nvidia-open ==> {PrimaryGPU ==> laggy} and {not d ==> bad graphics}

scot · 2025-12-23 02:02:43

[EDIT: the following might be useful or even critical to understanding my set-up: It seems that I configured my system very strictly in accordance with "Section 3: Use NVIDIA Graphics Only" of the Arch wiki Optimus page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA_Optimus . In particular, my system has
xrandr --setprovideroutputsource modesetting NVIDIA-0
xrandr --auto
in my .xinitrc. So I suppose that its possible that this approach is not compatible with the new open-source driver. Of course, this just means that someone needs to update the optimus instructions]

The subject line is an attempt to boil the problem down to a single line:

I have an Dell XPS 9500 Iaptop; it has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti card, which as far as I understand things, is a Turing architecture card, and should just automagically upgrade to the new nvidia-open drivers. The problem is that when it does this, all keyboard and mouse-click input becomes TERRIBLY laggy. It may be relevant that I am running openbox on XWindows, and no other window manager or Desktop environment. Some clues online pointed me to the "PrimaryGPU" option which I set in a conf file within nvidia-xorg.conf.d:

[scott@scott-xps9500 ~]$ cat /etc/X11/nvidia-xorg.conf.d/10-nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf
Section "OutputClass"
Identifier "intel"
MatchDriver "i915"
Driver "modesetting"
EndSection

Section "OutputClass"
Identifier "nvidia"
MatchDriver "nvidia-drm"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration"
Option "PrimaryGPU" "yes"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/nvidia/xorg"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

If I comment out the single line of "Option PrimaryGPU yes", then the lag goes away, but the result is weirdly unusable in a different way: clicking in one terminal window makes random parts of other terminal windows go black, for example. This is more usable than the situation with bad lagging -- it seems I can always get a window to display properly by dragging it a bit, but it's not OK.

Google Gemini claimed that this is a "well-known problem" with hybrid laptops (i.e. one with both a discrete and an integrated GPU), and mine IS one of those. But it also says that this is easy to prove: one just has to start nvidia-settings, and click on the GPU 0 tab. Choosing "prefer Maximum Performace is supposed to make the lag go away, but it doesn't in my case.

The problem is that I can't really revert or downgrade: If I try to install nvidia-dkms, pacman installs nvidia-open -dkms. The last proprietary zst in my pacman cache is a 580 driver, and this card needs 590.

If someone can help me FIX this horrible laggy keyboard and mouse click input, I"d much rather abandon the old proprietary driver anyway.
I can't seem to attach files to this post, so i have made the following diagnostic output available on my google drive:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nULdR8 … sp=sharing is the file:

nvidia-open-laggy-input.zip:
42-inputs.conf -- some keyboard config written by systemd-localed
10-nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf -- with this file among the config, there is terrible lag. If I remove this file from /etc/X11/nvidia-xorg.conf.d, or even just comment out the PrimaryGPU line, the lagginess disappears, but there are random tearing and blacking-out artifacts
no-lag-bad-graphics.log -- the Xorf.0.log file when the PrimaryGPU line is commented out
yes-lag-good-graphics.log -- the Xorg.0.log file when the PrimaryGPU line is NOT commented out.
the result of the command ` loginctl session-status >no-lag-bad-graphics.session-status.txt when the PrimaryGPU option is commented out
the result of the command ` loginctl session-status >yes-lag-good-graphics.session-status.txt when the PrimaryGPU option is NOT commented out

Thank you for your help

Last edited by scot (2025-12-23 02:34:44)

StarWolf3000 · 2025-12-23 07:35:24

580 DKMS was moved to AUR on transition to the open driver: https://archlinux.org/news/nvidia-590-d … el-modules

If you have the previous version packages in your cache, just use

# pacman -U <filename-of-nvidia-580>.pkg.tar.zst <filename-of-nvidia-utils-580>.pkg.tar.zst <filename-of-nvidia-settings-580>.pkg.tar.zst

Otherwise try to install 580 again using DKMS, if that version worked for you before (don't forget to install dkms and the header files first for your kernel): https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nvidia-580xx-dkms

scot · 2025-12-23 19:11:16

I will do this now, thank you.
But you have (kindly) taught me how to roll back; what i REALLY need is how to get rid of the horrible input lag which the new open driver gives me.
For starters: i'm sure that my putting the diagnostic output in a zip file on my google drive is not going to get a lot of people to look at it. Is the standard practice here just to paste the output of the files into the post? In my case it's not even THAT much text, but it's a lot more than i would normally just cut-and-paste. I guess I really AM a newbie, but how do i post the log files together with my question in a way that people will look at them? Thanks!

seth · 2025-12-23 22:02:41

You can post using [code][/code] tags or upload files to some pastebin server,

cat /path/to/file | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

Start with your xorg log.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-12-23 02:02:43

nvidia-open ==> {PrimaryGPU ==> laggy} and {not d ==> bad graphics}

#2 2025-12-23 07:35:24

Re: nvidia-open ==> {PrimaryGPU ==> laggy} and {not d ==> bad graphics}

#3 2025-12-23 19:11:16

Re: nvidia-open ==> {PrimaryGPU ==> laggy} and {not d ==> bad graphics}

#4 2025-12-23 22:02:41

Re: nvidia-open ==> {PrimaryGPU ==> laggy} and {not d ==> bad graphics}

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