this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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How can I tell if my GPU is being utilized properly? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 week ago by zamithal@programming.dev to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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I purchased a system76 Thelio Mira Elite With a AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. I kinda regret not going with Nvidia at this point but it is what it is. I primarily use it as a developer workstation, but want to play games on it as well so I can be rid of my windows box.

I didn't expect it to be able to play the latest and greatest games but I did expect it to be able to play older titles reasonably well. Games launch from steam and seem to work, but I'm getting between 0 and 10 fps on the title screen of Kerbal Space Program. Other games are similarly functional but poorly performing.

Where do I start? How can I ensure my GPU is being leveraged? Is this as good as it gets?

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[–] tal@lemmy.today 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (16 children)

Games launch from steam and seem to work, but I’m getting between 0 and 10 fps on the title screen of Kerbal Space Program.

Something is definitely off on your system. I've a 7900 XTX (the slightly-higher-end version of that card), and while I don't have the box in front of me, it definitely runs at at least reasonable (60fps+) rates at 2560x1440 on KSP. Might do well above that, dunno. It's definitely not herky-jerky to the level you're seeing, though.

Are you using Wayland or Xorg?

If you run radeontop (in Debian trixie, package radeontop) it should tell you various load characteristics. There isn't a GPU-agnostic utility to do this, unless things have changed since last I've looked -- Nvidia and AMD both have their own utilities.

I kinda regret not going with Nvidia at this point

Unless you're aiming for AI stuff, where there are some significant benefits, like a large userbase and support for transformers, I'd probably recommend AMD for Linux use.

EDIT:

If you run glxinfo on either Xorg (or Wayland, since the emulation layer will handle it), package mesa-utils on Debian trixie, it'll tell you what OpenGL is trying to use. If you're using hardware-accelerated stuff, you'll get something like this:

Vendor: AMD (0x1002)
Device: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi, gfx1103_r1, LLVM 19.1.4, DRM 3.59, 6.12.11-amd64) (0x1900)

OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi, gfx1103_r1, LLVM 19.1.4, DRM 3.59, 6.12.11-amd64)

That's been the quick-thumb-in-the-wind test to know whether hardware 3d acceleration is running since just about forever. KSP probably doesn't actually use OpenGL -- I'd guess that it's probably using DirectX going through some emulation layer in Proton to Vulkan -- but if you've got something wonky like no usable 3D driver support for your GPU, that'll show it up.

EDIT2: There's also vulkaninfo in (package vulkan-tools in Debian trixie). It'll give you something like:

GPU id : 0 (AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV GFX1103_R1)):

EDIT3: If you're using Xorg and that doesn't show hardware acceleration in use, then the next thing that I'd probably look at is /var/log/Xorg.0.log to see what Xorg is saying regarding your GPU. I don't know much about diagnosing Wayland issues, as I've not been using it for all that long. The kernel log may also have interesting messages information (as root, journalctl -kb or dmesg) if the problem is at the kernel level.

[–] zamithal@programming.dev 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (13 children)

glxinfo | grep Vendor Vendor: Mesa (0xffffffff)

glxinfo | grep Device Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 17.0.6, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL rend" OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 17.0.6, 256 bits)

Let me know if that's not right. glxinfo dumps a lot of text but those are the only hits for your comment.

When I launch radeontop it prints this before launching, and then the output suggests it isn't working:

Unknown Radeon card. <= R500 won't work, new cards might.

All stats sit at 0.00% except for Memory Clock @ 9%.

EDIT:

xorg, not wayland

[–] tal@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

llvmpipe

Yeah, so it's not using hardware acceleration then -- your (poor) CPU has been trying to do all this in software emulation. I updated my comment above -- take a look in Xorg.0.log if you're on Xorg. My first guess is that you most-likely need newer drivers.

I know that these are new enough for the 7900 XTX; that's current for Debian trixie, just to provide a known-good point in terms of driver version.

$ dpkg -l|grep radeon
ii  libdrm-radeon1:amd64                                2.4.123-1                                 amd64        Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  libdrm-radeon1:i386                                 2.4.123-1                                 i386         Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  radeontop                                           1.4-2                                     amd64        Utility to show Radeon GPU utilization
ii  xserver-xorg-video-radeon                           1:22.0.0-1                                amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver

EDIT: You don't say what distro you're using. If you're using Debian stable -- I think I was when I first got my 7900 XTX, and IIRC they didn't have driver support in at that point, though that was a while back now -- you might check whether you have the backports repository present.

EDIT2: The first results for my search as to minimum supported version, though I wouldn't take this as authoritative:

https://old.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1301rph/radeon_7900_support/

Afaik 7900 needs preferably kernel 6.2+ and Mesa 23+.

EDIT3: Sorry, you did say which OS you were using -- PopOS.

[–] zamithal@programming.dev 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

uname -r

6.9.3-76060903-generic

I think this is the mesa version?

OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.1.0-devel

cat /etc/os-release

NAME="Pop!_OS"
VERSION="22.04 LTS"
ID=pop
ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"
PRETTY_NAME="Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS"
VERSION_ID="22.04"
HOME_URL="https://pop.system76.com/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://support.system76.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://system76.com/privacy"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy
UBUNTU_CODENAME=jammy
LOGO=distributor-logo-pop-os
[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago

Those are the kernel and Mesa versions, and at least assuming that the thing I linked above is correct as to minimum versions, you should be okay as to versions of those.

And if this is the out-of-box preinstalled OS from System76, I'd think that it'd be set up out of box for hardware acceleration. Hmm.

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