NVIDIA / NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules

Application Window Artifacting in KDE Plasma

Open
#401 13 comments 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

bug
Dominant language
C
Stars
17.4k
Forks
1.9k
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

NVIDIA Open GPU Kernel Modules Version

520.56.06

Does this happen with the proprietary driver (of the same version) as well?

I cannot test this

Operating System and Version

Arch Linux

Kernel Release

(User-compiled / User-built)
Linux ARCH 6.0.1-270-tkg-pds #1 TKG SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu, 13 Oct 2022 19:23:40 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Hardware: GPU

GPU 0: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (UUID: GPU-6e80fac2-88da-6bda-dd46-6b2803c67aea)

Describe the bug

There's an issue that can occur that causes multiple open application windows to rapidly "flip" into view, even artifacting through previous frames to partially render themselves. Additionally, it also inverted some windows, and their window decorations, so that they were displayed upside-down (more easily noticed with the browser window running Discord) while this occurs.

I recognize that this can be difficult to understand through words, so IO managed to get a screen recording of what it looks like when this happens:

NOTE:
The artifacting is pretty aggressive, so don't watch the video if you're medically prone to flashing images.

screen-recording cloud link
(The file was too big to upload directly, so I used Mega cloud storage to record it)


Desktop Environment info:
Plasma version: 5.26.3
KDE Frameworks version: 5.99.0
Qt Version: 5.15.7
Window Manager: Kwin

To Reproduce

I'm not entirely sure how to replicate this in detail; it's happened to me several times with this version but there's one thing I do know that triggers it:
it happens every time I have the system running for a few days, I play some games (namely Persona 5 Royal via Proton), and exiting the game happens to trigger this odd issue.

That aside, I have this script run on KDE Plasma's startup in ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/nvidia-zink.sh:

#! /usr/bin/bash

if [ -f /usr/lib/libGLX_mesa.so ] && [ -x "$(command -v nvidia-smi > /dev/null 2>&1)" ]; then
    export __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME="mesa"
    export MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE="zink"
    export GALLIUM_DRIVER="zink"
fi

Although I must note this might not even be required; I recall attempting to use zink as a solution to this issue just to find that it apparently made no difference. Though, I also can't say for certain that Plasma is even respecting this script and doing as I instructed, thus this might not even be because of zink at all which is why I suspect this to be a driver issue.

So, in bullet-point format, that would be:

  • Have KDE Plasma installed
  • Place the above script at ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/
  • Restart the system
  • Log in
  • Use the system for a few days, play games regularly (in my case, Persona 5 Royal on Steam) with gamemode
  • Exit a game and have this issue start suddenly occurring
Bug Incidence

Sometimes

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz

nvidia-bug-report.log.gz

More Info

No response

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the attached nvidia-bug-report.log.gz, the KDE Plasma environment script at ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/nvidia-zink.sh, and the listed kernel, Plasma, Qt, and driver versions. Reproduce the issue after the described gaming session if possible; done should include a reliable trigger and a verified resolution or diagnosis for the window artifacting.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
bash, linux
Domain
computer-graphics, desktop, operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.