❗ Graphical Glitch in GNOME Apps after Installing NVIDIA Driver on Fedora 42 (GT 610 / 390xx)

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Hi everyone,

I’m using Fedora 42 Workstation and have recently installed the NVIDIA proprietary drivers from RPM Fusion (in my case, it’s the nvidia-390xx version). Since then, I’ve noticed a strange visual issue in some GNOME applications.

:puzzle_piece: The problem:

  • A shadow, edge, or border appears in the UI, cutting off or overlapping the first letter or icon in some apps (e.g., GNOME Terminal).
  • In GNOME Terminal, there’s no visual indication of which tab is active—the focus color or highlight is missing.
  • There’s text cutoff or visual glitches in window borders, especially on the left side.
  • This only started happening after installing the NVIDIA drivers.

:package: Driver install method:

I followed the usual process using RPM Fusion:

sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia-390xx xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-390xx
sudo akmods --force

:laptop: System info:

Please let me know if additional info is needed. For now, I can share the following to help diagnose:

❯ lspci | grep -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1)
❯ lsmod | grep nvidia

nvidia_drm             69632  1
nvidia_modeset       1343488  17 nvidia_drm
nvidia              19804160  637 nvidia_modeset
ipmi_msghandler       110592  2 ipmi_devintf,nvidia
video                  81920  1 nvidia
❯ echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE
x11
❯ gnome-shell --version
GNOME Shell 48.1
❯ uname -r
6.14.4-300.fc42.x86_64
❯ cat /etc/gdm/custom.conf | grep WaylandEnable
WaylandEnable=false
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❯

I’ve confirmed that the NVIDIA module is loaded and working. Everything else seems functional, but this UI glitch is really distracting. Has anyone else run into this with legacy NVIDIA cards like the GT 610 on Fedora 42?

Any help or workaround (GNOME tweak, theme fix, config change, etc.) would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

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2

For such an old NVIDIA chipset I’m staying on nouveau, and for the visual glitches you’re describing (and affecting mainly GTK4 apps) I have reverted from the newer graphics renderers to the old but stable GL:

echo GSK_RENDERER=gl | sudo tee -a /etc/environment > /dev/null
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The persist after adding that line there.

4

See also: [SOLVED] old GL RENDERER removed - Arch Linux Forums

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5

Thanks @vgaetera, vulkan fixed the graphical problems in Gnome GTK applications using this old nvidia graphic card in fedora 42.

Graphic card information

❯ lspci | grep VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1)

Add this line in /etc/environment

❯ sudo vim /etc/environment
GSK_RENDERER=vulkan
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I was under the impression vulkan was default since F40-41, unless NVIDIA drivers force something else?

Also iirc gl was removed and changed to opengl for the old OpenGL mode while ngl is still new OpenGL.

7

I was under the same impression too. On one of my older machines, I am enforcing GSK_RENDERER to gl since F40, given that the new default renderers (ngl in F40 and vulkan in F41, IIRC) were causing graphical glitches, mainly in the hamburger menu of some GTK4 apps.

I was also thinking that setting the GSK_RENDERER variable to vulkan would now be superfluous, given that it’s the default renderer in GNOME 47/48. Apparently, this is not (always) the case. I ran some tests on the above mentioned machine, and while enforcing GSK_RENDERER to gl, I noticed some minor glitches in one app (Papers), then while not setting any renderer as env. variable at all, the glitches were noticeable in another app (Newsflash), then setting the variable to vulkan, neither of the previous glitches were visible. So maybe not all GTK4 apps are using (are served) the “global” renderer?