Arch Linux

LucasBiazi

Member

Registered: 2020-11-11

Posts: 111

[SOLVED] GPU installation issues

Good afternoon everyone.

I've recently installed Arch for the first time, on my new laptop. It is a powerful machine, so I decided to test it out in some games. After playing a little, I noticed that the FPS was not low, but not as high as expected. So, looking for solutions, someone said that the game could not be finding my GPU, hence I was running it through my CPU only. So, in order to check it, I tried to look after my GPU drivers, running the following command:
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pacman -Qs nvidia

Output:
local/bumblebee 3.2.1-21
    NVIDIA Optimus support for Linux through VirtualGL
local/egl-wayland 1.1.5+2+g9c9c4c6-1
    EGLStream-based Wayland external platform
local/libvdpau 1.4-1
    Nvidia VDPAU library
local/nvidia 455.38-5
    NVIDIA drivers for linux
local/nvidia-utils 455.38-1
    NVIDIA drivers utilities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Considering the output above, I was thought about the possibility of the GPU not be active, for that I did:
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nvidia-smi

Output:
...
0  GeForce RTX 2060    Off
...
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As you can see, I resumed the output to the 'part that matters'. The GPU is apparently off. Since then I'm trying to turn it on...
Also, you may have realized that in the output of the first command, I also installed bumblebee. I was told that with it I can choose what the running software will use (CPU or GPU). However, I ended up receiving this error, after trying to run the following commands:
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systemctl enable bumblebeed.service
optirun glxgears -info

Output:
[ 3171.673222] [ERROR]Cannot access secondary GPU - error: [XORG] (EE) No devices detected.

[ 3171.673265] [ERROR]Aborting because fallback start is disabled.
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Since then, I haven't had any success so far. Btw, I have a  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile, if it helps.

PS: This is my first post in here, I would like to already apologize if I happen to make any mistake regarding the forum usage. Thanks for all the help in advance, and have a nice day.

Last edited by LucasBiazi (2020-11-11 19:49:43)

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V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,080

Re: [SOLVED] GPU installation issues

Welcome to the boards

Please wrap outputs and the like in

[code]code tags[/code]

.

For a GPU this new you should remove bumblebee (... and disable the service) and install nvidia-prime and reboot. Then try to run things with

prime-run $game

, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PR … er_offload as well.

LucasBiazi

Member

Registered: 2020-11-11

Posts: 111

Re: [SOLVED] GPU installation issues

Welcome to the boards

Please wrap outputs and the like in

[code]code tags[/code]

.

For a GPU this new you should remove bumblebee (... and disable the service) and install nvidia-prime and reboot. Then try to run things with

prime-run $game

, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PR … er_offload as well.

First I disabled the service by running:

systemctl disable bumblebeed.service

Then I removed bumblebee with pacman:

sudo pacman -Rns bumblebee

After looking in link you've recommended me, I installed prime with pacman:

sudo pacman -Y nvidia-prime

reboot

Then I tried to execute the game again. The result was absurdly better, about 140FPS increase. However, I have some doubts.
1) I'm running, as you said,

prime-run game

, if the game happen to be on Steam, is it enough if I just run

prime-run steam

and pick any game?
2) I ran once again

nvidia-smi

and the results were the same, should it still be in this way? Is it healthy for the laptop just to run softwares with the GPU when I tell him to?

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V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,080

Re: [SOLVED] GPU installation issues

1) that's technically enough but often not what you want (... the nvidia gpu would be active while just having the client open) it'd be better to make use of per game launch options

2) I think you're looking at the wrong "Off" the value. The value in the second column after the PCI ID is what's interesting, furthermore you should see processes actively using the GPU in the table printed below. As for whether that's ok, that's explicitly how these laptop GPUs are designed, you should only use the power hungry main card when you actually need to and the integrated intel card for normal desktop usage.

LucasBiazi

Member

Registered: 2020-11-11

Posts: 111

Re: [SOLVED] GPU installation issues

Thanks a lot. How do I set the post as '[SOLVED]'?

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Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: [SOLVED] GPU installation issues

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

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