Hello all - rookie user here! I hope someone can point me in the right direction.
For context, I came over to Zorin to test out gaming as I didn't want to go over to Win 11 later this year. I intended to stick to W10 and try out Zorin and gaming from time to time in an orderly fashion. As it turned out, Zorin was better all round in every game I played (via Steam and Proton) so i have not in fact booted to Windows in months.
All was well until I applied the upgrade that appeared a few days ago. It appeared as a Partial Upgrade, that seemed to include some sort of Zorin upgrade as well as an nvidia driver update. I believe I now have Zorin Core 17.2 and am using Wayland. Please note that last piece of info doesn't mean anything to me!
After the upgrade all seemed well - until i started to try and game...
Every game I have tried loads fine but plays awfully. There is horizontal screen tearing or just generally poor performance (screen and mouse lag, patchy fps). I am not a power gamer - I play middle of the road games on old hardware (graphics is a nvidia 1060) at medium resolution at most. Before the update, all was a smooth as silk - now every game is unplayable.
I would love to go back to the previous driver version but have no idea how. Or perhaps that is unwise as the old version may not work with whatever Zorin upgrade there was??
Any advice on the way forward would be much appreciated - i really, really don't want to go back to Windows!
Thanks Storm - will try that later tonight (will be downstairs with wife for a while!)
I have a feeling that (x11) might be what it defaulted to after the first reboot post-upgrade. I panicked when the desktop was loaded up as it was a lower resolution than my usual 1080 (can't recall what the res was, but it was 4:3 aspect ratio stretched to fit my desktop) and could not be changed. I may be misremembering
the displayed alternative to wayland though.
The later wayland selection gave me my desktop back so I had not realised that could an issue.
I will have look as you suggest and report back. Thanks for your help
nvidia-smi
Command 'nvidia-smi' not found, but can be installed with:
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-390 # version 390.157-0ubuntu0.22.04.2, or
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-418-server # version 418.226.00-0ubuntu5~0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-450-server # version 450.248.02-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-470 # version 470.256.02-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-470-server # version 470.256.02-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-535 # version 535.183.01-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-535-server # version 535.216.01-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-550 # version 550.120-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-550-server # version 550.127.05-0ubuntu0.22.04.1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-545 # version 545.29.06-0ubuntu0.22.04.2
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-510 # version 510.60.02-0ubuntu1
sudo apt install nvidia-utils-510-server # version 510.47.03-0ubuntu3
Also I looked at "Additional Drivers" in software updater which says (I think) I am using a manual installed driver. The only time I have selected Nvidia is when I selected the Nvidia included option when choosing to install Zorin. (I will try and upload the screenshot).
Subsequently Nvidia drivers have always been done via the official software updater. The only external software I have installed was for an Epson printer.
Aravisian - thanks for the commands - will go through them tomorrow morning and report back. I appreciate the time you are taking out to help!
Storm - I did the reboot and am surprised to see different options being offered on the cog this time. Last time it was use wayland or use X11.... This time it said use "Zorin desktop" or "Zorin desktop on Wayland". Hmm - I have no clue lol.
In this Case Zorin Desktop is the X11/Xorg Option. And the Wayland one - like the Name says - is the other one. When You installed zorin, did you installed it with the Graphics Driver?
Yes I did - I selected the install option to go with the nVidia drivers included.
I am just about to go ahead with terminal commands suggested by Aravisian above. Are there implications from my answer about the install that mean I should hold off doing the strip out, fix and driver install?
Not good news unfortunately. I ran through the 3 steps without problem and the 550 drivers are shown as in use now (and is the recommended version).
However, now things are worse in that the games now don't load past the menu screens and the mouse is even choppy there; eventually they hang and have to have their process closed - Steam can't close the hung entity.
Also, for the sake of completeness, I tried in both Xorg and Wayland modes with same result.
I am inclined to repeat the process with earlier drivers and work back till something (hopefully!) works. I am open to more informed suggestions!
Sorry - forgot to ask. Am I right in guessing that replacing the "550" in the install line with a different number is all that is required to get a different version?
I will of course use all 3 commands as part of the process.
Also, are AMD graphics cards more straightforward? Planning for the future perhaps....
BTW - just noticed in the "additional drivers" section that I screen shotted earlier, that it allows me to select a different driver version there and use that. Does that work ok or is it just more reliable to go through the 3 step cmd line process you have taken me through?
AMD graphics drivers are included in the Linux kernel, so you would not need to manually install or update them.
Whether to use Nvidia or AMD becomes an opinion piece, as does whether one is better or more reliable or gives better performance.
Yes, that will work, as well. You can use the GUI method.
Mesa is an open-source graphics library that provides a framework for rendering 3D and 2D graphics. It acts as an implementation of the OpenGL, Vulkan, and other graphics APIs, translating their commands into instructions that the GPU can execute.
Mesa serves as the bridge between software (like games, web browsers, and graphical applications) and your graphics hardware. It includes various drivers that support AMD, Intel, and some NVIDIA GPUs, allowing applications to render graphics efficiently without relying on proprietary drivers.
Proprietary NVIDIA drivers may bypass Mesa for OpenGL/Vulkan. It helps to have them up to date, for instances where rendering is performed in other ways.
@Dhansak It's probably not your nvidia card because my Acer unit with a GTX 1070 ran like **** too on zorin os. Until i changed the kernel to the one Pop! OS uses. Maybe you should try that first before messing around with the gpu driver
My acer unit now is running on a rolling release, kernel 6.13.6 with nvidia driver 570.124.04 with zero issues. I used Pop! OS before with kernel 6.9.x also with the 570.124.04 driver and also with zero issues. Both where running Wayland.
I'll throw my opinion on AMD vs Nvidia strictly as a usable Linux OS on the daily;
AMD, hands down. Not because they may perform better or worse, but because the likelihood of something breaking while using an AMD card (for my sample size of 1) has been next to never, whereas Nvidia cards, their drivers like to act up at the most inopportune time.
Now if you need Nvidia for Cuda related tasks, or specific AI models, or (insert any other usage that Nvidia is better at) then you should stick with Nvidia. But if you're just a standard user, playing some games, maybe doing some workstation tasks that you won't mind if it takes a bit longer on an AMD card? I would stick with AMD all day long.
That's just my 2 cents. Other people can have completely different opinions, of course.
