Steam Big Picture bad performance on AMD GPU
Games and overlay work great outside of the Steam Big Picture mode. Big Picture looks like its getting around 20 fps, which should probably not be the case for my hardware. Any advice would be appreciated. Unfortunately, disabling the GPU blacklist in BP settings did not resolve my issue.
Operating System: Bazzite 40
KDE Plasma Version: 6.1.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.5.0
Qt Version: 6.7.2
Kernel Version: 6.9.12-205.fsync.fc40.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor
Memory: 31.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Product Name: X570 Phantom Gaming 4 WiFi ax
37 Replies
Which games have you tested and at what resolution and gfx settings? I have a 7800XT and can test.
So this isn't really a game issue, games run fine. The interface itself runs at a really low framerate, target resolution is only 1080p.
I've played around with all of these settings, nothing really seems to help.
I can reproduce this on the Rog Ally. Game mode runs perfectly. Big Picture Mode is laggy
Wish I could easily copy to plaintext, but this is what BPM reports for my hardware setup:
Something worth noting I think is that my system ramps up quite a bit even when I'm just idling on a screen. I assume that it's not utilizing hardware acceleration correctly and maybe my CPU is getting taxed? I'll do some additional testing in a little while if I can.
Just to check, is this regular Bazzite? Not the -Deck variant right? And by Big Picture mode you mean the Big Picture mode in regular Steam and not game mode?
That is correct, this is the standard desktop build with gamemode disabled, just running big picture. AMD drivers were selected for the image, and I can confirm in discover I have the most current mesa drivers.
This is a fairly clean installation as well, just got it set up as of last night.
@Freakalope yep I've been able to reproduce this on my system. Big Picture in desktop mode is laggy af.
On the flip side, game mode works without any issues.
So since you're on AMD anyways, why not just rebase to the deck image and use game mode?
I would if I could auto boot into the desktop environment, but as far as I'm aware its an all or nothing decision. I guess I'll just hope it improves at some point.
You can autoboot to desktop if you want, I forgot how I did it but I think it had something to do with
steamos-session-select. Can look it up if you'd like.It's not really a big deal, seeing as this appears to be an issue affecting multiple users I think I'd rather see if valve can address it at some point, performance for big picture has been kind of all over the place since launch even on windows. Thanks for looking into reproducing it.
I had something similar but in Nvidia. Running desktop UI and then switch to big picture mode would make the client really laggy.
But launching directly into big picture mode from the terminal (
bazzite-steam -tenfoot) would make the lag disappear.
I would like to ask anyone with a handheld / AMD desktop to try and reproduce this behavior, as might point to some kind of issue at the moment of switching to big picture mode, rather than big picture itself being the problemInteresting, that worked for me (Radeon 680M APU).
Just tested on my Rog Ally (Z1 Extreme) and I can reproduce the lag when switching from Steam desktop to Steam BPM. When I use your solution (
bazzite-steam -tenfoot) it is smoothI'm on the desktop image with all amd hardware (5950x7900xtx) and also get super low frame rate if I spawn the big picture mode from a desktop steam instance
have been using the bazzite-steam -tenfoot launch instead for a while now, but if it's possible to get normal steam desktop to launch in a higher fps that would be awesome
With @wolfyreload tinkering around, we got to know that a potential reason of the lag when switch to BPM might be of
extest being preloaded by bazzite-steam
In theory, if you launch steam directly from terminal, the lag doesn't happen, as steam doesn't preload extent by default (rather, we do)
KDE sessions could (in theory) not preload extest, and the lag when switching should disappear, and touchpads should still work thanks to libei
The problem comes with gnome. Doesn't implement libei protocol, so still requires extest in order to get these touchpads keep workingLooks like I'm a month late to this discussion, but having the same issue as described. Is this something that can eventually be fixed? If I'm launching Big Picture Mode from Sunshine, can I still use the "bazzite-steam -tenfoot" workaround?
yeah the workaround is there. As for how to fix it, thats on Valve i guess. Though, we can always add a shortcut that launches steam BPM directly. Personally didnt have enough free time, but maybe can make one this weekend.
I think I'm having trouble with the exact syntax to put in Sunshine. What do I need to set the detached command to be? The default for BPM is "setsid steam steam://open/bigpicture"
Interesting approach.
You would want a script instead, would need to:
1. Check if steam is open
2. Close steam (if open) using steam://close, not the exact command, but something similar
3. Reopen with steam://open/bigpicture
you might be able to do
pkill -15 steam to close steam, should be the same as exiting steam normallyWhat script should it be?
this one https://github.com/Zeglius/bazzite/blob/steam-bpm-workaround/system_files/desktop/shared/usr/bin/bazzite-steam-bpm.
Which anyways is probably going to get merged https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/pull/1754
GitHub
fix(steam): Add shortcut to start Steam BPM without slugishness by ...
This adds a script that stops Steam gracefully to later on start it directly in Big Picture mode.
This serves as workaround for issue #1675
Thanks!
is merged already, any way how we can install il?
Is it in beta updates
Right now it is unstable. will come whenever fedora 41 merges in bazzite stable
Not trying to revive a dead thread - but is this closed? I seem to have this issue on Bazzite 41. Launching Steam BPM from Steam Desktop the interface is laggy. If I launch BPM directly (right clicking and selecting) instead there's no lag. Can post hardware specs if needed
Right clicking like the steam shortcut and then big picture mode, right?
yes making sure that steam is not running first
Yeah, that's what the current workaround we have does, it closes steam if is open and then launches BPM directly
Sadly is the only way as of right now
Something that valve themselves need to look into
Appreciate the quick response so i don't continue to delve into it 🙂
I have the same issue but on Nvidia. None of the solutions or work arounds are working on my end
your issue is that you need the nvidia driver, doesnt support the features big picture mode need on linux IIRC
nvidia has to fix it
The open source driver doesn't fix it either right?
Nope, maybe in future for Turing and newer cards.
Otherwise you're in Nvidia's hands