Artifacts on Mobility Radeon 5650 on full screen with hybrid graphics setup

[DebianLinuxero]

Hello.

I have an HP laptop with both 4250 and 5650 Mobility Radeon cards.

When I run a game with the DRI_PRIME=1 environment variable to switch graphics to the 5650, if the game is in full screen, I see the mouse pointer on a black background with some random colored pixels. The game music menu plays.

Now the strange thing is that if I alt-tab to an already desktop opened application (like a terminal), it displays it in foreground, and, the game is displaying correctly at the background.

But, if I alt-tab again to the game, it returns to the black and artifacted screen.

This behaviour don't happens if I run the games in a window. Neither seem to affect game videos. Only OpenGL'ed screens.

The system is Debian GNU/Linux 9.6 with Xorg 1.19, Linux 4.9, GNOME 3.22 on AMD64.

[aht0]

Use latest software with the new hardware especially. Upgrade to Debian testing. Install Oibaf ppa bionic version. Make a a custom AMD wip kernel. Use the Xfce desktop.

Easier to install windows and save time that jump through all these loops... :P

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Disable the discrete GPU from BIOS. Saves a lot of hassle. These secondary GPU's tend to be weaker or on par with iGPU anyway. You are not going to see much performance degradation - if any, save battery and the config is much easier. (My experience with laptops sporting dual Radeon i/dGPU's from that era)

[aht0]

And loose all your data and games. My distribution is the easiest OS for open source graphics (amdgpu,radeon, i915, nouveau) users. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKJ-IatUfis

I am pretty confident that literally all your games (and his, for that matter) are available for and perform better on Windows. With such an old mobile GPU, using Windows would be saner because performance tends to be better there. Weak hardware has tendency to amplify the perception of performance increase/decrease.

Data you can back up, if he had to change distribution, he would be in danger of losing his data anyway and he would have to make a backup.

[aht0]

There is no fresh drivers for old hardware in win10. Drivers for 5650 are 3 years old and incompatible with latest win10 probably. https://www.amd.com/ru/support/graph...radeon-hd-5650

Win10 driver offered worked on one of my Acers with Mobile HD6450/HD6650 just fine. And Win7 is still supported, what's wrong with it?

For new mobile hardware, AMD has bad reputation with windows drivers, see https://www.tomshardware.com/news/am...ers,38123.html

How is "new mobile hardware" connected to his HD5xxx era hardware in present discussion?

Keep your virus hoover BS in your brain, see the forum description: "Technical support and discussion of the various AMD/Radeon Linux graphics drivers components."

Funny you should mention "virus hoover"..
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...c-mine-rootkit

And forum description NEVER stopped YOU from spamming BSD subforum with your daily mantra of "install Debian Testing with XFCE..." Hypocrisy at it's best.

Windows at least has some functional protection. Application signature check, compatibility lists, built-in browser checks in IE and Edge preventing you from downloading known infected shit. Not to mention functional protected anti-virus. Initially I just meant recommending "install Windows" as a joke..

In order to infect your Linux, you only need to use wrong PPA and you remain blissfully clueless.. It has already happened plenty of times.

I could also recommend installing some BSD. Free of both, Windows and Linux malwares.. But it would be rather steep learning curve for most Linux users. No fancy colorful GUI's. GPU is supported by all of 'em (Open,Free,Net and DragonFly) though.

[aht0]

You are not interested to have good Linux drivers. Inspect and make bug reports. You can not do that with windows drivers. You are in wrong forum.

I have more important things to do with my life. Time spent on making bug reports is time not used for other things, like playing with my son. When driver does not work, I will use something else that has workable driver.

I also use exclusively musl-based Void Linux (no systemd bs either) these days, if I am not using BSD or Windows. Musl C-library does not have such an extensive array of compatible packages, even less any games - so I am perfectly happy as long driver supports 2D properly.

[DebianLinuxero]

Any developer tip?

[aht0]

Did you already try turning the dGPU off in BIOS? Try if it works and if it affects performance.

[DebianLinuxero]

Did you already try turning the dGPU off in BIOS? Try if it works and if it affects performance.

Hello.

The BIOS doesn't have any option to switch graphics, but by default the system is already using the integrated without problems.

The point of this topic is I do want to use the discrete for some light gaming.

Anyway, thanks both of you for the responses.

[DebianLinuxero]

There is no fresh drivers for old hardware in win10. Drivers for 5650 are 3 years old and incompatible with latest win10 probably. https://www.amd.com/ru/support/graph...radeon-hd-5650

For new mobile hardware, AMD has bad reputation with windows drivers, see https://www.tomshardware.com/news/am...ers,38123.html

In fact, this dual graphics setup is very picky with driver versions on Windows too. Really.

It needs a driver package that has support for both graphic cards. It doesn't work if you try to install two separated packages, one for each card.

And this two cards, being from different generations (4xxx and 5xxx) today are in different legacy packages. Bad luck.

The optimum solution is to find the last version in which the 5xxx is supported and the 4xxx is still there, before its legacy migration.

I haven't found that driver, so I go with the HP web support's version, which is quite old.

And yes, if I want both cards, then I need Windows 7.

[aht0]

Hello.
The BIOS doesn't have any option to switch graphics, but by default the system is already using the integrated without problems.
The point of this topic is I do want to use the discrete for some light gaming.
Anyway, thanks both of you for the responses.

I used to have one such Acer Aspire with dual Radeons. It's gaming performance using APU was actually bit better than discrete Radeon or having both in Crossfire. (It's BIOS allowed selecting between GPU's though). Discrete had an issue of being nerfed, something like having 64-bit memory interface (not even 128-bit). It was also sitting behind PCIe x1 or x4 bus. At least both were from same generation (HD6xxx).

Could you perhaps force X to use just one card (APU)?