Poor gaming performance on Intel

General system Gaming, sound and video
1

My son and I have the exact same kind of computer except his is a year newer. He’s a gamer with Steam installed, and I am not and don’t, but I’m the only one with an account here. Both of us run fully updated EndeavourOS.

  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP Laptop 15-dy2xxx v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 87FE v: 57.20 serial: <superuser required>
    part-nu: 6M0Z7UA#ABA uuid: <superuser required> Firmware: UEFI vendor: AMI

He’s been researching an issue he’s been having with certain games crashing. Additional information: He began experiencing particular games crashing after he installed Linux Mint updates at the end of January, which was also the day after a Steam update. For multiple reasons, he made the decision to join the purple, hoping it would solve the problem, but the issue has persisted.

He says all the answers he’s found online revolve around Nvidia, but neither of us has an Nvidia graphics card. When we run inxi -G, the information from our computers is identical until API: Vulkan (complete results posted below), and under Info, he has the addition of gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi.

My question: Is it normal to have Nvidia mentioned here when there is no Nvidia card, and if not, how can we fix it? And if this is normal, what should be the next step in troubleshooting? Any advice appreciated, and my apologies if I haven’t provided the correct information.

inxi -G from my computer, no Steam 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech HP TrueVision HD Camera driver: uvcvideo
    type: USB
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting dri: iris gpu: i915
    resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast
    platforms: gbm,wayland,x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.3.4-arch1.1
    renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
  API: Vulkan Message: No Vulkan data available.
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor wl: wayland-info
    x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
inxi -G from his computer, with Steam 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech HP TrueVision HD Camera driver: uvcvideo
    type: USB
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting dri: iris gpu: i915
    resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast
    platforms: gbm,wayland,x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.3.4-arch1.1
    renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 drivers: intel surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
2

Maybe he has those packages installed? Either way, I don’t think it is related to your problem.

Could you share the specific issues you are seeing and the games they are occurring in?

3

I’d suspect he has those tools installed, that’s all.

Perhaps compare the output on your systems of:

yay -Q | grep nvidia
4

Thanks, y’all!

He’s going to get me list of specific issues. And possibly an account here. :face_with_tongue:

My results:

linux-firmware-nvidia 20260110-1

His results:

lib32-nvidia-utils 590.48.01-1
linux-firmware-nvidia 20260110-1
nvidia-inst 26.1.1-1
nvidia-open-dkms 590.48.01-2
nvidia-settings 590.48.01-1
nvidia-utils 590.48.01-2

But this is okay? Nothing needs to be uninstalled?

5

You can remove the nvidia packages if there is no nvidia card. They won’t hurt anything but they also won’t be useful.

6

He made his own account (Spookweave) and will be posting the rest himself. Thanks again!

7

List of games and oddly specific problems that began only after my end January update, for all of which the only info I can find online is the claim that my drivers must be out of date; even though every one of them used to run perfectly.

Doom Eternal: Crash on startup, doesn’t make it past opening video. Attempted launch commands to skip the launcher and opening videos, but to no effect.

Terraria: Game will freeze at seemingly random moments (though typically while in cave biomes) and never load or start working again. Incapable of any input during freeze, even alt-tab, and the only fix is to completely hard shutdown computer. After several minutes, the game will remain frozen but the screen will change to a shot from several minutes before the freeze occurred.

(Additionally, there’s an issue where enabling Proton will cause verifying file integrity to always fail to validate 1 file, but my research suggests that this is actually normal and I’d just never had a reason to verify Terraria’s files before. Mentioning it in case it’s somehow important though.)

Resident Evil 1 + 2, and also XCOM: Enemy Unknown: General graphics stuttering and glitching.

Bioshock 2 also has an issue with a repeated crash in one specific area, but I only tried playing it for the first time after I’d already switched from Mint to EndeavourOS, so I have no idea if that’s related at all.

8

you should post your pacman log to allow us to see what was updated. narrow it for the dates in question

9

The drivers are part of the kernel so it is pretty unlikely they are not up to date.

What version of mesa are you using(pacman -Q mesa) and what version of proton?

10

Welcome @Spookweave :smiley: :enos_flag:

The version of Proton you use on a per-game basis may be quite important. If your default in Steam is to use the latest, which is not unusual and generally ok, an update may seemingly break games that were previously working.

