Steam is not showing nvidia drivers in system information (Arch Linux)

[eldebarva]

When I click in system information in steam app it shows this

Video Card:

Driver: Mesa llvmpipe (LLVM 16.0.6, 256 bits)
Driver Version: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.3.4-arch1.2
OpenGL Version: 4.5
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 143 Hz
VendorID: 0x10de
DeviceID: 0x1b81
Revision Not Detected
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 1
Primary Display Resolution: 2560 x 1440
Desktop Resolution: 2560 x 1440
Primary Display Size: 23.50" x 13.23" (26.97" diag), 59.7cm x 33.6cm (68.5cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 640 MB
Supported MSAA Modes: 2x 4x 8x 16x.

Does this means that steam is not recognizing the nvidia drivers? Something that also makes me think this is that when running Half Life with OpenGL option, it stutters horribly, is basically unplayable and often crashes, meanwhile with the software option it runs smoothly. You can also see the CPU usage goes to 50% but the GPU remains very close to 0.

My OS is Arch Linux with KDE X11, the video card drivers installed are the propietary ones and I have already run

 glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer" 

which shows

 OpenGL renderer string: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2 

,
also the benchmark glmark2 runs smoothly and I can see that the usage of the GPU goes to 100% when doing it.

Trying to figure out where did the video card drivers were taken in steam system information, I went to System settings -> About this system -> Show more information -> Graphics and there I found that those Mesa drivers were only mentioned in the OpenGL (EGL) section, specifically in a section called GBM platform.

Since I am completely ignorant in this subject, I dont know if this information is helpful or what Im saying is obvious or idk but I just want to play HL :(

[Omega]

Is this a desktop or laptop?

If it is a desktop; Is the screen connected to the Nvidia GPU?

[eldebarva]

Originally posted by Omega:

Is this a desktop or laptop?

If it is a desktop; Is the screen connected to the Nvidia GPU?

It is a desktop and yes the screen is connected to the GPU

[Omega]

I just noticed the output above mentiones you are running llvmpipe as the OpenGL driver. This is a Mesa driver for running OpenGL in software rendering on the CPU, it obviously should not be using it.

You do have the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed? What does nvidia-smi say?

[eldebarva]

Originally posted by Omega:

I just noticed the output above mentiones you are running llvmpipe as the OpenGL driver. This is a Mesa driver for running OpenGL in software rendering on the CPU, it obviously should not be using it.

https://imgur.com/0BFDel1

[eldebarva]

Managed to solve it. Reading the instalation section of the archwiki steam page[wiki.archlinux.org], I realized I havent installed nvidia 32-bit version of OpenGL graphics driver

lib32-nvidia-utils

(even though I had correctly installed the nvidia propietary drivers) so I did that and now steam shows the proper drivers at system information (or perhaps now I have installed the correct drivers for steam to use them :D) .

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Originally posted by eldebarva:

Managed to solve it. Reading the instalation section of the archwiki steam page[wiki.archlinux.org], I realized I havent installed nvidia 32-bit version of OpenGL graphics driver

lib32-nvidia-utils

(even though I had correctly installed the nvidia propietary drivers) so I did that and now steam shows the proper drivers at system information (or perhaps now I have installed the correct drivers for steam to use them :D) .

Ahh linux.. when you have to install two versions of video drivers to get anything to work and nothing tells you that you need the second version after installing the first version.

[Omega]

Originally posted by Shaggin'Wagon:

Originally posted by eldebarva:

Managed to solve it. Reading the instalation section of the archwiki steam page[wiki.archlinux.org], I realized I havent installed nvidia 32-bit version of OpenGL graphics driver

lib32-nvidia-utils

(even though I had correctly installed the nvidia propietary drivers) so I did that and now steam shows the proper drivers at system information (or perhaps now I have installed the correct drivers for steam to use them :D) .

Ahh linux.. when you have to install two versions of video drivers to get anything to work and nothing tells you that you need the second version after installing the first version.

Not the same driver. The 32bit and 64bit drivers are both different drivers, also on Windows.

It didn't tell you because it did work, it was do in OpenGL through software rendering instead.

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by Shaggin'Wagon:

Ahh linux.. when you have to install two versions of video drivers to get anything to work and nothing tells you that you need the second version after installing the first version.

Not the same driver. The 32bit and 64bit drivers are both different drivers, also on Windows.

It didn't tell you because it did work, it was do in OpenGL through software rendering instead.

Yes? And? It's exactly like I said? Linux required the OP to install both driver versions. But nothing in Linux told them that they needed the other driver version. They just had to blindly guess and figure it out.

And everyone says Linux is "Great" ... most of the time using Linux involves sitting there with something not working while spending literally hours (or days) searching in google trying to figure out why it doesn't work and how to make it work. That's not really my idea of "fun" using a computer.

[Omega]

Originally posted by Shaggin'Wagon:

Originally posted by Omega:

Not the same driver. The 32bit and 64bit drivers are both different drivers, also on Windows.

It didn't tell you because it did work, it was do in OpenGL through software rendering instead.

