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MangoHud has firmly filled a hole in tools available for Linux gamers, benchmarking and more. A handy HUD that works across OpenGL and Vulkan games and a fresh build went up.

Allowing you to track FPS, frame timing, HDD read/write, benchmark, RAM and VRAM use, limit the FPS and so on. With the latest 0.3.5 release, what's possible with MangoHud has expanded further. It can now also show 32/64bit, the currently playing Spotify song, you can pick a specific GPU for multi-GPU setups and you can also now display the MangoHud version.

Pictured: MangoHud in action with EVERSPACE.

Other new features for this fantastic HUD include XNVctrl as a fallback for NVIDIA to allow older devices to view GPU load (and more), plus there's now a blacklist to prevent it trying to run on certain incompatible software (like game launchers) and a number of OpenGL related bug fixes.

You can pick up MangoHud from GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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vipor29 May 4, 2020
love this tool,keeps getting so much better.
dziadulewicz May 4, 2020
I'm on Ubuntu now. Any plans for a snap for it? Not too familiar yet with all these Linux things.
Koopacabras May 4, 2020
the feature that's missing is displaying the version of the driver that's using, dxvk on AMD could be using radv, aco or amdvlk. On nvidia there's only 1 driver but on AMD there are three.
Quoting: dziadulewiczI'm on Ubuntu now. Any plans for a snap for it? Not too familiar yet with all these Linux things.

Or a flatpak. IIRC the developer is open for it. Might be wrong though!
flightlessmango May 4, 2020
Quoting: Perkeleen_Vittupää
Quoting: dziadulewiczI'm on Ubuntu now. Any plans for a snap for it? Not too familiar yet with all these Linux things.

Or a flatpak. IIRC the developer is open for it. Might be wrong though!

There is a flatpak of mangohud
flatpak install com.valvesoftware.Steam.Utility.MangoHud

I believe a PPA is also in the works
Koopacabras May 4, 2020
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: The_Aquabatthe feature that's missing is displaying the version of the driver that's using, dxvk on AMD could be using radv, aco or amdvlk. On nvidia there's only 1 driver but on AMD there are three.

The driver version is available now. I did a test and it works well, there is a bug report if you need details.

aha I see thanks, it's not mentioned in the article, very important feature, for people using multiple drivers.

adding pci_dev to the env variable like this should do it

QuoteMANGOHUD_CONFIG=pci_dev
fagnerln May 5, 2020
It's really awesome, because of it I discovered a big inconvenient, Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM, I played some games with pretty bad performance and my GPU is good enough to run it, and I noticed that my VRAM was filled up, so I need to turn down some effects to put the game on <4GB range.

I have a 580 4GB, it's like driving a good car with the hand brake applied.
tuubi May 5, 2020
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Quoting: fagnerlnIt's really awesome, because of it I discovered a big inconvenient, Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM, I played some games with pretty bad performance and my GPU is good enough to run it, and I noticed that my VRAM was filled up, so I need to turn down some effects to put the game on <4GB range.

I have a 580 4GB, it's like driving a good car with the hand brake applied.
Vulkan doesn't use any more VRAM than any other API. A Vulkan renderer might, but that's up to the developers.
fagnerln May 6, 2020
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: fagnerlnIt's really awesome, because of it I discovered a big inconvenient, Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM, I played some games with pretty bad performance and my GPU is good enough to run it, and I noticed that my VRAM was filled up, so I need to turn down some effects to put the game on <4GB range.

I have a 580 4GB, it's like driving a good car with the hand brake applied.
Vulkan doesn't use any more VRAM than any other API. A Vulkan renderer might, but that's up to the developers.

Dude, please...

I remember that I've read some post explaining some differences between Vulkan and high level api, and one of the points are about vram, that uses a slightly more of it (which is not a bad thing), but I can't find it anymore.

The point is that same games uses more VRAM on Vulkan, I don't see any reason to a dev "choose" to use more VRAM on different api without needing, on Doom 2016 have problems in 2GB card on Vulkan, Rainbow Six Siege have people complaining about low vram messages when using Vulkan, I have some games that uses considerably more VRAM on Linux (native and proton using vulkan) than Windows (DX11).

Before I post this comment, I did a small test using the Dolphin Emulator with Mangohud, 2 runs with Vulkan and 2 runs with OGL, the same configuration, the result is that on OGL it uses aprox 1,0GB and Vulkan aprox 1,3GB, 30% is a lot.

I know that the API itself doesn't use more VRAM, but a API without application is useless. I know that there's a lot of variables that changes the VRAM utilization (like the GPU vendor), but my point when I said "Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM" is that the GAME that uses Vulkan uses more VRAM that the same game on other API, wasn't my intention to said that a API uses more RAM, doesn't make sense.
tuubi May 6, 2020
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Quoting: fagnerln
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: fagnerlnIt's really awesome, because of it I discovered a big inconvenient, Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM, I played some games with pretty bad performance and my GPU is good enough to run it, and I noticed that my VRAM was filled up, so I need to turn down some effects to put the game on <4GB range.

I have a 580 4GB, it's like driving a good car with the hand brake applied.
Vulkan doesn't use any more VRAM than any other API. A Vulkan renderer might, but that's up to the developers.

Dude, please...

I remember that I've read some post explaining some differences between Vulkan and high level api, and one of the points are about vram, that uses a slightly more of it (which is not a bad thing), but I can't find it anymore.

The point is that same games uses more VRAM on Vulkan, I don't see any reason to a dev "choose" to use more VRAM on different api without needing, on Doom 2016 have problems in 2GB card on Vulkan, Rainbow Six Siege have people complaining about low vram messages when using Vulkan, I have some games that uses considerably more VRAM on Linux (native and proton using vulkan) than Windows (DX11).

Before I post this comment, I did a small test using the Dolphin Emulator with Mangohud, 2 runs with Vulkan and 2 runs with OGL, the same configuration, the result is that on OGL it uses aprox 1,0GB and Vulkan aprox 1,3GB, 30% is a lot.

I know that the API itself doesn't use more VRAM, but a API without application is useless. I know that there's a lot of variables that changes the VRAM utilization (like the GPU vendor), but my point when I said "Vulkan uses A LOT of VRAM" is that the GAME that uses Vulkan uses more VRAM that the same game on other API, wasn't my intention to said that a API uses more RAM, doesn't make sense.
I know you didn't mean that the API itself uses memory.

My point was that with a lower level API like Vulkan or DX12, the developer is in control of memory allocation. Of course MangoHud will also reserve some VRAM, but any large differences are most likely down to the graphics backend implementation of whatever game you're playing, or emulator in this case. Wouldn't hurt to test without the hud or external Vulkan layers in general though, with a command line tool like radeontop or something.

And as for why a developer might choose to reserve more memory with Vulkan, well that's something you might want to ask them. Might be a simple case of inefficient code, or maybe a different allocation strategy (pre-allocation vs. ondemand). Could be a combination of things.

Of course I am always happy to educate myself if you've got a good source that shows that I'm talking out of my ass. I'm no graphics developer so I won't pretend to be an expert.
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