9.6 KiB
| weight | title |
|---|---|
| 8 | NVidia |
Foreword
There is no official Hyprland support for Nvidia hardware. However, many people have had success with the instructions on this page.
You can choose between the proprietary Nvidia drivers or the open source Nouveau driver. For the proprietary drivers, there are 3 varieties: the current closed source driver named 'nvidia' (or 'nvidia-dkms') which is under active development; the legacy closed source drivers 'nvidia-3xxxx' for older cards which Nvidia no longer actively supports; and the 'nvidia-open' driver which is currently an alpha stage attempt to open source a part of their closed source driver for newer cards.
If the proprietary drivers support your graphics card, it's generally recommended to use them instead, as it has significantly improved performance and power management for newer GPUs.
However, keep in mind that if the proprietary Nvidia drivers do not work properly on your computer, the Nouveau driver might work fine. This will likely be the case for older cards.
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The nvidia-open drivers are still not up to feature parity with the proprietary drivers.
One issue is with suspend (e.g. closing the lid on your laptop).
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Proprietary drivers setup
You can choose between the nvidia or the nvidia-dkms package. There are pros and cons
for each, but it is generally recommended to use the dkms package,
as you won't have to rebuild the initramfs manually every time the kernel and drivers update, for example.
If you're using a kernel that isn't linux or linux-lts, the dkms package is required.
Installation
Install the following packages:
nvidiaornvidia-dkms: The driver itself. Optionally, the open source drivers from NVIDIA can be installed asnvidia-openornvidia-open-dkms.nvidia-utils: The userspace graphics drivers. You need this for running Vulkan applications. If you'd like to use apps like Steam or Wine, installlib32-nvidia-utilsas well.egl-wayland(libnvidia-egl-wayland1andlibnvidia-egl-gbm1on Ubuntu): This is required in order to enable compatibility between the EGL API and the Wayland protocol.
DRM kernel mode setting
Since NVIDIA does not load kernel mode setting by default, enabling it is required to make Wayland compositors function properly. To enable it, the NVIDIA driver modules need to be added to the initramfs.
Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf. In the MODULES array, add the following module names:
MODULES=(... nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm ...)
Then, create and edit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf. Add this line to the file:
options nvidia_drm modeset=1 fbdev=1
Lastly, rebuild the initramfs with sudo mkinitcpio -P, and reboot.
More information is available here.
Environment variables
Add these variables to your Hyprland config:
env = LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME,nvidia
env = __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME,nvidia
Finishing up
Install a few packages to get some apps to function natively with Wayland for the best compatibility and performance. See the the Master Tutorial.
Reboot your computer.
Launch Hyprland.
It should work now.
VA-API hardware video acceleration
Hardware video acceleration on Nvidia and Wayland is possible with the nvidia-vaapi-driver. This may solve specific issues in Electron apps.
The install instructions are available in the README, however, a quick guide will be given here:
-
Install the package. On Arch, this is
libva-nvidia-driverin the official repos. -
Add this variable to your hyprland config:
env = NVD_BACKEND,directSee here for more information on this environment variable.
You can check the README to get it working for Firefox.
Other issues
Regarding environment variables
- If you face problems with Discord windows not displaying or screen sharing not
working in Zoom, first try running them in Native Wayland (more details below).
Otherwise, remove or comment the line
env = __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME,nvidia.
Multi-monitor with hybrid graphics
On a hybrid graphics device (a laptop with
both an Intel and an Nvidia GPU), you will need to remove the optimus-manager
package if installed (disabling the service does not work). You also need to
change your BIOS settings from hybrid graphics to discrete graphics.
Flickering in Electron / CEF apps
This flickering is likely caused by these apps running in XWayland. To fix the flickering, try running the apps in native Wayland instead.
For most Electron apps, you should be fine just adding this environment variable to your config:
env = ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT,auto
This has been confirmed to work on Vesktop, VSCodium, Obsidian and will probably work on other Electron apps as well.
For other apps, including CEF apps, you will need to launch them with these flags:
--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland
To do this easily for Spotify, Arch Linux has a spotify-launcher packages
in their official repos. You should use that instead of the spotify
package in the AUR. Then, enable the Wayland backend in
/etc/spotify-launcher.conf by uncommenting this line:
extra_arguments = ["--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform", "--ozone-platform=wayland"]
Some CEF / Electron apps may also have a respective flags file in ~/.config.
For example, for VSCodium, you can add the flags to ~/.config/codium-flags.conf
and for Obsidian, you can add the flags to ~/.config/obsidian/user-flags.conf.
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On earlier Nvidia driver versions, including 535, you may have to also include
the --disable-gpu and --disable-gpu-sandbox flags, but, as the names suggest,
you will lose hardware acceleration for whichever app is run with these flags.
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For NixOS, you can set the NIXOS_OZONE_WL environment variable
to 1, which should automatically configure Electron / CEF apps to run with native
Wayland for you.
While it is best to have as many things as possible running natively in Wayland, the flickering will likely be solved in the 555 series of Nvidia driver updates.
Flickering in XWayland games
XWayland games may flicker or present frames out-of-order in a way which makes them unplayable. This is due to the lack of implicit synchronization in the driver, and/or flaky explicit sync support in newer ones.
There are a few fixes:
-
Install the latest versions of
xorg-xwayland,wayland-protocolsand Nvidia driver. Ensurexorg-xwaylandis at least version 24.1,wayland-protocolsis at least version 1.34 and Nvidia driver is at least version 555. These enable explicit sync on the Nvidia driver and should avoid flickering. -
If your GPU is no longer supported by the 555 driver, install older Nvidia drivers which do not exhibit this issue. The last ones which would work will be the 535xx series of drivers. These can be installed on Arch via these AUR packages
-
Try disabling explicit sync. In some select cases, explicit sync may actually cause issues due to the flaky nature of Nvidia drivers. Set
render:explicit_sync = 0in your hyprland config.
Fixing other random flickering (nuclear method)
Note that this forces performance mode to be active, resulting in increased power-consumption (from 22W idle on a RTX 3070TI, to 74W).
This may not be needed for some users. Only apply these 'fixes' if you do notice flickering artifacts from being idle for ~5 seconds.
Make a new file at /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf and paste this in:
options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x2222; PowerMizerLevel=0x3; PowerMizerDefault=0x3; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x3"
Reboot your computer and it should be working.
If it does not, try:
- Lowering your monitor's refresh rate: This can stop the flickering altogether.
- Using the Nouveau driver as mentioned above.
Suspend/wakeup issues
Enable the services nvidia-suspend.service, nvidia-hibernate.service and
nvidia-resume.service, they will be started by systemd when needed.
Add nvidia.NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 to your kernel parameters if
you haven't already.
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As previously mentioned, suspend functions are currently broken on nvidia-open-dkms
due to a bug, so
make sure you're on nvidia-dkms.
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For Nix users, the equivalent of the above is
boot.kernelParams = [ "nvidia.NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1" ];
hardware.nvidia.powerManagement.enable = true;
# Making sure to use the proprietary drivers until the issue above is fixed upstream
hardware.nvidia.open = false;
Still having issues?
If you're still having issues after following this guide, you can join the
Hyprland Discord and ask for help in the
#hyprland-nvidia channel.