Yes? And? It's exactly like I said? Linux required the OP to install both driver versions. But nothing in Linux told them that they needed the other driver version. They just had to blindly guess and figure it out.

And everyone says Linux is "Great" ... most of the time using Linux involves sitting there with something not working while spending literally hours (or days) searching in google trying to figure out why it doesn't work and how to make it work. That's not really my idea of "fun" using a computer.

Read what I said again maybe, you seem to not understand what I said. Also you do not know what you are talking about.


Windows does tell you your driver is missing? No it does not.

Arch Linux expects you to read the manual and build your system from the ground up yourself, other distros can do hand holding if you prefer such an experience. Arch Linux is NOT a beginner distro.

Nothing was wrong, it all worked, it just did not work how OP wanted it to work.

Having to install a third party driver to get hardware to function is an issue exclusive to Nvidia. All other hardware manufacturers have mainline support. On Windows none do, nothing on Windows just works, everything needs you to hunt down drivers for it.

Nobody spends days messing around with their system aside from power users, they choose to do this.

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Originally posted by Omega:

Also you do not know what you are talking about.

I know exactly what I'm talking about. I have experimented with at least 20 different linux distros on test computers in the other room with both Nvidia and AMD drivers. All versions of linux I have tested eventually end up at some point where there is something wrong with the system somewhere, or some package or driver not installed. Linux never tells us what's wrong or why the computer isn't working. Most of the time there's not even logs about what failed. Or if there are logs it just provides something to start google searching. Most definitely every version of linux will ALWAYS end up in a "not working" state requiring a lot of googling trying to figure out why it doesn't work. This is the very nature of Linux and actually why most people prefer to use it: They like to fix things themselves.

Originally posted by Omega:

Windows does tell you your driver is missing? No it does not.

Windows 10 and 11 both automatically download drivers from windows update with no intervention required from the user and it "just works" after that.

Originally posted by Omega:

On Windows none do, nothing on Windows just works, everything needs you to hunt down drivers for it.

You just demonstrated that you actually have never used a modern version of Windows. What you just wrote was true for Windows XP, Win7, Windows Vista, Windows 8, and 8.1 but is no longer true with Windows 10 and Windows 11. Both Win10 & Win11 will automatically download drivers via windows update for video cards and any other drivers in the system.

Originally posted by Omega:

Nobody spends days messing around with their system aside from power users, they choose to do this.

Actually everyone using Linux does at some point.

I'm starting to think you actually have zero first-hand experience with a clean install of either Linux or Windows. Are all of your computers bought from Dell that came preloaded with drivers?

[AmaiAmai]

Originally posted by Omega:

Having to install a third party driver to get hardware to function is an issue exclusive to Nvidia. All other hardware manufacturers have mainline support. On Windows none do, nothing on Windows just works, everything needs you to hunt down drivers for it.

Nobody spends days messing around with their system aside from power users, they choose to do this.

This is absolutely true. If you are using something else completely proprietary blame the manufacturer for the hoops you must jump. They're the ones preventing your use of hardware you paid for, esp. the litigious ones.

[Sontopo]

Originally posted by Shaggin'Wagon:

Windows 10 and 11 both automatically download drivers from windows update with no intervention required from the user and it "just works" after that.

You literally made that up. No it doesn't just "work". It only installs the base drivers, it won't install the latest one, which are needed in most cases to run actual games.

Just a note, Linux is not for lazy users.

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Originally posted by Nekkles:

Originally posted by Shaggin'Wagon:

Windows 10 and 11 both automatically download drivers from windows update with no intervention required from the user and it "just works" after that.

You literally made that up. No it doesn't just "work". It only installs the base drivers, it won't install the latest one, which are needed in most cases to run actual games.

Just a note, Linux is not for lazy users.

I did not make that up actually. It seems you probably have not installed the latest version of Windows 10 or Windows 11. Older versions of Windows 10 did not do that but the current version does, and all versions of windows 11 have always done it. Both versions on a brand new clean install will actually download the nvidia drivers and install them including the nvidia control panel (AMD too) without the user doing anything. Literally install the OS and connect it to the internet and it loads it. I custom build computers for people frequently so I see it all the time. It behaves exactly as I said.

[_I_]

op is using linux, not windows

and windows downloads generic drivers, never correct or latest for anything including gpus

[Shaggin'Wagon]

Originally posted by _I_:

op is using linux, not windows

And if you had ACTUALLY READ THE ENTIRE THREAD they started discussing windows half way through the thread, user Omega did. Then I responded to their comment about windows drivers. And then we were still discussing windows drivers. Because that's what they responded to. You are really, really embarrassing yourself here by writing comments in steam forum threads where you do not even read the entire thread and all comments before you write something.

Originally posted by _I_:

and windows downloads generic drivers, never correct or latest for anything including gpus

That is not true at all. You really know nothing at all about computers or technology. I just recently a few days ago did a new clean windows 10 install on one of my test bench computers. I connected the internet and went off AFK to eat dinner food. After dinner I came back and Windows had automatically installed Nvidia drivers, complete with the control panel and everything. It wasn't the latest driver but it wasn't a generic driver.