Bug 521675 - Regression in Plasma 6.7.0: kwin_wayland multi-GPU swapchain synchronization causes compositor freeze during heavy secondary GPU compute (CUDA)
Summary: Regression in Plasma 6.7.0: kwin_wayland multi-GPU swapchain synchronization ...
Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM
Alias: None
Product: kwin
Classification: Plasma
Component: compositing (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.7.0
Platform: CachyOS Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KWin default assignee
URL:
Keywords: regression
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2026-06-18 19:44 UTC by alexborggren
Modified: 2026-07-26 08:22 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

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Description alexborggren 2026-06-18 19:44:38 UTC
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DESCRIPTION
A regression was introduced in Plasma 6.7.0 regarding how kwin_wayland handles multi-GPU setups. Under the new multi-GPU explicit sync and swapchain behavior, KWin automatically creates background rendering pipelines and maps processes across all available system GPUs, even secondary, display-less cards used strictly for compute.

When a heavy parallelized compute workload (such as llama.cpp processing a large context window) saturates the execution queues of the secondary GPU, KWin's compositor frame-scheduling logic misses its synchronization deadlines. This causes the compositor to time out, crashing the llama server/process.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Boot into a Plasma 6.7.0 Wayland session on a multi-GPU setup (e.g., primary RTX 5070 Ti driving displays, secondary RTX 5060 Ti as an internal compute node).
2. Run nvidia-smi to confirm that kwin_wayland is now spawning background graphical processes on the secondary compute GPU.
3. Initiate a heavy multi-GPU CUDA workload via llama.cpp using both cards simultaneously.

OBSERVED RESULT
The compositor hits a synchronization watchdog timeout on the secondary card, causing a rendering freeze, shell panic, and a crash of llama server or process utilizing multi-GPU processing.

EXPECTED RESULT
The compositor should cleanly isolate desktop workspace rendering to the primary card or gracefully handle compute-induced sync delays on secondary cards without triggering watchdog for heavy multi-GPU workloads.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System (available in the Info Center app, or by running `kinfo` in a terminal window):
KDE Plasma Version: 6.7.0
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.3.0
Qt Version: 6.7.1

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Downgrading back to Plasma 6.6.5 completely fixes the issue. Under 6.6.5, nvidia-smi confirms that kwin_wayland restricts its processes entirely to GPU 0 (the primary display card) and leaves the secondary compute card completely uninhibited, preventing any cross-talk timeouts. Using the KWIN_DRM_DEVICES environment variable to manually bypass this in 6.7.0 unfortunately results in a black screen at boot.
Comment 1 Zamundaaa 2026-07-06 21:54:28 UTC
KWin neither "spawns background graphical processes" nor does it use GPUs that no displays are connected to. It opens all render nodes, and that's all.
If any driver bugs cause problems with that, please report it to KWin doesn't use GPUs that no display is connected to. Please report your problem to Nvidia: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/c/gpu-graphics/linux
Comment 2 Konstantin Pereiaslov 2026-07-26 08:20:20 UTC
This is a serious regression for me. It is using VRAM on the GPU that I use for CUDA (NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Max-Q Workstation Edition) and initializing the graphic component on it seems to half the speed of everything. I realize this might be an upstream driver bug, but to me this makes new versions of plasma not usable. There should be a way to prevent Plasma from doing *anything* with certain GPUs. It used to happen automatically.
Comment 3 Konstantin Pereiaslov 2026-07-26 08:22:43 UTC
I realized my issue is covered by https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=521814