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Replaced rx 580 with 6800xt, now gaming is awful. Help!
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SpiceWeasel Aug 23, 2021
My System Info
https://pastebin.com/JAC55Q19

Linux Distribution: Arch
Desktop Environment: xfce
Graphics Card: Powercolor 6800xt
GPU Driver Version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 21.2.1

Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No]
yes

You can note your issue below here

I have been gaming in linux for a while now using my trusty XFX rx 580. Most games played 1080 or 1440 with no performace issues and things were generally very postive for the last ~2 years.

I put a new 6800xt in my system and gaming is now awful. Lots of hitching and framerate drops. Even in older games where there should be 0 reason for this to happen. For instance Dark Souls 3 @ 1080p.

Some games run flawelessly such as RDR2 which runs with mostly maxed out settings @1440 ~80-110fps

I installed mango hud to monitor CPU & GPU stats. What appears to be(guessing) the issue is the video card is going into deep sleep when it shouldnt. I say this becuase mango hud reports the GPU frequency trying to stay at 500mhz while playing and then sky rocketing to 2000+mhz and then crashing back down to 500mhz. The power to the GPU also stays low 38w and jumps when the cpu ramps up. More often then not its trying to stay at 500mhz on graphically demanding games.

It seems that users have figured out how to change registry keys in windows to force the base clock to be 1900 for instance and that avoids this scenario. I'd like to try this in linux but am unsure how to proceed.

https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/disable-deep-sleep-states-using-mpt-can-potentially-remove-stuttering.438164/

I do not know that this is my issue so ANY reccomendations are appreciated. I really need help figuing out why my new card is worse than my 4 year old rx580

It is NOT thermal throttling since the GPU temp never goes above 40c. I also have a custom fan profile set up.



Note any particular steps to reproduce it below here
Run Borderlands 3, Dark Souls 3, Horizon Zero Dawn,etc...

Thank you,
Spice Weasel

Last edited by SpiceWeasel on 23 August 2021 at 12:33 am UTC
Zlopez Aug 23, 2021
  • Supporter Plus
I can only advice to look if there isn't any new firmware for the graphics card or wait for new mesa and kernel.

About the change of registry in windows, I'm unsure how to do this on Linux as well, but as I know Linux, there would definitely be a guide somewhere. Here is some forum post about 6800xt on Arch, maybe this will help https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=260944&p=2 or I can recommend to look at Arch wiki, it's really helpful.
whizse Aug 23, 2021
Hooly Aug 23, 2021
I've had issues with my 6900XT on Arch, too.

That was the motivation to switch to OpenSUSE TW and later Fedora (currently using).

It seems the Arch kernel uses some tweaks that make RDNA2 GPUs go dumb.

Might of course be unrelated to the kernel, I'd try a different distribution to verify if the kernel is to blame.
tuubi Aug 23, 2021
Quoting: HoolyI've had issues with my 6900XT on Arch, too.

That was the motivation to switch to OpenSUSE TW and later Fedora (currently using).

It seems the Arch kernel uses some tweaks that make RDNA2 GPUs go dumb.

Might of course be unrelated to the kernel, I'd try a different distribution to verify if the kernel is to blame.
No need to switch distros for that. AUR seems to have plenty of alternatives for you to try. Maybe try Xanmod for example?
KrejsyLainen Aug 23, 2021
Are you using a pcie riser of some kind for the GPU?
What kind of MB(chipset) and CPU are you using?
SpiceWeasel Aug 23, 2021
Quoting: KrejsyLainenAre you using a pcie riser of some kind for the GPU?
What kind of MB(chipset) and CPU are you using?
Quoting: KrejsyLainenAre you using a pcie riser of some kind for the GPU?
What kind of MB(chipset) and CPU are you using?

I am not using any PCI riser. the Mobo is https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/X570-AORUS-ELITE-WIFI-rev-1x#kf
SpiceWeasel Aug 23, 2021
Quoting: whizseThere's some info here about changing the power profiles, if that is your problem:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU#Power_profiles
https://dri.freedesktop.org/docs/drm/gpu/amdgpu.html#power-dpm-force-performance-level

Setting:
echo "manual" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

echo "1" > /sys/class/drm/card0/device/pp_power_profile_mode
helped slightly but the GPU kept dipping down to 500MHz frequently which I understand is normal in certain situations but @1440p with everything cranked up it shouldnt be sitting at 500MHZ

Your second link however I did mess around with changing power_dpm_force_performance_level and this is what I found

"high"the GPU clock is set to 2500MHz which scares me some becuase according to powercolor my boost clock maxes out at
Engine Clock(OC) up to 2090MHz(Game)
up to 2340MHz(Boost)
Engine Clock(STD/Silent) up to 2015MHz(Game)
up to 2250MHz(Boost)
The power level seems to be dynamic which is good, so I see the card draw 35W to 200+W
card specs

This did seem to get rid of a ton of stuttering in the few games I tested. I was definitley an improvement. There was still stuttering but most of it might be 1st time texture loads. Still some games are not playable.

profile_standard this set the clock to 1870Mhz and power to 80W. Results were about the same as high but average FPS was lower. stuttering on texture loads mostly

profile_peak this set the clock to 2450MHz and power to 180W. Possibly better results than high but GPU temps where higher on average but not high enough to be concerning. around 60c which is actually low

@Hooly I did load the kernel mentioned by @tuubi but it resulted in the same behavior. Lots of GPU speed fluctuations, hitching, low fps dropping down to 1fps , etc...


Thank you everyone for the advice so far. Should I be concerned that the clock speed is sometimes being set higher than the "boost" clock listed by the manafacturer? I dont want to fry my card during my testing/troubleshooting

My replies are slow since I am a new account and need approval for my posts.

Last edited by SpiceWeasel on 23 August 2021 at 5:42 pm UTC
whizse Aug 23, 2021
I suggest reporting your issues as a bug to Mesa:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/new?issue%5Bmilestone_id%5D=
Shmerl Aug 24, 2021
Could be VBIOS bug. I'm using Sapphire Pulse RX 6800 XT and it works fine. Check if there are VBIOS updates from the manufacturer for the card itself.

Also make sure you have latest amdgpu firmware from kernel.org.

Last edited by Shmerl on 24 August 2021 at 3:06 am UTC
whizse Aug 24, 2021
I think this is the same, or at least a very similar issue:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/1500
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