protonscr

Big Picture performance drops with multiple dedicated GPUs installed

steamopen Big Picture
ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#12627 · opened 2026-01-07 by flibitijibibo · updated 2026-01-08 · 3 comments · github
Fflibitijibibo 2026-01-07 github

Your system information

  • Steam client version (build number or date): 1767142807 Tue, Dec 30 19:45 UTC -08:00
  • Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Fedora 43
  • Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
  • Have you checked for system updates?: Yes
  • Steam Logs: steam-logs.tar.gz
  • GPU: Are you ready?
    • AMD RX 7900 XTX, Mesa 25.2.7
    • NVIDIA RTX 5080, tested both Mesa 25.2.7 and NV 590.48.01

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

When both an AMD and NVIDIA card are present on the system, Big Picture runs incredibly slow - we're talking Seconds-per-Frame. It doesn't appear to matter which card is selected nor does it matter which card owns the display connection. Device selection was done by adding this to .bashrc and restarting on any changes:

# AMD
export MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1002:744c!
export DRI_PRIME=1002:744c!
# NVIDIA
# export MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=10de:2c02!
# export DRI_PRIME=10de:2c02!

Neither Vulkan nor OpenGL applications appear to be affected, nor does desktop browser performance - the regular Steam client also performs okay, it's exclusively Big Picture mode that's affected.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

  1. Build a PC with both an AMD RX and NVIDIA RTX card installed at the same time. Connect display to either card, you can alternate cards on each power-on to test all permutations
  2. Turn on the power for the first time, flinch
  3. Run Steam, observe normal performance in the desktop client
  4. Switch to Big Picture mode, observe slideshow
Fflibitijibibo 2026-01-07 github

Grabbed some perf data to see if anything obvious showed up; the web helpers are definitely doing a lot so here are some perf.data files for the two worst offenders:

perf.data.webhelper.zip

Fflibitijibibo 2026-01-08 github

Messed around with some GPU options in the Big Picture settings and toggling GPU acceleration off and on appears to have fixed it, but I'm not entirely sure why - is it possible that adding a card triggered a failsafe and disabled it?

Mmatte-schwartz 2026-01-08 github

I have noticed in the past that GPU acceleration defaults to off for NVIDIA GPUs, it's the first thing I have to fix if I put gamescope-session/gamepadui on my 5090 rig. the toggle sometimes indicates it's enabled even if it isn't, which means I have to do the same disable/enable step.

Launch options