I am using the Greenboost Gaming Suite (based on Greenboost and Greenboost-Gaming repos) to try and optimize my system for gaming (I have a 30-series Nvidia GPU with limited VRAM, which Greenboost can help with). One feature of the Greenboost suite is that it can detect installed games from Steam, Heroic, etc. and retrieve the latest compatible DLSS from Nvidia’s git repo for a given game. However, when I try to run a DLSS upgrade pull for any of my Steam games, I get the following error output:
[py-err] Traceback (most recent call last):
[py-err] File "<string>", line 11, in <module>
[py-err] result = d.download_all_known(progress=_p)
[py-err] File "/usr/lib/greenboost-gaming/gb_gaming/dlss_updater.py", line 1229, in download_all_known
[py-err] LIBRARIES_DIR.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
[py-err] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[py-err] File "/usr/lib/python3.14/pathlib/__init__.py", line 1011, in mkdir
[py-err] os.mkdir(self, mode)[py-err] ~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^
[py-err] PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/usr/lib/greenboost-gaming/libraries'
[error] Sync failed , skipping game DLL update.
I am assuming this has something to do with the write permissions for the Greenboost application (it runs as [user]by default) so I tried launching the application from terminal as [sudo]. However, when I run the Greenboost suite as [sudo], it can’t detect any of my games.
Recognizing this is kind of a niche application but also still trying to figure out how to figure out permissions on Endeavour/Arch/Linux, I thought I’d put it to this forum how I might (a) give Greenboost as [user] permission to write into necessary folder to upgrade DLSS, (b) find out how Greenboost as [sudo] can detect my games, or (c) both.
(I am also going to flag this in the git repo for Greenboost-Gaming, but am hoping for a workaround while I wait for the dev to get to it!)
I installed both the Gaming Suite and the prerequisite Greenboost-core from the AUR as trying to clone it from git kept trying to run an install script which will not run on Arch:
It was only recently created and disowned just one day later. In other words, caution and a tempering of expectations are probably required.
The installer should have provided you with these instructions:
GreenBoost Gaming Suite installed.
Memory-tiering group. The greenboost group was created so that a game launch can flag gaming_mode in the GreenBoost kernel module. Add yourself and log back in for it to take effect:
sudo usermod -aG greenboost "$USER"
The kernel module itself comes from the optional ‘greenboost’ package.
Steam compatibility tool. “GreenBoost Proton” and “GreenBoost Proton Experimental” are installed in /usr/share/steam/compatibilitytools.d. If Steam does not list them in Properties → Compatibility, restart Steam, or point it at the directory:
The Vulkan layer is implicit and only activates when GREENBOOST_VULKAN=1. The launcher sets it where a game is involved; the GUI itself deliberately does not (otherwise Steam and everything it spawns would inherit it too).
NVIDIA + Wayland: the GUI would otherwise die at startup with Gdk-Message: Error 71 (Protocol error) dispatching to Wayland display. so the launcher sets WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 for the webview only. If the window still comes up blank or half-drawn, try one of:
The second keeps GPU acceleration, but the NVIDIA libraries read it, so Steam and the games you launch from this Suite inherit it too and may show buffer artefacts. Once a driver/GTK fix lands, opt out of the built-in one with GREENBOOST_WEBKIT_GPU=1.
Start the suite with greenboost-gaming, or from the application grid.
Docs: /usr/share/doc/greenboost-gaming-suite/README.md
Thanks for looking at this. I ultimately decided that this tool is too unstable for my use-case right now and was a little paranoid about the orphaned packages on the AUR given recent news. I’ve decided to abandon attempting to get this to work and will maybe revisit when the project is more developed.
Be aware that this greenboost stuff is actually only a few months old and at least the gaming suite is only at v0.2
So, my best guess is that you may want to look into goverlay, as it bundles not only mangohud but also optiscaler, which would allow the use of the latest dlss fsr or xess versions, totally agostic of the actual GPU that is being in use on your system, one should be able to use fsr or xess even on nVidia hardware if I’m not mistaken. Only DLSS should be exclusive to nVidia.
Anyway, goverlay keeps track of the latest versions of those upscalers / frame gen. And does also provide frame interpolation options as an alternative to upscaling / frame generation as the latest addition to the functionality of goverlay.
It also allows the most common tweaks to be configured in a dedicated environment that could be used in steams launch options.
In terms of actual runtime optimizations, ferals gamemode is still a valid choice, but only installing the package out of the extra repository isn’t sufficient, you’ll need to add your user account to the gamemode group and check the actual renice settings, as explained in the gamemode article in the Arch wiki.