My previous thread about this (with more log pastebins) is here.
So, to restate the issue: ever since kernel 6.4+, games running in Proton have been stuck around 16-30 FPS when normally I’d be getting 60-120. It is very specifically 3D-rendered Windows games running in Proton, everything else works fine (2D of any stripe, native Linux 3D games, and any other flavor of Wine). But! Changing Proton versions has no effect. Switching between amdvlk and vulkan-radeon has no effect, either just uninstalling one for the other or switching using amd-vulkan-prefixes. X11 or Wayland doesn’t matter, and using linux or linux-zen technically doesn’t either.
Downgrading to 6.3.9 fixes things without having to make any other changes. If I reinstall xf86-video-amdgpu, mesa, and amdvlk / vulkan-radeon things are also fixed… but only for linux and not linux-zen. And when I upgrade the kernel again everything breaks, again. (I first fixed things this way on kernel 6.4.9, and then things broke upgrading to 6.4.10. Downgrading back to 6.4.9 did not fix things.)
So, I could just keep reinstalling my graphics drivers after every kernel upgrade as a workaround, but I’d much rather figure what specifically the problem is. Unfortunately, I’m just kinda mystified over here and have no good ideas. Please someone tell me I’m just missing something incredibly obvious?
Did you try to reinstall your system? It’s weird that reinstalling the driver fixes it. Maybe you did something at some point that messed something up. Weird.
I had some problems too. Couldn’t figure out why the frames were so trash. I ended up disabling CSM in BIOS, enabling resize bar, then disabling CSM again, some tweaks in kernel params so that my VM would boot and reinstalled kernels. Now frames are OK again. (Except in GTA 5 Online they’re always kinda bad, less than 100 fps.)
I can confirm this issues with my machine as well (kernel 6.4+). Downgrading back to kernel 6.3.9 fixes this issue for me. Did not yet try reinstalling drives as mentioned above.
Observations with kernel 6.4+, ryzen 5800X3D, RX6900XT:
Launching games (for example Wobbly Life) with proton (GE-Proton8-11) results in a very high GPU usage (90-99%) which in result more than halfs the expected FPS (expected usage should be around 20-30% for this game). Switchting the kernel to 6.3.9 gets rid of the 90-99% usage and restores FPS and usage back to normal.
Hooray that’s it not just me! I guess? I am noticing that abnormal GPU usage too - hitting around 98% where normally it’d be at most 70%. I’ll go back and pay more attention if it’s happening in other use cases.
edit
Alright, new info!
So! Let’s amend the “category of game this is affecting” to “any 3D-rendered game.” With 6.4+ in a game, Proton or native, I see that abnormal maxed-out GPU usage when it should only be around 70%. In a native Linux game I assume it’s less noticeable on the FPS front because less overhead (my bad for only paying attention to FPS like a chump.)
Have also confirmed reinstalling at least mesa and the vulkan package of choice fixes things until a kernel update. Specifically, I accidentally upgraded linux-zen back to 6.4.10 when reinstalling the graphics drivers, and nothing was fixed. Reinstalled again afterwards, and now it is (normal FPS, normal GPU usage).
So I guess that’s something? Is there a dev out there with more know-how than I that could use this information to their advantage?
another edit
Okay! I’ve reached peak weird and need to have a lie-down.
Reinstalling the graphics drivers? That fix only persists through a Restart. After a full Shut Down? It stops working again.
For now you should use the lts kernel and hope the new kernel will be fixed at some point. Or try going through your logs and see if you notice something weird and make a bug report. How to get logs.
! Thank you to whichever devs fixed it!