Fedora 40 KDE Plasma Slow Performance when Using Nvidia Drivers

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1

Hi there! I am new to Fedora, and a newbie Linux user in general (particularly when troubleshooting!). I come from Ubuntu, and Windows before that.

I’m interested in resolving my graphical issue, but I’m also really interested in the systems at play here, so any follow-up documentation would be greatly appreciated!

Overview

I am encountering issues when trying to get the official Nvidia drivers working for gaming.

I’ve attempted to follow RPM Fusion - Howto/NVIDIA[1] to get the non-free Nvidia drivers working for gaming, but when I (attempt to) follow the process, I’m having issues with overall graphical performance. It on the login screen, which is extremely slow to respond - I have to wait seconds between key presses to get my password accurately entered.

Once I’ve logged in, performance does not improve. The mouse is laggy, and overall graphical performance is poor enough that I can’t even launch most games (when Team Fortress 2 is borked, you know you’ve got a problem…).

I’ve managed to get back to a workable state by uninstalling the Nvidia drivers and reverting to nouveau. However, reattempting the RPM Fusion guide leads to similar results.

Current specs:

  • OS: Fedora 40 (KDE Plasma)
  • Kernel: 6.10.5-200.fc40.x86_64
  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

Diagnostic Outputs

Borrowing from similar questions (namely, 78707, 117675, and 123629), I’ve got the following outputs[2] for several commonly requested commands.

  • modinfo -F version nvidia output:

    output 
    $ modinfo -F version nvidia 
560.35.03

  • nvidia-smi output:

    output 
    $ nvidia-smi
NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

  • inxi -Fzx output:

    output 
    inxi -Fzx
System:
  Kernel: 6.10.5-200.fc40.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 2.41-37.fc40
  Desktop: GNOME v: 46.4 Distro: Fedora Linux 40 (KDE Plasma)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Gigabyte product: Z170X-UD3 v: N/A
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Gigabyte model: Z170X-UD3-CF v: x.x serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI-[Legacy]: American Megatrends v: F2 date: 07/27/2015
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-6600K bits: 64 type: MCP
    arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2339 high: 3881 min/max: 800/3900 cores: 1: 800 2: 3877
    3: 3881 4: 800 bogomips: 27999
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] vendor: eVga.com. driver: nouveau
    v: kernel arch: Pascal bus-ID: 01:00.0 temp: 41.0 C
  Device-2: Logitech C920 PRO HD Webcam driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
    type: USB bus-ID: 1-5.1.1:5
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.20.14 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.2 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting dri: swrast gpu: nouveau resolution: 2560x1440
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,swrast platforms:
    active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland,device-0
  API: OpenGL v: 4.5 vendor: mesa v: 24.1.7 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes
    renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 18.1.6 256 bits)
  API: Vulkan Message: No Vulkan data available.
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP104 High Definition Audio vendor: eVga.com.
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
  Device-3: Logitech C920 PRO HD Webcam driver: snd-usb-audio,uvcvideo
    type: USB bus-ID: 1-5.1.1:5
  Device-4: Razer USA Seiren Mini driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
    type: USB bus-ID: 1-5.2:4
  API: ALSA v: k6.10.5-200.fc40.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.7 status: active
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: Gigabyte driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
  IF: enp0s31f6 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.02 TiB used: 234.83 GiB (22.5%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM003-1ER162 size: 931.51 GiB
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Kingston model: SV300S37A120G size: 111.79 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 1.02 TiB used: 234.36 GiB (22.5%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 481.2 MiB (49.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sdb2
  ID-3: /home size: 1.02 TiB used: 234.36 GiB (22.5%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 23.0 C pch: 30.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau
    temp: 41.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 0
Info:
  Memory: total: 32 GiB available: 31.29 GiB used: 5.2 GiB (16.6%)
  Processes: 520 Uptime: 37m Init: systemd target: graphical (5)
  Packages: 34 Compilers: clang: 18.1.6 gcc: 14.2.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
    inxi: 3.3.34

  • lsmod | grep -iE 'nouveau|nvidia' output:

    output 
    $ lsmod | grep -iE 'nouveau|nvidia'
nouveau              3923968  3
drm_gpuvm              45056  1 nouveau
drm_exec               12288  2 drm_gpuvm,nouveau
gpu_sched              65536  1 nouveau
i2c_algo_bit           20480  1 nouveau
drm_ttm_helper         12288  1 nouveau
ttm                   114688  2 drm_ttm_helper,nouveau
drm_display_helper    278528  1 nouveau
mxm_wmi                12288  1 nouveau
video                  81920  1 nouveau
wmi                    32768  4 video,intel_wmi_thunderbolt,mxm_wmi,nouveau

  1. I’ve also used other guides with similar steps ↩︎

  2. I was able to get better performance when using Gnome with Xorg, which is why you’ll see Gnome mentioned in some of the command outputs instead of KDE Plasma ↩︎

2

You are not runningf the rpmfusion it ways you are running driver: nouveau.

Usually there are 2 reasons for this.

  1. You have secure boot enabled but have not setup a signing key for the rpmfusion drivers.
  2. You rebooted before the new rpmfusion drivers completed building.

The rpmfusion how to has section on setting up the signing key, or turn off secure boot in the BIOS.

If you do add a signing key then you will need to force the drivers to be rebuilt. sudo akmods --rebuild --force

2 Likes
3

Thank you for the response!

Looking into the Secure Boot issue, I started to investigate my boot configuration. Somewhere along the way, I managed to get into booting via BIOS boot instead of UEFI. One thing led to another with the live disks and… I am now on a fresh reinstall.

I’ve only been on Fedora a month, so not much was lost. Even better, I spent the previous month prior building a personal Ansible playbook to automate my workstation setup, so getting back in shape shouldn’t be too painful. I’ll get the Nvidia drivers straightened out prior to that chore.

Thanks for the guidance about inxi - I can use that to quickly identify what what driver is running, which is great!

4

Quick update after the reinstall and re-execution of the RPM Fusion guidance - I am able to confirm I am running the Nvidia driver through inxi -Fzx. Thanks again for the guidance!

I do have a somewhat related question. Since I’m on the KDE spin, I understand that I’m on Wayland, not X11. I’m not deeply familiar with what that completely means, but the RPM Fusion - Howto/NVIDIA section on Wayland has me wondering if I’m volunteering for some unnecessary graphical headaches. Should I consider using the GNOME spin instead while I’m on an Nvidia graphics card?

5

Hi and welcome to this forum.
Using the KDE spin on Wayland with nvidia drivers work perfectly, I do it all the time.
On Fedora Wayland has replaced X11 which is old and not secure. It has taken a long time before Wayland was ready for the general public but now it is.
Just work with your computer as you want to work with it and have fun.

1 Like