GPU not used by steam games Fedora 42 [KDE]

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1

Hi

I’ve been struggling for few days with an issue from my GPU.
I’ve recently switched back to Fedora, so I my system installation is quite fresh.
I installed nvidia drivers following:

Unfortunately whenever I start game on steam with compatibility mode(proton) It seems that those games are not using my GPU(RTX2060) since they are running super slow, like 2 fps. I’ve checked it with nvidia-smi and the game really isn’t listed there. Of course the PID is listed in top and ps, so it’s not a matter of different naming I guess since the same PID is not visible under nvidia.

Here are some details regarding my system:
I’m using Fedora 42, KDE.

inxi -Fzxx 
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA TU106 [GeForce RTX 2060 Rev. A] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: nvidia v: 575.57.08 arch: Turing pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    ports: active: none off: HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1,DP-2,DVI-D-1
    bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1f08This text will be in a footnote
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.16 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.6
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch
    d-rect: 3840x1080 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-1 pos: right model: Dell P2722H res: 1920x1080 hz: 60
    dpi: 82 diag: 686mm (27")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-2 pos: primary,left model: Dell P2722H res: 1920x1080
    hz: 60 dpi: 82 diag: 686mm (27")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: nvidia device: 2 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: 575.57.08
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060/PCIe/SSE2
    display-ID: :0.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.313 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    driver: nvidia device-ID: 10de:1f08 device: 1 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
mokutil --sb-state 
SecureBoot disabled
Platform is in Setup Mode
echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE 
wayland
nvidia-smi 
on Jun  9 22:31:19 2025       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 575.57.08              Driver Version: 575.57.08      CUDA Version: 12.9     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   43C    P8             15W /  170W |     668MiB /   6144MiB |      1%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

P. S.

I’m pretty noobish, but I do want to learn something and figure out this problem rather then installing fresh system or switching to Ubuntu. I’m trying to stick to KDE for the customization problem, but I know that majority of folks are using GNOME, I’m not sure if that complicate stuff. In any case.

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi update after less then 30 min!

I’m leaving this here in case someone stumble on the same issue.

So I figured out that I installed steam from Discovery and since it’s installing packages from flatpak and from what I heard flatpak uses docker for running programs I thought I will give it a try and try installing steam directly.

And that did the trick. After installing my game with proton compatibility layer, it’s running smoothly and is visible in nvidia-smi.

Also there is a post on reedit that seems to be confirming this(wayland comment).

Hopefully this will help someone!

3

Not true, docker is not used. flatpak has it’s own ways to containerise.

I have found that Steam from RPM is reliable as well.
Never tried the flatpak.

4

Installing the non-Flatpak Steam like you did is a totally valid choice.

However, the Reddit thread you linked is over 3 years old and the information is outdated. Flatpak runtimes now do support nVidia on Wayland.

Can you try this command to see what driver support you have in Flatpak?

flatpak list --runtime | grep nvidia

On my system I see:

nvidia-575-57-08 org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-575-57-08 1.4 system

This matches the version of the driver I have installed (575.57.08).

If you don’t see that, then a flatpak update should install the right runtime components for your installed drivers.

5

Hi,

Thanks @barryascott explaining the flatpak, I was not aware of that.

@pg-tips Indeed something must be off, since the:

Doesn’t show anything.

Also

Says there’s nothing to update.

Anyway thanks!

6

I read that I need to have an app installed from flatpak in order to see anything so after installing something it now says

>> flatpak list --runtime | grep nvidia

nvidia-575-57-08        org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-575-57-08            1.4     system