Plasma-x11 and nvidia - CPU and GPU resource usage while watching videos

FAb7D

Since the penultimate update I have noticed a change in the appearance of KDE for the better, but above all an initial splash screen which in my opinion is no longer x11, but wayland, I underline this thing because in my opinion it is the cause of the following problems: exorbitant consumption of CPU and GPU resources on x11 plasma when watching videos.

X11:

nvidia-smi
Thu Nov 13 20:03:17 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.190                Driver Version: 570.190        CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| N/A   48C    P0             20W /   50W |     491MiB /   4096MiB |     19%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            3280      G   /usr/lib64/xorg-server/Xorg             252MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            6458      G   /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox              204MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 ~ $ lsmod | grep nvidia_drm
nvidia_drm            122880  9
nvidia_modeset       1765376  6 nvidia_drm
nvidia              96940032  107 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_drm,nvidia_modeset
drm_ttm_helper         12288  3 drm_vram_helper,vboxvideo,nvidia_drm
drm_client_lib         20480  3 vboxvideo,nvidia_drm,i915
drm_kms_helper        188416  7 drm_vram_helper,drm_display_helper,vboxvideo,drm_ttm_helper,nvidia_drm,drm_client_lib,i915
drm                   655360  21 i2c_hid,drm_kms_helper,drm_vram_helper,drm_display_helper,nvidia,vboxvideo,drm_buddy,drm_ttm_helper,nvidia_drm,drm_client_lib,i915,ttm

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer string"
pci id for fd 4: 10de:1f91, driver (null)
pci id for fd 5: 10de:1f91, driver (null)
kmsro: driver missing
glx: failed to create dri3 screen
failed to load driver: nvidia-drm
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits)

WAYLAND


glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer string"
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2)
 nvidia-smi
Sat Nov 15 20:04:09 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.190                Driver Version: 570.190        CUDA Version: 12.8     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| N/A   35C    P8              6W /   50W |     102MiB /   4096MiB |      1%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            7409      G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                     1MiB |

Wayland uses both Nvidia and iGPU which on X11 I believe it was not used and in my opinion booting with wayland splashscreen compromises the subsequent correct boot of x11,I think you should start directly with x11 to avoid having problems with nvidia, but I don't know how.

Harvey

Literally the only thing that changed in this regard is that the x11 session is not installed by default any more. If you want x11 support you install plasma-x11 and reboot. At login on the left hand side there will be a session selector, you set it to the x11 session and login. That is it.

So if you have issues, it has absolutely nothing to do with our change to no longer shipping the x11 session by default for Plasma.

If you have issues from 2 weeks ago that is when Plasma was updated to to 6.5.2 so maybe that introduced an issue for you or there is a change in the app you watch videos with, you didn't say how you were watching videos, or the xorg-server update that addressed security issues.

FAb7D

It happens with any video, from firefox -->youtube, from vlc, from mpv with plasma on x11. Firefox e mpv are on nvidia-smi, vlc no while I play the videos. I thought this can be the cause of the problems: OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits).
Oh xorg-server has also been updated!... I think it's going to be complicated and long to resolve.
In the meantime I opened a bug on KDE: 512177

FAb7D

FAb7D the problem is definitely kwin, if I deactivate it the cpu-gpu usage returns to normal

FAb7D

One more thing that isn't clear to me, Solus (X11) currently manages the dual integrated Nvidia and Intel GPUs with Optimus and Prime?

xrandr --listproviders
Providers: number : 2
Provider 0: id: 0x1b7 cap: 0x1, Source Output crtcs: 4 outputs: 3 associated providers: 1 name:NVIDIA-0
Provider 1: id: 0x204 cap: 0xf, Source Output, Sink Output, Source Offload, Sink Offload crtcs: 3 outputs: 3 associated providers: 1 name:modesetting

FAb7D

FAb7D More precisely when I stop window composer with shift-alt-f12.

Nonetheless, right now I think the problem is upstream. Because the nvidia and Intell drivers are installed and they work, but if I start a program with something like _NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia glxinfo -B `

the output is
OpenGL renderer string: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650/PCIe/SSE2
instead, if I give
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=mesa glxinfo -B , the intell ones is:

OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits) .
If I uninstall the drivers nvidia Solus uses the intell drivers correctly.

The output of this grep -E "(EE|WW|II|NVIDIA)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log among other things mentions nouveau and I don't know if that's normal:
[ 15.860] (II) config/udev: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card1)
[ 16.222] (II) modeset(G0): [DRI2] DRI driver: nouveau

[ 16.222] (II) modeset(G0): [DRI2] VDPAU driver: nouveau

Right now, I think the issue might have perhaps arisen before the recent updates, and I only noticed it with these recent updates. Furthermore, I would like to point out that the problem is not only linked to videos, but also to animations, such as those of a "simple" program like Audacious. More details are provided below, should they be useful:

~ $ __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia glxinfo -B
...
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650/PCIe/SSE2
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 570.190
...

~ $ __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=mesa glxinfo -B
...
glx: failed to create dri3 screen
failed to load driver: nvidia-drm
...
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Mesa (...)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits)
    ...
    Accelerated: no 
    ...
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits)
...

~ $ glxinfo -B
...
glx: failed to create dri3 screen
failed to load driver: nvidia-drm
...
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Mesa (...)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits)
    ...
    Accelerated: no 
    ...
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.6, 256 bits)
...

~ $ lspci -k | grep -i vga -A 3
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation CoffeeLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics 630]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
--
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q] (rev a1)
        Kernel driver in use: nvidia
...


~ $ grep -iE "(EE|WW|II|nvidia)" /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[    15.144] (WW) Failed to open protocol names file lib64/xorg/protocol.txt
[    15.145] Current Operating System: Linux fdb 6.3.8-240.current #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat Jun 17 19:17:57 UTC
...
[    15.148] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts".
...
[    15.158] (WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
...
[    15.388] (II) modeset(0): glamor X acceleration enabled on Mesa Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2)
...
[    15.605] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2] Setup complete
[    15.605] (II) modeset(0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: iris
...
[    15.620] (II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized iris
[    15.620] (II) GLX: Initialized DRI2 GL provider for screen 0
...
[    15.860] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card1)
...
[    16.106] (II) modeset(G0): glamor X acceleration enabled on NV167
...
[    16.222] (II) modeset(G0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: nouveau
...
[    16.223] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=3 (/dev/input/event9)
...
[    16.223] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=7 (/dev/input/event10)
...
[    16.223] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=8 (/dev/input/event11)
...
[    16.224] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=9 (/dev/input/event12)
...
[    16.382] (II) config/udev: removing GPU device /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/drm/card1 /d
ev/dri/card1
...
[    16.504] (II) modeset(G0): [DRI2]   DRI driver: nouveau
...
[    16.505] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=9 (/dev/input/event12)
...
[    16.505] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=8 (/dev/input/event11)
...
[    16.505] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=7 (/dev/input/event10)
...

TraceyC

Please open an issue (if there isn't one already) on the KDE bug tracker under the kwin product . This is a problem with KDE software that Solus can't fix. Thanks.

FAb7D

TraceyC Yes, yes: already done yesterday

FAb7D

And I'm afraid they'll skip it because it's not Wayland