this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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I purchased a system76 Thelio Mira Elite With a AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. I kinda regret not going with Nvidia at this point but it is what it is. I primarily use it as a developer workstation, but want to play games on it as well so I can be rid of my windows box.

I didn't expect it to be able to play the latest and greatest games but I did expect it to be able to play older titles reasonably well. Games launch from steam and seem to work, but I'm getting between 0 and 10 fps on the title screen of Kerbal Space Program. Other games are similarly functional but poorly performing.

Where do I start? How can I ensure my GPU is being leveraged? Is this as good as it gets?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

llvmpipe

Yeah, so it's not using hardware acceleration then -- your (poor) CPU has been trying to do all this in software emulation. I updated my comment above -- take a look in Xorg.0.log if you're on Xorg. My first guess is that you most-likely need newer drivers.

I know that these are new enough for the 7900 XTX; that's current for Debian trixie, just to provide a known-good point in terms of driver version.

$ dpkg -l|grep radeon
ii  libdrm-radeon1:amd64                                2.4.123-1                                 amd64        Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  libdrm-radeon1:i386                                 2.4.123-1                                 i386         Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  radeontop                                           1.4-2                                     amd64        Utility to show Radeon GPU utilization
ii  xserver-xorg-video-radeon                           1:22.0.0-1                                amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver

EDIT: You don't say what distro you're using. If you're using Debian stable -- I think I was when I first got my 7900 XTX, and IIRC they didn't have driver support in at that point, though that was a while back now -- you might check whether you have the backports repository present.

EDIT2: The first results for my search as to minimum supported version, though I wouldn't take this as authoritative:

https://old.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1301rph/radeon_7900_support/

Afaik 7900 needs preferably kernel 6.2+ and Mesa 23+.

EDIT3: Sorry, you did say which OS you were using -- PopOS.

[–] zamithal 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

dpkg -l|grep radeon

ii  libdrm-amdgpu-radeon1:amd64             1:2.4.120.60103-1787201.22.04                                amd64        Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  libdrm-radeon1:amd64                    2.4.120-1pop1~1706792268~22.04~bfb54ee                       amd64        Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  libdrm-radeon1:i386                     2.4.120-1pop1~1706792268~22.04~bfb54ee                       i386         Userspace interface to radeon-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
ii  radeontop                               1.4-1                                                        amd64        Utility to show Radeon GPU utilization
ii  xserver-xorg-video-radeon               1:19.1.0-2ubuntu1                                            amd64        X.Org X server -- AMD/ATI Radeon display driver

I don't know exactly what i'm looking for in the xorg logs... cat /var/log/Xorg.*.log | grep "EE"

cat /var/log/Xorg.*.log | grep "WW"

[  5068.047] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[  5068.047] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev

cat /var/log/Xorg.*.log | grep "gpu"

[  5067.696] (II) Applying OutputClass "AMDgpu" to /dev/dri/card1
[  5067.696] 	loading driver: amdgpu
[  5067.696] (==) Matched amdgpu as autoconfigured driver 0
[  5067.696] (II) LoadModule: "amdgpu"
[  5067.696] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/amdgpu_drv.so
[  5067.696] (II) Module amdgpu: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
	All GPUs supported by the amdgpu kernel driver

sudo journalctl -kb | grep gpu

Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: [drm] amdgpu kernel modesetting enabled.
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: Virtual CRAT table created for CPU
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: Topology: Add CPU node
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: enabling device (0006 -> 0007)
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Fetched VBIOS from VFCT
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: ATOM BIOS: 113-APM7199-002
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: CP RS64 enable
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: [drm:jpeg_v4_0_early_init [amdgpu]] JPEG decode is enabled in VM mode
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: vgaarb: deactivate vga console
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Trusted Memory Zone (TMZ) feature not supported
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: MEM ECC is not presented.
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SRAM ECC is not presented.
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: VRAM: 16368M 0x0000008000000000 - 0x00000083FEFFFFFF (16368M used)
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: GART: 512M 0x00007FFF00000000 - 0x00007FFF1FFFFFFF
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: [drm] amdgpu: 16368M of VRAM memory ready
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: [drm] amdgpu: 64286M of GTT memory ready.
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: [drm] GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Will use PSP to load VCN firmware
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: reserve 0x1300000 from 0x83fc000000 for PSP TMR
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: RAP: optional rap ta ucode is not available
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SECUREDISPLAY: securedisplay ta ucode is not available
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: smu driver if version = 0x0000003d, smu fw if version = 0x00000040, smu fw program = 0, smu fw version = 0x004e7e00 (78.126.0)
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SMU driver if version not matched
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SMU is initialized successfully!
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: [drm:jpeg_v4_0_hw_init [amdgpu]] JPEG decode initialized successfully.
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: HMM registered 16368MB device memory
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: kfd kfd: amdgpu: Allocated 3969056 bytes on gart
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: kfd kfd: amdgpu: Total number of KFD nodes to be created: 1
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: Virtual CRAT table created for GPU
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu: Topology: Add dGPU node [0x744c:0x1002]
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: kfd kfd: amdgpu: added device 1002:744c
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: SE 6, SH per SE 2, CU per SH 8, active_cu_number 80
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring gfx_0.0.0 uses VM inv eng 0 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.0.0 uses VM inv eng 1 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.1.0 uses VM inv eng 4 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.2.0 uses VM inv eng 6 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.3.0 uses VM inv eng 7 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.0.1 uses VM inv eng 8 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.1.1 uses VM inv eng 9 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.2.1 uses VM inv eng 10 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring comp_1.3.1 uses VM inv eng 11 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring sdma0 uses VM inv eng 12 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring sdma1 uses VM inv eng 13 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring vcn_unified_0 uses VM inv eng 0 on hub 8
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring vcn_unified_1 uses VM inv eng 1 on hub 8
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring jpeg_dec uses VM inv eng 4 on hub 8
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: ring mes_kiq_3.1.0 uses VM inv eng 14 on hub 0
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: amdgpu: Using BACO for runtime pm
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: [drm] Initialized amdgpu 3.57.0 20150101 for 0000:03:00.0 on minor 2
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: fbcon: amdgpudrmfb (fb0) is primary device
Feb 15 08:59:51 pop-os kernel: amdgpu 0000:03:00.0: [drm] fb0: amdgpudrmfb frame buffer device
Feb 15 08:59:52 pop-os kernel: RAPL PMU: hw unit of domain pp1-gpu 2^-14 Joules
Feb 15 08:59:52 pop-os kernel: snd_hda_intel 0000:03:00.1: bound 0000:03:00.0 (ops amdgpu_dm_audio_component_bind_ops [amdgpu])
...
[–] zamithal 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

uname -r

6.9.3-76060903-generic

I think this is the mesa version?

OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.1.0-devel

cat /etc/os-release

NAME="Pop!_OS"
VERSION="22.04 LTS"
ID=pop
ID_LIKE="ubuntu debian"
PRETTY_NAME="Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS"
VERSION_ID="22.04"
HOME_URL="https://pop.system76.com"
SUPPORT_URL="https://support.system76.com"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues"
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="https://system76.com/privacy"
VERSION_CODENAME=jammy
UBUNTU_CODENAME=jammy
LOGO=distributor-logo-pop-os
[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

Those are the kernel and Mesa versions, and at least assuming that the thing I linked above is correct as to minimum versions, you should be okay as to versions of those.

And if this is the out-of-box preinstalled OS from System76, I'd think that it'd be set up out of box for hardware acceleration. Hmm.