[BUG] SteamVR green graphical snow after GPU replacement (Linux, Radeon RX 5500 XT)

[ajrabassa]

Describe the bug After replacing my GeForce 1060 with a Radeon RX 5500 XT, SteamVR now shows graphical glitches and some features no longer work entirely.

In several places, SteamVR shows flickering green static/snow. It is not consistent between eyes, the snow is different in both. In some cases, this is moving, dynamic snow. In others, it's a static image. A screenshot is attached of the static version. When in a VR application with no compositing/overlays, the static disappears completely.

The glitches appear in the following places:

• When in the dashboard/menu (dynamic flickering green squares)
• In the SteamVR default scene/dome, when looking at any component like the chaperone or controllers. (dynamic flickering green squares)
• xrdesktop has green static rather than the complete rendering failure of overlaid windows.
• Trying to view the desktop from inside the Dashboard. Screenshot attached. Note, this did actually used to work. (Static glitch)
• Windows composited into the scene, like the overlays used for streaming. (Static glitch)

None of this happened on the NVidia card; it happened when I swapped over to the Radeon.

To Reproduce Launch SteamVR. This is the only required step to reproduce, as it happens instantly on load.

Expected behavior No static around VR elements, and composited applications/windows to display.

System Information (please complete the following information):

• Distribution: Ubuntu 21.04 (Also tested and occurs in 20.10 and 20.04)
• SteamVR version: 1.17.15
• Steam client version: June 7, 2021
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Graphics driver version: Mesa 21.2.0-devel (git-c04f20e 2021-06-08 hirsute-oibaf-ppa)
• Gist for SteamVR System Information: https://gist.github.com/ajrabassa/1fc2bf24511bef92116c25d9f5d7af2b

Screenshots

Additional context When this occurred, I installed the nightly update PPA for Mesa and Vulkan drivers, so all packages related to Mesa are likely up to date. I also installed the Radeon performance tuning app and set it to high, as a comment thread suggested. This did help overall graphical performance, but had zero effect on the green snow.

Note: Commenters who are also experiencing this issue are encouraged to include the "System Information" section in their replies.

[ajrabassa]

Update: While not solved, I did more testing inside SteamVR itself.

Though counterintuitive, It turns out the graphics settings for the dashboard need to be set to high. I'm not sure what's going on behind the scenes for this to make a difference, but the static-snow and rendering issues for overlays and the desktop view go away only when the dashboard quality is on high - Auto (high) does not do it, only setting to actually high.

There is still static made of green squares around chaperone elements and the default controller models in the dome, but it is lessened.

One more area that is a complete mess is Half Life: Alyx. Every loading screen renders the left/right eye from two different perspectives that seemingly jump around at random. Everything is a bright green mess with no textures, just shaded green.

[Goofybud16]

Close SteamVR

In your steam/config folder (on my system, it lives at ~/.steam/steam/config) locate steamvr.vrsettings

In the "steamvr" section, add the line

      "enableLinuxVulkanAsync" : false,

It should look something like

   "steamvr" : {
      "analogGain" : <snip>,
      "enableHomeApp" : false,
      "enableLinuxVulkanAsync" : false,
      "installID" : "<snip>",
      <snip for brevity>
   },

This disables Vulkan Async Reprojection, which may reduce performance and smoothness, but may get rid of the artifacts. If it doesn't resolve the issue, simply close SteamVR, remove that line, and start it back up.

[passivedragon]

I am experiencing the same issue, the above line seemed to have helped initially, but the green snow suddenly returned.

Are there any new insights on this?

[Thesola10]

Also having the same issue on RX 6600XT, toggling async reprojection makes no difference. Noise occurs on select elements: Big Picture elements on the SteamVR 1.x overlay, the SteamVR 2.0 overlay in its entirety, and interestingly Google Earth VR. Issues seem to stem from applications copying "desktop" components into VR view.

I'm using the latest radeon ICD, the amdvlk ICD has the same issue, just with much worse performance.