So for some games, it’s necessary to specify an older version of Proton. Figuring this out is largely a process of trial and error, rolling back the version till you hopefully achieve stable game play. You can also refer to community tips on ProtonDB, for what has worked for others.

I’d also recommend trying Proton GloriousEggroll (typically named ProtonGE) and perhaps leaning on that as your default Proton version. You can install that from the AUR as proton-ge-custom-bin.

Lastly, your integrated Intel GPU is far from being a gaming GPU, so expectations will need to remain tempered. It’s roughly the equivalent of a 15 year old Nvidia GPU (eg: Nvidia GTX 560).

11

Yes, trying proton-ge would definitely be my recommendation as well if you haven’t already tried it. That being said, I wouldn’t install it from the AUR. I would use a tool like protonplus or protonup-qt to manage and install your proton versions.

12

I don’t know how to do that, and I’m afraid that it wouldn’t help if I did because the update that marks the beginning of the problems was before I wiped my system so I could change my distro from Mint to Endeavour. I don’t know if that update is even still relevant to my problems due to my system wipe afterwards, if I’m being honest.

The only things I know for sure that persist between my current system and my update when I was using Mint is the Jan. 21st Steam client update and the issues in question.

13

pacman -Q mesa returns: mesa 1:25.3.5-1

As for proton version, I’ve tried just about everything, even GE protons. Latest, experimental, hotfix, and whatever GE variants people have mentioned on ProtonDB, and I’ve even deleted the compatdata file for games in between proton switching to prevent lingering file incompatibility.

@Bink Nvidia listed in inxi -G when there's no Nvidia card - #10 by Bink I’ve downloaded a lot of GEs from ProtonUp-QT and tried a ton of versions. I know my pc isn’t exactly powerful for gaming purposes, but I can’t get anything to run even half as well as I always ran them previously. I used to at least run Doom Eternal at 30-40 fps, but now it won’t even open.

14

What does pacman -Q | grep vulkan return?

15

You should have vulkan-intel and lib32-vulkan-intel installed.

16

pacman -Q | grep vulkan returns:

lib32-vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.341.0-1
lib32-vulkan-intel 1:25.3.5-1
lib32-vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.5-1
vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.341.0-1
vulkan-intel 1:25.3.5-1
vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.5-1
vulkan-tools 1.4.341.0-1

I don’t know what vulkan-intel and lib32-vulkan-intel are. Are they related to the Vulkan section in the Info Center application? I ran them in the terminal, but got “command not found”.

Sorry. I’m very new to Linux and I’m a little lost.

17

Those are drivers. Vulkan is a graphics technology. Proton/DXVK is a compatibility layer that converts DirectX to Vulkan. So basically, WIndows games running on Linux use Vulkan. So if you have the wrong Vulkan drivers, your performance will be terrible.

18

Ah, ok, that clarifies things. I knew that Vulkan Shaders improved performance but I wasn’t sure why. So, do I have the incorrect Vulkan drivers then? I know that when I installed Steam on Linux Mint, I had access to Vulkan Shaders from the get-go and I ran everything alright, but when I switched to Endeavour I had to manually download Vulkan. I didn’t think much of it, but did I maybe do it wrong and have to reinstall Vulkan a different way? I know that messing around with drivers is a bit risky and not for people who have no idea what they’re doing.

19

No, it looks like you have the right drivers so I am not sure what the source of your performance problems is.

I am going to rename this topic in hopes that it gets more attention from others.

20

Since I originally posted on this topic, I’ve been slowly making my way through all my games and finding individual fixes for each one. I never fixed any kind of general underlying issue, but everything I used to run I can run again through various launch options or proton finagling. Not certain what the deal ever was with all that, but I guess I’ll call my issues solved since everything works again.

Thank you everyone who responded!

@dalto You mentioned at the start of the topic that it’s fine to remove the Nvidia package stuff, even though there may not be any point. I don’t actually know how to do that though, so can you explain further please?

Every time I run yay, my system appears to try to update all of it (like getting stuck on a ==> dkms install --no-depmod nvidia error for several minutes right at the very end). Not particularly problematic, but inconvenient and I’d rather just get rid of them if possible.