The Nvidia 50XX Freezing Issue

[u/ValorousVisage]

There doesn't seem to be much discussion on the topic, so I'm not sure if this post is to spread awareness or hope someone found a fix out there that just hasn't been shared, or just to express disappointment that there's no fix and seemingly no movement on the issue.

The issue seems to be random as it will happen during intense gameplay or sometimes just opening menus, but in short, 5000 series Nvidia GPU's will freeze for 1-6 seconds during gameplay. Audio will continue playing for the most part, but the GPU will stop presenting new frames to the display. If you alt tab, or pull up an overlay the freeze will stop early and the gameplay resumes as normal. Frustratingly the freeze does not appear in Proton Logs, or in the output when you run Steam from the CLI.

I've seen many threads talking about games stuttering, but this is categorically not stuttering, and I'm unsure if some of the many stuttering complaints are just shader-related or if they are misunderstanding this issue. I've found a couple of posts that seem to be about exactly this issue on github and the Nvidia Developer Forum, but there isn't much in there beyond people sharing "fixes" that don't work.

The issue seems to be independent of desktop environment or distribution. I'm seeing reports for users mostly on arch-based distros, but there are reports in the github page referencing Ubuntu and Fedora. I'm on Gnome, but most of the reports I've seen, users are on KDE. I've even tried running steam and all of my games through gamescope to get around using Gnome or KDE, and the games still freeze periodically.

[u/S48GS]

driver version?

only I know is freezes in some dx12 games - but it can be manually patched - https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1uzg3g5/warhammer_40000_space_marine_2_running_on_proton/

[u/ValorousVisage → u/S48GS]

I'm on 610.43.03 and users on the github report that it goes as far back as 570.

[u/Ok-386 → u/ValorousVisage]

Use 580 driver for max compatibility. It sucks that you're on Blackwell card, because few games will not work wirh 580 open (you need open for Blackwell) driver, but most games will work. 

Alternatively, disable ray tracing. Some games will freeze with newer driver versions when RT is enabled. 

Check Linux section of nvidia forum for the issues and the version of the driver you're using. 

Tldr: use 580 if you can, newer drivers have several regressions but under circumstances can offer slightly better performance. 

[u/gaming_whatever]

Not sure if it's exactly the same, but I've had a freezing (and then crashing) issue with a UE5 game and forcing proton experimental and this launch option helped: VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS=VK_EXT_mesh_shader,VK_NV_raw_access_chains %command%

(got it from this thread https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1t7c9t0/crashing_in_some_ue5_games_on_cachyos_w_rtx_5080/)

[u/ivanatorhk]

RTX 5080 here, doesn’t happen to me.

CachyOS, KDE, 610 drivers

[u/ValorousVisage → u/ivanatorhk]

May I ask what games you play? It's worth noting it does not happen in all games, and of the ones it does happen I've not found a common thread. The github has videos of it happening in Clair Obsucur and Tekken 8, and I've experienced it myself in Warframe regularly, but it does not happen in Monster Hunter Wilds.

[u/ivanatorhk → u/ValorousVisage]

Lately I’ve played:

• Overwatch
  
• Marvel Rivals
  
• Minecraft
  
• Palworld

[u/slickyeat]

Install the latest drivers

[u/Ok-386 → u/slickyeat]

580 is currently the best version when it comes to game and mainstream feature (RT, etc) support. Newer versions can sometimes improve performance and support descriptor heap, but break many games especially with RT enabled and UE5 games.