I know NVIDIA on Linux is somewhat bad, but this bug has been driving me insane, and it is still not fix as of 535.104.05 my screen flicker even more than the last driver update
I hope this get fix in 540 drivers updates or later, but I’m getting an AMD GPU when I get to build my PC very soon.
Oh my goodness, I’m sorry to hear that this is happening to others but I am so glad its not just me. This has been something that’s driving me crazy, because I knew it wasn’t a cable / GPU issue due to the fact that it doesn’t occur in Windows.
Whether I use Wayland or X11, I just get random flickers at the top - doesn’t seem to be caused by any specific application either, nor is it isolated to any specific DE (I’ve gotten it on both GNOME and KDE).
I’m on an RTX 2080, with driver version 535.98 - I’d love to just “use an AMD card” but short of one just falling out of the skies right into my hands, that’s not going to be happening anytime soon sadly.
Edit: From OP’s link to Nvidia’s forums, someone did mention that setting the GPU’s power mode to Performance somewhat mitigates the issue. This can be set by opening the Nvidia X Server Settings app (or
sudo nvidia-settings) and under your GPU -> PowerMizer -> Preferred Mode. I’ve just set this now, I guess we’ll see how that goes - but do expect power usage to probably go up by doing this.Edit 2: Annnnd that didn’t work…
I had a card+monitor combo that would do stuff like that but only at a certain resolution. Does it happen at all resolutions?
My monitor is only capable of 1080p, so it just always runs at 1920x1080 - I haven’t tried lowering the resolution yet to see if that has any impact, but I suspect it won’t sadly.
Oh my goodness, I’m sorry to hear that this is happening to others but I am so glad its not just me. This has been something that’s driving me crazy, because I knew it wasn’t a cable / GPU issue due to the fact that it doesn’t occur in Windows.
I know right! I thought it was something I did! You don’t know how many times I’ve gone into the back of my monitor and tried to shove the HDMI cable in just a bit further, to no effect. I thought I’d broken it by trying to run Sway or something…
Nope, the driver is just that bad. Ughhh.
KDE is worse, but GNOME isn’t great either. It’s been going on for months! Additionally, I have “Prefer Maximum Performance” set, but it hasn’t helped much. I’ve seriously been considering an AMD card next year… I have an RTX 2060S with 535.98.
Yep, I’ve just noticed that the “Prefer Maximum Performance” option hasn’t actually done the trick 😮💨 I swear, its never simple with Nvidia…
It seems like this issue is finally, actually fixed with the new driver release.
I haven’t had a chance to try it out but the responses on the thread look promising.
Edit: Ah, I see you’ve already gotten the news. Well, good to hear.
I appreciate the heads up either way, thank you!
inb4 “just use AMD lol”
I’ve been waiting on this issue the day it was posted… It doesn’t bother me as much as I have a second vertical monitor so the flashing is at the edge of the vertical one, and it’s definitely reduced but not gone away. Coupled with these recent driver updates, my X server just gets slower over time (not in game, thankfully).
Nvidia doesn’t even have to go FOSS, they can just go OS, and this issue could probably be resolved by now due to increased transparency of what the f is going on with the drivers, as well as better collaboration between kernel developers and driver developers. Who knows what they’re attempting behind the curtains, 3+ releases since this bug was filed and still not fixed.
A genuine fuck you, Nvidia.
Well, nouveau should support reclocking pretty soon and the Nvidia NVK open source Vulkan implementation is progressing nicely.
can’t wait!!!
Which model of GPU do you have?
GeForce 1660
I had it come back after the 535 drivers dropped for my 1660 super. Was lucky that downgrading back the previous version took it away.
From what I read it introduced the flickering for a bunch of other cards too.
It got fixed in the windows driver for the 1660 freakin ages ago but only recently on Linux before the reintroduced the issue recently. Changing the power mode never did anything for me.
I had the same situation and solution with my 1660ti. I thought there was something wrong with my monitor for a bit because it didn’t show up on the second screen.
Sure its not a cable issue?
Nope, seems like an issue for a lot of people, including me.
Stupid suggestion, but have you tried replugging the Display cable into a different port of the graphics card?