Desktop Lag/Game Crashes After Switching To AMD GPU

General system Newbie
1

Hey y’all, first of all Happy New Year.

I just upgraded from a GTX 1080 to a 9060 XT and I’m having some issues off the bat.
Initially the GUI wouldn’t load due to config issues and I had some issues with corrupt files (probably left over from some bad RAM I’ve since removed), but the first was easy to resolve and I think I’ve resolved the second since it boots at all now. Not sure how to verify for sure though.

However, now I’m running into lag on my desktop (mouse lag, videos stuttering, etc) and can’t seem to launch any sort of game (they all crash before a launcher or the game window ever opens) and I really have no idea how to fix it.
Don’t know if it’s a driver thing (from what I’ve read as long as I make sure I have a couple packages installed all should be good there), a compatibility issue between my DE/Xorg/AMD, something that got messed up while fixing my previous issues (I did re-install literally every package), or who knows what else.

I’ve tried messing with compiler settings, adding a couple needed AMD packages, deleting some gnome package that apparently causes issues (I don’t use gnome but apparently it comes installed with Endeavor anyways or something), deleting problematic compatibility stuff from Steam’s files as well as old proton versions, etc and I’m just at a loss.

Any help appreciated.

Here’s my inxi -F to get started.

System:
Host: Makhnovshchina Kernel: 6.18.2-arch2-1 arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.1 Distro: EndeavourOS
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: Z370-A PRO (MS-7B48) v: 1.0
serial:  Firmware: UEFI vendor: American Megatrends
v: 2.D0 date: 07/06/2024
CPU:
Info: 6-core model: Intel Core i7-8700K bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache:
L2: 1.5 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/4700 cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 9: 800 10: 800 11: 800 12: 800
Graphics:
Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 44 [Radeon RX 9060 XT]
driver: amdgpu v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9 driver: X:
loaded: amdgpu unloaded: modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
resolution: 1: 3440x1440~100Hz 2: 2560x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,radeonsi,swrast
platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 25.3.2-arch1.1
renderer: AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT (radeonsi gfx1200 LLVM 21.1.6 DRM 3.64
6.18.2-arch2-1)
Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo de: xfce4-display-settings
gpu: nvidia-smi x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 200 Series PCH HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 48 HDMI/DP Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-3: JMTek LLC. USB PnP Audio Device
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
Device-4: SteelSeries ApS Arctis 5
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
API: ALSA v: k6.18.2-arch2-1 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.9 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
driver: r8169
IF: enp5s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 30:9c:23:9d:99:d8
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 3.78 TiB used: 849.95 GiB (22.0%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: WD BLACK SN850X 2000GB
size: 1.82 TiB
ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0A-00SM50
size: 931.51 GiB
ID-3: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EZEX-08WN4A0
size: 931.51 GiB
ID-4: /dev/sdc vendor: SanDisk model: SDSSDA120G size: 111.79 GiB
ID-5: /dev/sdd vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Glide size: 29.82 GiB
type: USB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 913.85 GiB used: 259.47 GiB (28.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 4 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) file: /swapfile
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 32.0 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 49.0 C
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 5
Info:
Memory: total: 32 GiB available: 31.28 GiB used: 3.9 GiB (12.5%)
Processes: 413 Uptime: 12m Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.40
2

Idk, whenever I want to do a hardware swap (which includes complete different vendor) I would do a complete clean reinstall of the os. To make shure nothing is left of the old hardware drivers and configs.

But if for whatever reason you don’t want to do that, make shure to remove anything nvidia related. Like in your inxi it says nvidia-smi is still installed. So it could be that there is still drivers (nvidia, nvidia-open, nvidia-open-dkms…) or libraries (lib32-..) or whatever that causes issues. If you didn’t delete them. So if you didn’t do that, do it. And if you did, look if there is nvidia related stuff that you don’t need (like the nvidia-smi that I see in your inxi). Don’t give your system an identity crises.

(but best and easiest thing to do would still be a clean reinstall of the os. Backup your stuff and start over with a flashy new install, but that’s my personal preference for this situation specifically)

3

Not unless you installed Gnome or some Gnome packages.

4 
Info: Tools: api: eglinfo,glxinfo de: xfce4-display-settings
gpu: nvidia-smi x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

This is strange to me. Did you not remove all the Nvidia packages?

5

@ComradeSmartass
Did you install vulkan-radeon and 32 bit lib files and set up according to the Arch Wiki?

1 Like
6

For gaming, you need to install vulkan-radeon and lib32-vulkan-radeon.

Take a look at cat /proc/cmdline and make sure there is nothing nvidia-related there.

This highly unneeded on Linux. Since the majority of the drivers are in the kernel, there is very little you need to do when switching hardware.

7

Really hoping that isn’t the solution because having to back up all my files, configs, passwords, etc is a pain.

8

I haven’t as far as I know, but xdg-desktop-portal-gnome was there anyways.

9

@ricklinux @dalto Gonna go do that now, but if that’s just a driver issue for gaming I highly doubt it’s the cause of my desktop lag when I’m not running anything besides firefox and discord.

10

vulkan isn’t only for gaming.

11

This is what i have on KDE.

Screenshot_20260101_153748
Screenshot_20260101_153748788×569 47.3 KB

12

How do I do this?

13

I think it’s a typo

cat /proc/cmdline

14

You literally type cat /proc/cmdline in a terminal

15

I figured, just didn’t notice the typo in your original post and didn’t realize why it wasn’t working.

1 Like
16

[smartass@Makhnovshchina ~]$ cat /proc/cmdline
initrd=\81aefe4219ad495f98df7d43692379d0\6.18.2-arch2-1\initrd nvme_load=YES nowatchdog rw root=UUID=2190f2e1-be29-4687-a507-ff295566d4b7 nvidia_drm.modeset=1 systemd.machine_id=81aefe4219ad495f98df7d43692379d0

”nvidia_drm.modeset=1"
Hmmmmm :eyes:

17

Yeah, remove that. Although, I don’t think it will matter that much if you don’t have the card and drivers installed anymore.

18

Not to be a broken record, but how do I do that?

19

If you are using systemd-boot, edit /etc/kernel/cmdline and then run sudo reinstall-kernels.

If you are using grub, edit /etc/default/grub and then run sudo mkconfig-grub /boot/grub/grub.cfg

20

Not related to your issue:
You should have a backup anyway, a SSD (as any technical component) can go bonkers any time.