Nvidia

Foreword

There is no official support for Nvidia. Unfortunately, their drivers are so messy, and their products so random, that it’s impossible for us to help if these instructions don’t work fully.

Every card seems to be random, and might work perfectly, or not work at all.

Nevertheless, it’s recommended to at least try this tutorial.

How to get Hyprland to possibly work on Nvidia

Install the nvidia-dkms driver and add it to your initramfs & kernel parameters. Follow the information available here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA#DRM_kernel_mode_setting

in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf add nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm to your MODULES

run # mkinitcpio --config /etc/mkinitcpio.conf --generate /boot/initramfs-custom.img

add a new line to /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf (make it if it does not exist) and add the line options nvidia-drm modeset=1

If your GPU is listed as supported by the nvidia-open-dkms driver, use that one instead. Note that on a laptop, it could cause problems with the suspended state when closing the lid, so you might be better off with nvidia-dkms.

To get multi monitor to work properly on a hybrid graphics device (a laptop with both an Intel and an Nvidia GPU), you will need to remove the optimus-manager package if installed (disabling the service does not work). You also need to change your BIOS settings from hybrid graphics to discrete graphics.

Export these variables in your config:

env = LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME,nvidia
env = XDG_SESSION_TYPE,wayland
env = GBM_BACKEND,nvidia-drm
env = __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME,nvidia
env = WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS,1

If you encounter crashes in Firefox, remove the line env = GBM_BACKEND,nvidia-drm.

If you face problems with Discord windows not displaying or screen sharing not working in Zoom, remove or comment the line env = __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME,nvidia.

Install qt5-wayland, qt5ct and libva. Additionally nvidia-vaapi-driver-git (AUR) to fix crashes in some Electron-based applications, such as Unity Hub.

Reboot your computer

Launch Hyprland.

It should work now.

Fixing random flickering, method 1

If you take a look at the wlroots patches in the nix flake you will find a one-line patch:

substituteInPlace render/gles2/renderer.c --replace "glFlush();" "glFinish();"

What this means, for non-nix users, is you have to (before building) go to subprojects/wlroots/render/gles2/renderer.c and replace all occurrences of glFlush() with glFinish(), and then compile Hyprland as usual.

Fixing random flickering, method 2 (nuclear)

Do note though that this forces performance mode to be active, resulting in increased power-consumption (from 22W idle on a RTX 3070TI, to 74W).

This may not even be needed for some users, only apply these ‘fixes’ if you in-fact do notice flickering artifacts from being idle for ~5 seconds.

Make a new file at /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf and paste this in:

options nvidia NVreg_RegistryDwords="PowerMizerEnable=0x1; PerfLevelSrc=0x2222; PowerMizerLevel=0x3; PowerMizerDefault=0x3; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x3"

Reboot your computer and it should be working.