Immense store flicker on Nvidia Wayland

[EntityinArray]

Your system information

• Steam client version (build number or date): 1702079146
• Distribution (e.g. Ubuntu): Arch Linux
• Opted into Steam client beta?: [Yes/No] No
• Have you checked for system updates?: [Yes/No] Yes
• Steam Logs: [generate by running this command in a terminal tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/steam-logs.tar.gz ~/.steam/steam/logs]
  steam-logs.tar.gz
• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Entire Steam interface is flickering, but flicker becomes most intense when opening the Store page
This flicker only occurs on Nvidia under Wayland
I recorded a video that shows the flicker:

steam_flicker.mp4

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Use Steam, open the Store page
2. Notice flicker

[12c76dc]

Same issue here on Wayland with NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU and proprietary drivers.

Resizing Steam window to a smaller one seems to reduce amount of flickering.

Disabling GPU Accelerated rendering in web views solves the flickering, but UI is unresponsive, slow and barely usable.

[knutj]

same issues on Nvidia RTx 4090 GPU. It flicker.
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen

[DEvil0000]

Same with fedora.
The issue is with the nvidia driver version 545.29.06-1 (and a bit better with 545.29.06-2) when using wayland. it mostly affects chromium based rendering but also other windows and will cause some games to lag quite hard. if you downgrade to nvidia driver version 535.129.03 all works fine.

[EntityinArray]

Same with fedora. The issue is with the nvidia driver version 545.29.06-1 (and a bit better with 545.29.06-2) when using wayland. it mostly affects chromium based rendering but also other windows and will cause some games to lag quite hard. if you downgrade to nvidia driver version 535.129.03 all works fine.

For me problem still occurs under wayland with 535.113.01-2 driver

Oh, sorry, i misread the driver version, will try 535.129.03

Tried 535.129.03 and 535.146.02 (it was recommended for RTX 3060 on nvidia driver download site), it still flickers the same way

[haivala]

Same here. Arch, nvidia 545.29.06-9

[EntityinArray]

I believe we could try fixing this bug by updating the steam client to use latest chromium. Web browser and other web apps work fine and don't show this flickering. Maybe old chromium that Steam uses is the issue?

[DEvil0000]

I see a similar flicker in the wayland/nvidia driver 545 version combination with the latest chromium on fedora.
I do not see this with x or with the older 535 version driver. On my laptop I do only see it on displays connected to the nvidia card but not the laptops internel display when connected (hw mux) to the integrated amd gpu. So basicaly if gnome renders directly to the nvidia card but rendering it via the amd gpu is fine.
That would mean a chromium version upgrade may likely not fix it - it may however still help.
BTW afaik such nvidia driver issues are known to nvidia and they are working on improving things but it is going since quite a while now.

[j0rbshua]

Same issue here. The flickering makes changing game options or making a purchase impossible at times.

[mhkarimi1383]

Same problem, Using ArchLinux on nVIDIA 3050 Ti Mobile

[MysticAx0lotl]

Same issue, legacy Intel iGPU, no dGPU. I'm on EndeavourOS with KDE. This doesn't seem to be an nvidia issue

[mikerkelly87]

Same issue 545.29.06-2 Fedora 39 RTX 4080 Super

[dylanmtaylor]

I am also hitting this issue on Fedora 39 (both Kinoite and Silverblue "universal blue" images) with Nvidia driver 545.29.06-2 on my 3090.

[Faervan]

Same Issue, Arch + Hyprland, RTX 3060
Had similar flickering in Vivaldibrowser (chromiumbased), was able to resolve it using webrtc and ozone flags.
None of these issues appeared on my Arch + Hyprland Laptop (no Nvidia) or on any X WMs

[gurius]

Same issue, Arch + gnome + wayland + nvidia-beta 550.54.14-1 driver RTX 4070 ti super.
Flickering in steam and in address bar of google-chrome and a menus in steam are a mess. I believe it's wayland because it's all fine on x11.

[danielriedmueller]

Same issue 550 Fedora 40 RTX 3080

[MysticAx0lotl]

Same issue, Arch + gnome + wayland + nvidia-beta 550.54.14-1 driver RTX 4070 ti super. Flickering in steam and in address bar of google-chrome and a menus in steam are a mess. I believe it's wayland because it's all fine on x11.

