Fedora 43 KDE - Discrete GPU (Nvidia) not being utilized when playing Steam Games

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1

Hello,
I have had Fedora 43 KDE installed for a little over 4 months. In that time, I have been able to play my Steam games (with it utilizing my NVIDIA 4080S) no problem. I use MangoHud, and I can always see that my GPU is being utilized.

Recently I updated Fedora, and am currently on Kernel: Linux 6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64, KDE Plasma 6.6.2. Ever since that update, when I launch games in Steam, my MangoHud shows 0% utilization. Also when I check nvidia-smi I see that my GPU says off and is at 0%. Games that in the past utilized my GPU, no longer seem to be using it.

I looked at this thread: NVIDIA GPU not working to see if my GPU is functioning properly, but looking at the outputs below, I didn’t see anything obvious that was sticking out (I am not an advanced Linux user, so when I say obvious, I mean things like my default GPU is set to my integrated graphics for example).

inxi -Gxx

Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA AD103 [GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER] vendor: PNY driver: nvidia
    v: 580.126.18 arch: Lovelace pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: DP-2 empty: DP-3,DP-4,HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:2702
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raphael vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: none empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,Writeback-1 bus-ID: 0c:00.0
    chip-ID: 1002:164e temp: 38.0 C
  Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.9 compositor: kwin_wayland
    driver: gpu: nv_platform,nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: DP-2 model: MSI MPG321UX OLED res: 3840x2160 hz: 240 dpi: 140
    diag: 803mm (31.6")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2 drv: radeonsi
    device: 3 drv: swrast gbm: drv: nvidia surfaceless: drv: nvidia wayland:
    drv: nvidia x11: drv: nvidia inactive: device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 580.126.18
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080
    SUPER/PCIe/SSE2 display-ID: :0.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    driver: nvidia device-ID: 10de:2702 device: 1 type: integrated-gpu
    driver: mesa radv device-ID: 1002:164e device: 2 type: cpu
    driver: mesa llvmpipe device-ID: 10005:0000
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

dnf list --installed \*nvidia\*

Installed packages
akmod-nvidia.x86_64                        3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
kmod-nvidia-6.18.13-200.fc43.x86_64.x86_64 3:580.126.18-1.fc43 @commandline
kmod-nvidia-6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64.x86_64 3:580.126.18-1.fc43 @commandline
kmod-nvidia-6.18.7-200.fc43.x86_64.x86_64  3:580.126.18-1.fc43 @commandline
libva-nvidia-driver.x86_64                 0.0.16-1.fc43       <unknown>
nvidia-gpu-firmware.noarch                 20260221-1.fc43     updates
nvidia-modprobe.x86_64                     3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-persistenced.x86_64                 3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
nvidia-settings.x86_64                     3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64                 3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda.x86_64            3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.i686         3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs.x86_64       3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-kmodsrc.x86_64         3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686              3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.x86_64            3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-power.x86_64           3:580.126.18-1.fc43 rpmfusion-nonfree-nvidia-driver

lsmod | grep -iE "nvidia|nouveau"

nvidia_uvm           4206592  0
nvidia_drm            159744  128
nvidia_modeset       2265088  59 nvidia_drm
nvidia              15896576  1157 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_modeset
drm_ttm_helper         16384  3 amdgpu,nvidia_drm
video                  81920  4 asus_wmi,amdgpu,asus_nb_wmi,nvidia_modeset

modinfo -l nvidia
Dual MIT/GPL
modinfo -F version nvidia
580.126.18
mokutil --sb-state
SecureBoot disabled

If there is something I missed, I can get it added.

2

Thank you for the complete info about the issue. Most wait to be asked for details so it is refreshing and appreciated when it is all provided up front. :+1:

In that list of installed packages I see
libva-nvidia-driver that is not on my system.
I also see xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-xorg-libs that is missing.

My suggestion would be to adjust the installed packages to match a vanilla install of the rpmfusion nvidia driver (remove libva-nvidia-driver and install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-xorg-libs) then rebuild your driver with sudo akmods --rebuild --force

Following that reboot and see if it makes any difference.

1 Like
3

Hi Jeff V, thank you for the feedback. I did as you said, and that corrected it. I also want to point out for those who might see this in future searches, my MangoHud was incorrectly assigning my default GPU to my iGPU, which is why it showed 0% in MangoHud. How to correct that is for another discussion I suspect.

Thanks again Jeff!

4

Probably due to that missing xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-xorg-libs package

BTW, your GPUs are referenced as iGPU (integrated gpu) and dGPU (dedicated GPU). The system uses the iGPU for most things but should switch to the dGPU for graphics intensive apps. A user can also use switcherooctl to select the GPU to be used.