Each time I try AMD graphics, something is fucked for me. Back with fglrx, fglrx just sucked, so I used Nvidia. Then I had an AMD right around when they finally had opensource drivers, but it was still buggy as hell. So I went with Nvidia again (first a GTX 790, then a GTX 1060). In the meantime I had a new work notebook where I also went with an AMD APU, and had driver crashes for a long time when I was in video calls and it had to decode multiple streams. That thankfully stabilized with Linux 6.4.
Since sooo many people in the community swear by AMD, I thought “dammit, let’s try it again for my new desktop” and got an 7800rx … and I have to reboot ~5 times until I finally make it to a running xserver or wayland session. Apparently I am hit by this problem (at least I hope so). But that doesn’t even read nice … the fix seems to be to revert another fix for powermanagement. So I either have a mostly non-booting card or suboptimal power management.
I start to regret having chosen AMD … again :-/ I seem to be cursed.
This reads like an alternate reality for me. I bought a new 3060 ti and using wayland with it is nearly impossible for me. I tried in ubuntu and had tons of errors and in debian/kde it wont even login without x11 enabled.
When you go to protondb.com every game has tons of fixes for nvidia cards and every forum has fixes for nvidia cards while amd mostly works oob.
Try out COSMIC with the NVIDIA 550 beta driver.
No. I‘m not being dictated by my gpu what OS I can use.
Nvidia is just shit.
Then have fun with your bad experience. NVIDIA is working quite well in Wayland on COSMIC.
Great that it works well on COSMIC. They don’t want to use COSMIC and that’s their choice. You don’t have to be so salty about it.
No I wont. I‘ll just sell the gpu at some point.
The guy that’s shilling out cosmic DE is also a lead developer in the company making it lmfao
Self shill lol
oh man, reading the comments fill me with fear, as I just ordered a new computer after stretching my old laptop for 8 years or so. I was super close to getting an AMD but went with Nvidia in the end… but so much bad juju in the comments for Nvidia too…
You may wish to pick a distro that makes a point of nvidia compatibility.
I use nobara, who have a few options in the welcome script specifically to improve compatibility with nvidia. I’ve specifically heard popOS mentioned several times as one people have liked with nvidia as well.
Some only ship with or distribute alternative open source nvidia drivers that tank performance.
Yeah, until this thread I was convinced I should stay away from nvidia GPUs when building a new PC with Linux in mind, but I’m not so sure anymore.
RX 6700 XT here… once I refreshed the thermal pads and the thermal paste, it works great in Windows and Linuxes… Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Bazzite (Immutable Fedora but for gaming), it had no issues with the amdgpu driver builtin on any of them.
It’s a completely new card, so I will not fiddle around with it. Also it runs almost flawless on Windows (aside from a similar crash on the very first boot during driver install).
Yup I’m hit by the exact same bug currently. But I was able to go back to before I updated with Snapper and now I’ll wait until the fix is in the Tumbleweed repos.
But other than that I’m much happier with the AMD than with my Nvidia (on Linux that is). VRR with Wayland on multiple monitors just works without issues. And no issues except the current one.
I need to give the LTS kernel a shot tomorrow, but I could swear I tried that and had the same issue. Which now makes me fear that I might have a different problem. Argh.
Dammit, same symptoms. Which, I guess, is not a good sign. Maybe my issue is different or I have another issue on top.
I’ve always had great experiences with AMD and not Nvidia. Maybe its just there newer cards.
Since people normally only report on negative experiences: I was lucky enough to get a reference AMD 6900 XT during the GPU shortages.
Switched from Ubuntu to Fedora for it because Ubuntu didn’t have firmware for it yet.
Ever since then it has been a rock solid GPU. Never even had such a stable GPU under Windows.
Have been running Fedora with Wayland for more than 2 years now and can count the crashes on a single hand, most were my fault.
I’m sure once that issue is sorted out that GPU is going to ride along for years with minimal maintenance required.
(You might want to downgrade your kernel until then though)
I couldn’t get my 6900XT to drive my G9 at 240Hz, but 120 isn’t too bad. I should probably try again soon.
Been 20+yrs of some random flavor of driver problems for me, since my 9700 Pro at the very least.
Over DisplayPort? That’s interesting, I knew AMD can’t do HDMI 2.0 but there shouldn’t be a problem with DP.
Might wanna try a proper new certified DP 2.1 cable, just to be safe.
I “only” drive a AW3423DW but no issues at 3440x1440 with 165Hz.
Indeed over DP. It works fine at 240Hz in Windows, but of course the graphics quality in games is not as good as with nvidia.
What kernel version are you using? 6.7? Unfortunately using the latest and greatest kernel means you’ll be among the first to get bitten by new bugs. Does the issue also occurs on 6.6 and 6.1?
Same issue on 6.6.14. :-(
I had a rock solid AMD RX 580 up until the release of kernel version 6.7. Now I’m lucky to get a system that can remain up for longer than thirty minutes. Sticking to 6.6 has worked for me and definitely something you should try as well, but it’s worth noting that any amount of time spent on the issue tracker for AMD GPU stuff will reveal tons of issues from 6.6 as well.
Run
sudo dmesg | grep amdgpuand look for errors.You may have a firmware file missing, for instance. If that’s the case, it’s an easy fix - just download the firmware files from the kernel tree and put them wherever your system wants them.
This is how I do it on Debian but it should be easy enough to adapt to whatever distribution you’re using (it might be exactly the same tbh): https://blog.c10l.cc/09122023-debian-gaming#firmware
Thanks for the idea!
dmesgshows the same errors as in the referenced bug ticket. So I don’t think missing firmware is the issue. I would not be surprised however, if the problem in general is a combination ofamdgpuand firmware behavior. (IMO the hardware should not crash as hard as it does, so the firmware seems to be a bit wonky too)
It could be your monitor or even monitor cable. I have this monitor which absolutely fucking refuses to work with AMD oved HDMI. If you have inexplicable system sleep issues, black screen issues, startup issues, etc. It could be the monitor at fault
Thanks for the suggestion!
While it’s a possibility, I think it’s unlikely, since the machine works fine with Windows. I also compiled the tkg 6.7.2 kernel which includes the revert-patch for the offending change and so far the machine booted three times without issues, so it seems to fit.
That doesn’t rule out the possibility of display issues tho, back when I had the faulty monitor it was much more severe under Linux, I never managed to track it down tho (using AMD hardware for over 10 years now, this one issue busted my nuts pretty hard)
If you have a TV or something, at least try it to rule out possible outside factors
It can’t hurt. I’ll grab another display and another cable and try a few combinations. Thanks!
KDE Neon user here, I have not touched any graphics settings and my AMD card runs 32:9 120 Hz flawlessly
Me playing with my 7900XTX no issues on Bazzite
the most bug-free gpu experience I have with Linux is Nvidia GPU + KDE X11 with compositor disabled. Pure bliss. I’ve had a 6700XT and it was terrible too, now I have a 4070. For my laptops, intel igpu works decently well with wayland KDE, but there are few bugs, like having to clear some apps gpucache (vscode) quite often
At least with my 1060 compositing wasn’t an issue. But true, I rarely used Wayland. Do you have specific issues when compositing is enabled or do you just prefer the simpler rendering?
I prefer without for the aesthetics but also for functionality: compositing x11 with multi monitors of different refresh rates is still broken, everything becomes locked at 60hz instead of the max for each monitor.
I use an AMD 7900rx with an AMD 7950x processor since almost a year with Gnome / Wayland on Arch. No problems up to now. Yes, I am a gamer too.
As others said it depends on the distribution you use.
Me with a Vega 64… the forgotten platform. A few games will just straight up reset my gpu with certain instructions, taking the whole system with it. I can’t even play Minecraft with a Mesa version newer than 2 years anymore due to regressions.
Good thing to know 7800 XT is also cursed though, I was planning on getting that one to escape my situation. lol.
Kinda weird, is the first gen Vega Apu different enough to not have these problems? Cause I’ve been pushing that thing hard enough it’s starting to have actual hardware faults, very rarely had software related crashes that couldn’t be resolved with a temporary kernal rollback