Forgot to mention my setup uses Wayland as well, and since I've seen this issue on Intel, that leads me to believe that you're correct in saying it's a Wayland issue (especially since Steam doesn't seem to have native Wayland support, it uses xwayland instead)

[kekkoudesu]

Disabling GPU-acceleration in web views significantly reduces flickering, but does not eliminate it. It still flickers frequently, but not quite as dramatically. Additionally, it is much less responsive.

I'm experiencing this in the Library and everywhere else in the Steam client.

I have an RTX 2060S. I'm using Arch Linux with nvidia 550.54.14-4, KDE Plasma 5.27.10, on Wayland.

[knutj]

Similar trouble with Nvidia 550.54.14-4 on Fedora 39 in Gnome Wayland.

[UserCommon]

Same trouble arch, hyperland/kde

[codebori]

I have a similar issue with Plasma Wayland on Opensuse Tumbleweed. Kernel Version: 6.7.7-1-default. NVIDIA 550.54.14.

[terminal-case]

I have the same issue, Plasma 6 Wayland on EndeavourOS. Kernel Version: 6.7.8-273-tkg-eevdf, NVIDIA driver 550.54.14

[Brensom]

I have the same issue

[cosinustangens]

Same Problem for a long time.

550.54.14 Nvidia-Optimus (Geforce 940MX) , wayland, Arch-Linux, Gnome 45.4. Hope it will be fixed some day..

[kekkoudesu]

Same Problem for a long time.

550.54.14 Nvidia-Optimus (Geforce 940MX) , wayland, Arch-Linux, Gnome 45.4. Hope it will be fixed some day..

I think this is directly related to NVIDIA not implementing implicit sync. It will hopefully be fixed when Wayland compositors have a working implementation of the new explicit sync protocol: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland-protocols/-/merge_requests/90

Simon Ser commented last week:

Alright, this looks ready to ship! Will wait for a bit and merge if there are no further comments.

GNOME, KDE, and Weston have given this an ACK which means there will be implementations in all of these compositors hopefully sometime soon.

NVIDIA will be shipping an explicit sync implementation in an upcoming driver release. Hopefully soon!

[Bitals]

Arch + Gnome + Wayland + Intel XE
Same

Seemingly it has flickered enough to be satisfied while I left the Store page opened and alt-tabbed to read this thread, flickering is gone. But I am sure it will return on the next run until the protocol mentioned above is implemented on all sides.

[MysticAx0lotl]

Arch + Gnome + Wayland + Intel XE Same

Further proves my theory that this isn't an NVIDIA issue

[hmnd]

@Faervan

Had similar flickering in Vivaldibrowser (chromiumbased), was able to resolve it using webrtc and ozone flags.

I'm facing the same issue. Would you mind sharing exactly what those flags were? I already have the ozone flag.

[Faervan]

@Faervan

Had similar flickering in Vivaldibrowser (chromiumbased), was able to resolve it using webrtc and ozone flags.

I'm facing the same issue. Would you mind sharing exactly what those flags were? I already have the ozone flag.

have a look at Alex313031/thorium#446 (comment)

[mikajed]

I had GPU acceleration disabled already and it was still flickering, now I disabled smooth scrolling in web views and the flickering is gone, for now.

[witcheslive]

This has been awful for me for some time now, it would be great if Valve could place more focus on the Wayland switchover; it would make the steam deck a much more polished and smooth experience if it could run in Wayland and my desktop being able to run Wayland without Steam constantly giving me a very adverse epilepsy test would be very welcome.

Can also confirm that this isn't just an arch issue, as I am running gentoo with ~amd64 with the proprietary nvidia drivers and kde plasma 6 wayland session.

[anthonyespirat]

same issue wayland + fedora 39
driver : 550.67

[supercheetah]

I'm pretty sure this is an issue with explicit sync, which is needed for XWayland. It should hopefully be fixed with this new Wayland protocol for linux-drm-syncobj-v1.

[LinAGKar]

Explicit sync has now been merged into Mutter, Kwin and Xwayland, and should be available in beta driver 555. So we'll see if this gets better once that makes it into releases.

[kekkoudesu]

Though do note that the Wayland part of the driver that supports explicit sync will be coming in 560, but as most users are only experiencing flickering problems with XWayland programs, it shouldn't matter at all.

[ghost]

Though do note that the Wayland part of the driver that supports explicit sync will be coming in 560, but as most users are only experiencing flickering problems with XWayland programs, it shouldn't matter at all.

xwayland also merged explicit sync, so it's gonna be fixed too

[sam-cavalheiro]

Same issue. Fedora 39, Wayland, Nvidia driver 550.67.
Xwayland issue? Ok, but where is Steam native wayland support?

