So I just replaced my graphics card with an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT as I was having issues with Nvidia drivers. I replaced the card and then removed the Nvidia drivers with ’ sudo apt purge ~nnvidia '. I then restarted the computer.
Everything seems to be working correctly other than Steam will launch but when it tries to actually open a window, it will appear and then instantly disappears and will flash like this several times. The icon in the top bar is still there and I can use it to exit Steam, but I cannot open up any windows with it. If I start Steam from the CLI or start it with integrated graphics, it works correctly.
I have also been experiencing this problem (Steam crashes constantly when trying to use my AMD card, but works fine with my integrated GPU).
I believe the issue is this: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux/issues/9383
Basically, if you have Steam setup to prefer the external / discrete GPU, it currently will crash (at least with AMD… interestingly it works fine with my NVIDIA eGPU). However, if you launch it with the integrated graphics, then it will work as you pointed out.
So until Valve fixes this, you may need to start Steam with your integrated graphics card, and then add
DRI_PRIME=1to thecommandoptions of the games you want to use your external GPU.Thank you! I was afraid that it was something I had done, as it had been working with the 3060 Ti that I just removed. I guess I’ll just launch it with integrated graphics and use the extra command for the game itself until Valve fixes it.
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Hmm… Is that a recent change? That is not true from my experience and most comments online discuss explicitly setting this to take advantage of the dGPU.
Value itself also mentions using this environment variable: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/blob/master/doc/steamlinuxruntime-known-issues.md#-multiple-gpu-systems
Update: So I just tried this with City Skylines. I launched Steam from the dock/panel with the “Integrated Graphics” option and started City Skylines without the
DRI_PRIMEenvironment variable. Checking the output ofintel_gpu_topit appears that the game was only used my integrated graphics as theRender/3Dusage was 100%.I then added the
DRI_PRIMEenvironment variable to the launch options and restarted City Skylines. With the setting, the FPS counter was higher and theintel_gpu_topoutput was only around 10%… which probably means it was using my discrete AMD GPU instead of just my integrated Intel one. Also, my fans kicked on, which usually only happens with the dGPU is being used.So unfortunately, it does not appear to automatically use the dGPU… at least not on my laptop, with my configuration.
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If I just start steam from the terminal, then it uses the iGPU and I still need to use the DRI_PRIME=1 environment varitable. This makes sense, because the DRI_PRIME=1 modifier is not set in the environment.
The workaround mentioned in that post (ie. changing
PrefersNonDefaultGPU=truetoPrefersNonDefaultGPU=false) is just a way to change the shortcut (.desktop) in GNOME from using the dGPU to iGPU by default (whereas right clicking on the shortcut and selecting “Launch with Integrated GPU” only temporarily overrides the setting for that single instance).It would be nice if was automatically detected on my computer… or rather it would be even better if we didn’t have to workaround it at all and Steam just worked :]
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I’m not sure either, but this is on a laptop with an Intel CPU and AMD dGPU (strange mix) and more recently a NVIDIA eGPU.
The issues only appear with the AMD dGPU.