Unable to get GPU acceleration for GUI applications

[McBride-SallyJoeBob]

__Hello guys I am pretty new here and to WSL in general. I recently upgraded to the Windows 11 preview 22000.194 and upgraded my ubuntu 20.04 LTS WSL for WSLG capabilities. I was able to run the NVIDIA examples for CUDA compute workloads here without any problems. I was clearly seeing GPU activity in task manager. However, for GUI applications such as google-chrome, I do not get any GPU acceleration. I am running a Notebook PC with an AMD apu and NVIDIA RTX 2060 maxq (using NVIDIA optimus). Strangely when a GUI application is opened, even though there is no GPU acceleration, It seems like my GPU gets "activated" according to the "NVIDIA GPU Activity" windows application. Hopefully someone here knows how to fix that so I can run gui applications with gpu rendering. I will try to post as much relevant lnfo/logs here

~$ nvidia-smi
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 510.00       Driver Version: 510.06       CUDA Version: 11.6     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce ...  On   | 00000000:01:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| N/A   47C    P8     3W /  N/A |    174MiB /  6144MiB |     N/A      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

~$ glxinfo -B
name of display: :0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Mesa/X.org (0xffffffff)
    Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
    Version: 20.3.4
    Accelerated: no
    Video memory: 7660MB
    Unified memory: no
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 4.5
    Max compat profile version: 3.1
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa/X.org
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 3.1 Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.40
OpenGL context flags: (none)

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 20.3.4
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

~$ inxi -Fx
System:    Host: $COMPUTER_NAME Kernel: 5.10.43.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
           Desktop: N/A Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine:   Message: No machine data: try newer kernel. Is dmidecode installed? Try -M --dmidecode.
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 4.0 Wh condition: 5.0/5.0 Wh (100%) model: Microsoft Hyper-V Virtual BatterVirtual
           status: Not charging
CPU:       Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 1
           L2 cache: 4096 KiB
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 95819
           Speed: 2994 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2994 2: 2994 3: 2994 4: 2994 5: 2994 6: 2994 7: 2994
           8: 2994 9: 2994 10: 2994 11: 2994 12: 2994 13: 2994 14: 2994 15: 2994 16: 2994
Graphics:  Device-1: Microsoft driver: dxgkrnl v: N/A bus ID: 56ef:00:00.0
           Device-2: Microsoft driver: dxgkrnl v: N/A bus ID: e178:00:00.0
           Display: wayland-0 server: Microsoft Corporation X.org 1.20.11 driver: dxgkrnl
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes
Audio:     Message: No Device data found.
Network:   Message: No Device data found.
           IF-ID-1: bond0 state: down mac: 7a:23:e1:26:14:a5
           IF-ID-2: bonding_masters state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
           IF-ID-3: docker0 state: down mac: 02:42:6a:d7:d3:1d
           IF-ID-4: dummy0 state: down mac: 26:a9:f0:ce:5a:b2
           IF-ID-5: eth0 state: up speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:15:5d:cb:ea:21
           IF-ID-6: sit0 state: down mac: 00:00:00:00
           IF-ID-7: tunl0 state: down mac: 00:00:00:00
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 512.33 GiB used: 382.89 GiB (74.7%)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: Virtual Disk size: 256.00 GiB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Virtual Disk size: 339.7 MiB
           ID-3: /dev/sdc model: Virtual Disk size: 256.00 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 250.98 GiB used: 28.40 GiB (11.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc
Sensors:   Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured?
Info:      Processes: 9 Uptime: 1h 30m Memory: 7.48 GiB used: 536.1 MiB (7.0%) Init: N/A Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0
           Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 inxi: 3.0.38
APTOP-2P2RHP26:~$ inxi -Fx
System:    Host: LAPTOP-2P2RHP26 Kernel: 5.10.43.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A
           Desktop: N/A Distro: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Machine:   Message: No machine data: try newer kernel. Is dmidecode installed? Try -M --dmidecode.
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 4.0 Wh condition: 5.0/5.0 Wh (100%) model: Microsoft Hyper-V Virtual BatterVirtual
           status: Not charging
CPU:       Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen rev: 1
           L2 cache: 4096 KiB
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 95819
           Speed: 2994 MHz min/max: N/A Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2994 2: 2994 3: 2994 4: 2994 5: 2994 6: 2994 7: 2994
           8: 2994 9: 2994 10: 2994 11: 2994 12: 2994 13: 2994 14: 2994 15: 2994 16: 2994
Graphics:  Device-1: Microsoft driver: dxgkrnl v: N/A bus ID: 56ef:00:00.0
           Device-2: Microsoft driver: dxgkrnl v: N/A bus ID: e178:00:00.0
           Display: wayland-0 server: Microsoft Corporation X.org 1.20.11 driver: dxgkrnl
           resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz, 1920x1080~60Hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 11.0.1 256 bits) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes
Audio:     Message: No Device data found.
Network:   Message: No Device data found.
           IF-ID-1: bond0 state: down mac: 7a:23:e1:26:14:a5
           IF-ID-2: bonding_masters state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
           IF-ID-3: docker0 state: down mac: 02:42:6a:d7:d3:1d
           IF-ID-4: dummy0 state: down mac: 26:a9:f0:ce:5a:b2
           IF-ID-5: eth0 state: up speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:15:5d:cb:ea:21
           IF-ID-6: sit0 state: down mac: 00:00:00:00
           IF-ID-7: tunl0 state: down mac: 00:00:00:00
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 512.33 GiB used: 382.89 GiB (74.7%)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: Virtual Disk size: 256.00 GiB
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: Virtual Disk size: 339.7 MiB
           ID-3: /dev/sdc model: Virtual Disk size: 256.00 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 250.98 GiB used: 28.40 GiB (11.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdc
Sensors:   Message: No sensors data was found. Is sensors configured?
Info:      Processes: 9 Uptime: 1h 30m Memory: 7.48 GiB used: 536.1 MiB (7.0%) Init: N/A Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0
           Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 inxi: 3.0.38

[hemanth981]

From whatever digging I found out, the WSL system distro connects to and keeps alive the dedicated GPU (or whatever GPU it finds out?) even though it may not be the default renderer/the renderer being used. From your glxinfo output, it seems that software rendering is being used.
I'm not really sure, but it is worth a try to install the latest version of MESA (try using kisak ppa). It has options to select GPU under WSL. You can then export the env variable MESA_D3D12_DEFAULT_ADAPTER_NAME="NVIDIA" and try to run chrome from the wsl shell.