimal performance.
@sertsa: You were also right. Toggling the option you said on, helps to gain a couple of fps. If I disable KWin compositing with Alt+Shift+F12 I get the performance I was hoping for!. Sheer happiness about this yay! . Thank you guys!.

Any ideas on how to make Runescape work?

weirddan455 · 2014-05-23 03:53:04

Silex89 wrote:

Any ideas on how to make Runescape work?

Now that's a game I haven't played in a long time. It uses Java doesn't it? Just a shot in the dark but maybe try Oracle's JRE from the AUR (as opposed to OpenJDK from the repositories.)

Silex89 · 2014-05-24 21:33:13

weirddan455 wrote:

Silex89 wrote:
Any ideas on how to make Runescape work?
Now that's a game I haven't played in a long time. It uses Java doesn't it? Just a shot in the dark but maybe try Oracle's JRE from the AUR (as opposed to OpenJDK from the repositories.)

I'll see what I get. I don't have good internet access now but I'll let you know as soon as I build the package.

Thank you!

Silex89 · 2014-05-25 23:51:38

Spot on weirddan455! Installing Oracle's JRE makes the game work! I'll mark this thread as solved now.

Thank you so much for your help guys

Kind Regards

Arch Linux

#1 2014-05-21 15:41:22

[SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#2 2014-05-21 20:28:24

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#3 2014-05-22 15:36:28

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#4 2014-05-22 19:26:48

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#5 2014-05-22 21:33:55

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#6 2014-05-23 01:12:35

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#7 2014-05-23 02:07:12

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#8 2014-05-23 03:53:04

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#9 2014-05-24 21:33:13

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

#10 2014-05-25 23:51:38

Re: [SOLVED] Almost none of my OpenGL apps work, but KWin works great

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