Chromium snap invalid GPU

snap
1

Chromium snap incorrectly identifies GPUs and as result incorrectly applies driver workarounds and consumes more resources. The output of the chrome://gpu :

Chrome deb:
GPU0 VENDOR= 0x10de, DEVICE=0x134e
GPU1 VENDOR= 0x8086, DEVICE=0x591b  *ACTIVE*
Optimus true

Chromium snap:
GPU0 VENDOR= 0x0000 [Intel Open Source Technology Center], DEVICE=0x0000 [Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics 630 (Kaby Lake GT2) ]  *ACTIVE*
Optimus false

In this case, for example, msaa_is_slow isn’t applied. This is true also for other Chromium based snaps like Opera.

2

I think this problem is general to all snaps, unfortunately. This thread discusses exposing host drivers to snaps and would probably help, when implemented.

3

Maybe it is, but you’ve transitioned Chromium to snap and now laptop fan goes nuts on CSS animations. Maybe passing right DEVICE ID without exposing host drivers will be enough. I hope there will be a solution soon.

2 Likes
4

How does chromium inspect the driver? Some aspects of the GPU host drivers are exposed to snaps via i.e. dynamic libraries in /var/lib/snapd/libs/gl/..., so perhaps chromium just needs to be told to look there instead of in /usr/lib/.... ?