Improving graphical performance on an Intel NUC

User Support
1

I have an Intel NUC (system76 meerkat). I know this device doesn’t have great graphical performance, but the default settings on my qubes can barely play a youtube video at a pretty low framerate. Is there anything I can configure to improve the graphical performance. For instance, do I need to allocate any specific devices to the VM for this purpose?

2

The i5 version seems to (mostly) work: System76 Meerkat, i5-6260U Skylake Integrated Graphics (Iris 540)

Few commands to try in a dom0 terminal as ‘user’:

glxinfo -B

Check for direct rendering.

Hans

3

I’ve checked mine:

direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: VMware, Inc. (0xffffffff)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
    Version: 17.0.5
    Accelerated: no
    Video memory: 1592MB
    Unified memory: no
    Preferred profile: compat (0x2)
    Max core profile version: 0.0
    Max compat profile version: 2.1
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 2.0

“Accelerated: no” can be changed to “Accelerated: yes” with a new libglmesa.
On Linux Mint I get it.

Not sure how much it matters for domU’s without GPU pass-through.

I have a NUC10i3FNK ( main board NUC10i3FNB, i3-10110U CPU )

Hans

4 
[qube@dom0] $ glxinfo -B
name of display: :0.0
libGL error: pci id for fd 4: 8086:9b41, driver (null)
libGL error: No driver found
libGL error: failed to load driver: (null)
libGL error: pci id for fd 4: 8086:9b41, driver (null) 
[intel_init_bugmgr:1193] Error initializing buffer manager.
libGL error: failed to create dri screen
libGL error: failed to load driver: i965
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
  Vendor: VMware, Inc. (0xffffffff)
  Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
  Version: 17.0.5
  Accelerated: no
  Video memory: 3882MB
  Unified memory: no
  Preferred profile: compat (0x2)
  Max core profile version: 0.0
  Max compat profile version: 2.1
  Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
  Max GLES[23] profile version: 2.0
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.9, 256 bits)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 17.0.5
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 2.0 Mesa 17.0.5
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 1.0.16

Here is my output on that command. Are those libGL errors important? Looks like direct rendering is enabled, but acceleration is disabled. I’m not sure I understand how to modify those settings.

5

I don’t think you can make GPU-accelerated Youtube play (unless you do it in dom0):

6

oh wow… I had no idea… that is really too bad… :anguished:

7

See the FAQ :

“Qubes does allow for the use of accelerated graphics (e.g. OpenGL) in dom0’s Window Manager, so all the fancy desktop effects should still work.”

. . . but, indeed, your Youtube video in a domU will run slow.

Hans

8

Check (in the Qubes settings: advanced tab) whether the Linux AppVMs run in PVH mode.

If you can only enable PV, then check IOMMU messages in a dom0 terminal:

sudo dmesg | grep -i iommu

or to read all messages:

sudo dmesg --human

Hans