Steam games fail to use NVIDIA GPU

Hardware Support
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Heyo. I've got a dualboot laptop with an RTX 4050 card and I've been trying to get games running with it.
I've experimented with Steam games like Celeste and Portal 2 and neither have managed to run using the NVIDIA GPU (I check using nvidia-smi). I tried using both the right-click Gnome menu option and running through Lutris, but neither work. And Steam itself doesn't seem to detect the GPU when I look at system info in Steam.
I then tried running the World of Goo 2 appimage through Lutris, and that uses the NVIDIA GPU just fine. So I believe the problem lies in Steam. Any ideas?

(As a side note, I use the 545-open drivers from the Additional Drivers window, but the latest available drivers in apt are 550, even though they're not listed in the window. Why is that?)

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Are you sure your computer runs 4050 and not the intel?

sudo apt install inxi
inxi -Ga
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Not sure what you mean by "runs", but as I said, a non-Steam game managed to use the Nvidia GPU fine

kat@kat-911s:~$ inxi -Ga
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P GT1 [UHD Graphics] vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK
    driver: i915 v: kernel ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:46a3 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: NVIDIA AD107M [GeForce RTX 4050 Max-Q / Mobile]
    vendor: CLEVO/KAPOK driver: nvidia v: 545.29.06
    alternate: nvidiafb,nouveau,nvidia_drm pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s
    lanes: 8 ports: active: none empty: DP-5,eDP-2 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:28a1 class-ID: 0300
  Device-3: Chicony USB2.0 Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-8:3
    chip-ID: 04f2:b729 class-ID: fe01 serial: 200901010001
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 compositor: gnome-shell v: 43.9
    driver: X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa
    gpu: i915 display-ID: :1 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3072x1728 s-dpi: 120 s-size: 650x366mm (25.6x14.4")
    s-diag: 746mm (29.4")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: BOE Display built: 2020 res: 3072x1728 dpi: 227
    gamma: 1.2 size: 344x194mm (13.5x7.6") diag: 395mm (15.5") ratio: 16:9
    modes: 1920x1080
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.2 direct render: Yes
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Are you running Steam by flatpak?
Also try

sudo prime-select nvidia

before runnning a Stam game.

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Yep, got Steam flatpak. And is that command the same as the prime setting in the Nvidia X Server app? I don't wanna have to switch between GPUs manually all the time, that's what Lutris is for hahah

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Aye the same. Just for testing. You could also try the .deb version (which usually works better than flatpak) and see if it makes any difference.

sudo apt install steam
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Installing Steam through apt worked just fine, thank you! Though Lutris is acting up now, but I guess that's a separate thing to solve...

@Storm actually there's more to this. Steam fails to detect the GPU when it starts on startup, but detects it just fine when I start it myself. (I check which GPU it reports using Steam's system info window.) I tried adding a delay to the startup, but that didn't help. Any ideas...?

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Bump cuz I dunno what to do lol. The latest kernel update made Wayland the default (and it turn made Steam blurry), but Steam still lists the X-Server as from the X-Org Foundation, so maybe if I can make it use Wayland it'll get fixed...?

I dug a little and it seems that fractional scaling literally changes your resolution and is the reason why Steam and Firefox report it as 1536x864 instead of 1080p and Steam becomes blurry. This wasn't a problem on Xorg... is there no fixing it?
UPD: it seems like this is a GNOME problem that is likely fixed up in GNOME 47, so hopefully 17.2 comes soon and has that version to fix this :v

And the original problem with Steam not picking up the GPU on autostart still stands, too.

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Point releases do not change the Desktop Base.

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Oh interesting, thank you! Then it's just the Steam problem that still stands.

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Have you updated Mesa, etc?

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/updates

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Reboot and test...

On Steam, set to Proton experimental.

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Already all up to date. I'll probably be leaving Zorin, at least for a while, but this sure is weird lol

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