[kekkoudesu]

Same issue. Fedora 39, Wayland, Nvidia driver 550.67. Xwayland issue? Ok, but where is Steam native wayland support?

Probably after the Wayland protocols that SDL needs are merged.

[ghost]

Probably after the Wayland protocols that SDL needs are merged.

probably not, wayland don't support overlay for example, so it's need tobe fixed too, and why port for wayland when it's not even 64bits

[kekkoudesu]

Probably after the Wayland protocols that SDL needs are merged.

probably not, wayland don't support overlay for example, so it's need tobe fixed too, and why port for wayland when it's not even 64bits

What protocol is missing for supporting the overlay?

[ghost]

What protocol is missing for supporting the overlay?

good question lol, let me check

[cyb3rMatt3r]

same with Arch + KDE + Wayland + Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660.

Check this: https://linuxiac.com/wayland-nvidia-explicit-sync-support/

We have to wait a few months <3

[kekkoudesu]

Have any of you NVIDIA users tried the 555 Beta driver? It implements explicit sync and should fix this issue. Note that you'll need to use a desktop environment that implements explicit sync too, like GNOME 46 or Plasma 6.1, and the latest version of XWayland with explicit sync support.

Stable driver will likely be out in a few weeks otherwise. I have yet to test the Beta driver.

[NovaViper]

Have any of you NVIDIA users tried the 555 Beta driver? It implements explicit sync and should fix this issue. Note that you'll need to use a desktop environment that implements explicit sync too, like GNOME 46 or Plasma 6.1, and the latest version of XWayland with explicit sync support.

Stable driver will likely be out in a few weeks otherwise. I have yet to test the Beta driver.

I'm not sure if that driver is actually even out in beta. I haven't heard of an ETA for even the beta release.

[kekkoudesu]

I'm not sure if that driver is actually even out in beta. I haven't heard of an ETA for even the beta release.

It's out: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/224751/en-us/

[NovaViper]

@kekkoudesu Niiiiiiiiice!! And looks like there's a PR ready for it on NixOS too! As soon as it hits unstable-small I will absolutely give an update to this.

[Faervan]

I have tried the beta 555 on Hyprland/Arch Linux + Nvidia RTX 3060, it fixed all flickering except in Vivaldi (Chromium), Steam as well works without flickering now. Awesome :)

[niklaskorz]

Still broken with the new stable Nvidia 555 driver on KDE Plasma 6.1 (so with explicit sync):

GPU is an RTX 4090.

Resizing the window "fixes" it, but if I change to the library and back to the store, it's broken again.

[ghoste07]

Still broken with the new stable Nvidia 555 driver on KDE Plasma 6.1 (so with explicit sync):

GPU is an RTX 4090.

Resizing the window "fixes" it, but if I change to the library and back to the store, it's broken again.

I believe this is a separate issue. It can be worked around by disabling GPU accelerated web views in Settings > Interface.

[chefexperte]

I have an NVIDIA 3060 Ti and am using Wayland with Gnome, my nvidia driver version is 3:555.58.02-1.fc40. The problem is fixed for me (hooray!) :))

[kekkoudesu]

It's also been fixed for me with the NVIDIA 555 driver on KDE Wayland. The Steam window starts up invisible, but once resized it works fine even with hardware acceleration on.

[mirao]

GPU is an RTX 4090.
Resizing the window "fixes" it, but if I change to the library and back to the store, it's broken again.

Got the same issue. I disabled GPU accelerated rendering and the issue disappeared, though still I'm getting some flickering when switching between the tabs "Store", "Library" or hovering mouse over a menu items. It's not so ugly like on the original report (in the comment here: #10313 (comment)), but it's not ideal.
I'm running nVidia beta driver 560.35.03 on Ubuntu 24.04, MSI GeForce RTX 4060

[MrEAlderson]

I've had the same issues with Steam on a fresh Fedora KDE installation with dnf upgrade, v560 installed and a RTX 3070. Even worse: The whole desktop started to flicker after like 10 minutes, with windows being very glitchy when maximized or moved around. Returning to MS Windows is what fixes it for me

[E3nviction]

I had a similar issue, I'm not sure if this is the same as yours but my fix was to add --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland to the launch options, so open terminal and type steam --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland