Tumbleweed stop being snappy and is now not great. llvmpipe gpu conflict?

English Hardware
1

Something happened and my system does not pop like a new OS install usually does and games run as if there is no GPU.

long story short. over the past 2 weeks I have reinstalled tumbleweed half a dozen times. upgraded and updated in various combinations since the release of kernel 6.17. I first though 6.16.9 corrupted something which was not fixed in an upgrade. btrfs roll back to first. no luck. reinstall 6.16.7 fresh. no luck. thought it was h/w, so I ran spirite on my ssd. it was good. another fresh install with new options; pre-mounting etc. no luck. tried updating direct to 6.17. no luck. Tried to replicate my first install parameters. no luck.

during one of the installs, lets say no2, grub did not launch and windows did which M$ then tried to mount and take ownership of all my drives. my main data drive is no longer btrfs, has a system vol info folder and recyclebin. my unconfigured raid drives were too. tumbleweed shows my data drive as fuseblk ntfs even though 2 weeks ago it was btfs. I compiled my raid array with xfs to harden it against windows. After I ran spinrite my raid lost 2/4 drives, that was a 36hr rebuild.

I know it isnt anything but tumbleweed, because I have Bazzite installed on the same SSD and it runs mostly fine apart from a few graphical issues.

What i think it is might be related to vulkan set to CPU using the llvmpipe confusing mesa preventing it from using the gpu. earlier today I tried a game and it compiled the shaders, but my cpu shot up to 1000 and the fans were screaming. system info no longer shows my arc b580 as the graphics processor and shows llvmpipe instead.
has anyone experienced this or know of a fix. can I force vulkan to use my gpu?

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Battlemage G21 [Arc B580] driver: xe v: kernel arch: Xe2
    process: TSMC n4 (4nm) built: 2024+ pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    ports: active: HDMI-A-3,HDMI-A-4 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, HDMI-A-1,
    HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 2d:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:e20b class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.15 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: vesa
    alternate: fbdev,intel dri: iris gpu: xe display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3520x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 931x317mm (36.65x12.48")
    s-diag: 983mm (38.72")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-3 mapped: HDMI-3 pos: top-left model: Cintiq 21UX 2
    serial: 0LAQ000620 built: 2010 res: mode: 1600x1200 hz: 60 scale: 100% (1)
    dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2 size: 432x324mm (17.01x12.76") diag: 540mm (21.3")
    ratio: 4:3 modes: max: 1600x1200 min: 640x480
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-4 mapped: HDMI-4 pos: primary,bottom-r
    model: Samsung SA300/SA350 serial: HCLBB10739 built: 2011 res:
    mode: 1920x1080 hz: 60 scale: 100% (1) dpi: 92 gamma: 1.2
    size: 531x299mm (20.91x11.77") diag: 609mm (24") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris
    device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris x11: drv: iris
    inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.2.4 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Arc B580 Graphics (BMG G21)
    device-ID: 8086:e20b memory: 11.65 GiB unified: no
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.328 layers: 5 device: 0 type: cpu name: llvmpipe (LLVM
    21.1.2 256 bits) driver: mesa llvmpipe v: 25.2.4 (LLVM 21.1.2)
    device-ID: 10005:0000 surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: gputop, intel_gpu_top, lsgpu
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

much appreciated.

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@roninbadger Hi I don’t run Plasma or X11, so could be something up there…

I use Nvidia as an offload device (coupled with an Arc A380) so you can set the Mesa device via a /etc/environment file containing in your case MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT="8086:e20b"

Edit: That’s assuming libvulkan_intel is installed?

I’d also suggest Wayland as there has been a lot of work on the Xe driver…

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Please read the opening post. No Nvidia involved…it’s an Intel only system…

1 Like
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CPU shader compilation is normal, or so you say, but it is not in my experience these last 3 weeks. This past time is the only time where the shader hit my CPU, and with Force; ramping the fans on the cooler up to 100%. CPU utilization was also @ 100%

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" Edit: That’s assuming libvulkan_intel is installed?"

Should be. every install except the most recent I used Steam to fully reinstall the proton drivers, which should have installed everything it needed. in the odd installs I specifically install the intel open_cl libs assuming there would be better performance, I assume if proton didnt then the intel specific vulkan lib would be with the intel specific openCL package.

I did wayland for a bit, I was having other issues with other apps like scrcpy and vlc, as Bazzite uses it. since the install of Cosmic and update to 6.16.9 my system has been slugish and i am at a loss since I have reverted Tumbleweed to where it was working just fine atleast twice. I will try forcing it in the config as you suggested.

Will advise,Thank you!

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MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT="8086:e20b"

Didnt seem to do anything. It didnt error nor did produce anything. I tried it with -v flag for verbose to see if it was doing anything and it was blank too.

I checked vulkaninfo --summary

Devices:
========
GPU0:
        apiVersion         = 1.4.318
        driverVersion      = 25.2.4
        vendorID           = 0x10005
        deviceID           = 0x0000
        deviceType         = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU
        deviceName         = llvmpipe (LLVM 21.1.2, 256 bits)
        driverID           = DRIVER_ID_MESA_LLVMPIPE
        driverName         = llvmpipe
        driverInfo         = Mesa 25.2.4 (LLVM 21.1.2)
        conformanceVersion = 1.3.1.1
        deviceUUID         = 6d657361-3235-2e32-2e34-000000000000
        driverUUID         = 6c6c766d-7069-7065-5555-494400000000

And it does not show like I have a GPU. I double checked the install of libvulkan_intel I had done previously, and inxi now shows Vulkan is using device 0 discrete-gpu. game1 tested out find, back up to expected FPS even in X11 plasma.

Mesa however is still using my cpu with for the mesa llvmpipe which send my CPU into Overdrive. I jumped over to Bazzite and updated, because the newest Mesa is supposed to fix some known graphical issues over there; Both are on 25.2.4 and I launched a game to cache shaders, and ROOOAAAARRR! now that it there too. sigh, this used to be so quiet. its not 2010 anymore, we do not need the cpu for shaders. I could only imagine running STALKER2, it would be a better stress test than furmark, 20 min shader compile burn in.

I am continuing my quest. now to force mesa to gpu.

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Ive had a day and a half. when I sat down for this I thought It was a bash command. not a file. that I can not find.

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@roninbadger you have to create a file called environment in the /etc/ directory with the contents MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT="8086:e20b", save a reboot and test again with inxi -Gxxz

1 Like
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That makes sense. doesnt it. here goes nothing.

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well idk is setting took. The info is the same as it was after reinstalling libvulkan_intel.

The roar however might be an adjusted fan curve. Ive installed 1 bios update, cleared cmos and reinstall the previous one about 4-6 weeks ago, so my fan curve may have been reset. although in those weeks it never went max in bazzite. so maybe switching to csm for spinrite reset other options when I went back to UEFI. I do know xmp was reset. and r-bar too. I saw there as another AGESA update a few weeks ago, newer than what I have on my usb, so I installed it and changed the fan curve too. Dont know if pre-cache is broken but I do know my cooler can handle load for more than an hour at comfortable fan speeds.