Bazzite (KDE Plasma) multi-monitor setup, games don't show on the right monitor
Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I did a relatively quick scroll and didn't see anything about it. Anyway, I'm new to Bazzite, and Linux as a whole. I barely have any experience with it, but so far I'm doing alright, I got my system set up okay and stuff. But I am having an issue with games and which monitor they start on. I have two monitors, one directly in front of me that I play games on, and one to my left for stuff like Discord and Firefox and the like. But for some reason, whenever I load any games, they always, without fail, start on the left, secondary monitor. It seems to ignore all system display settings (main screen is set as primary, they still open on the second screen), and they even ignore their own in-game settings. Been testing this with Factorio in particular (though it is every game, I just chose Factorio for now), and I can set the settings in game and have it properly switch to the correct monitor, but upon rebooting, it will ignore that setting and open on my other monitor, even though the setting is still set to use the primary monitor. From what I was able to find online, this seems to be a KDE Plasma thing, where fullscreen apps will always open on the top left monitor, , regardless of settings. Idk if that's true anymore, the post was pretty old now, but as I can't swap my monitors around or anything like that, this is extremely annoying. Is there anything I can do to make games open on my main monitor again?
(I have labeled this as a "bug" but question and hardware-compat may also be valid tags. Bug just seemed most appropriate because this feels like it shouldn't happen lol)
13 Replies
Bumping this because its still bugging the hell out of me and I dont know what to do about it. Havent found any solutions yet (despite continuing to hunt)
Dumb question, but do you have the monitor on the right set as primary in the display configuration?
I have (as you can see) a similar monitor arrangement and the only time I have games open on the wrong monitor is if I give focus to a window on the left monitor in the seconds between choosing a game to launch from Steam and the game actually launching.
I don't know an answer, but I will note that it's a seemingly longstanding issue that on KDE, the alt-tab task switcher appears on the current (focused) monitor, not the first monitor. I would love to have an option to always lock it to a specific monitor.
Also worth noting that IIRC, Meta+Shift+Left/Right is bound by default to move the currently focused window to the previous/next monitor, so that might be a potential workaround if your settings are correct (although I know it would suck to have to do that every time you start a game).
Yes, I do. Monitor on the right is set to primary. It doesn't matter for games and other fullscreen apps
From what I was able to read online, KDE Plasma seems to be almost hard-coded to open fullscreen apps on the top left monitor, regardless of settings, which is really annoying
The Meta+Shift+Arrow workaround is helpful, but some games can't cope with monitor swaps while running and completely break, so you'd need to use their built in monitor selection settings. But sometimes (not consistently, weirdly), those settings are ignored as well, and even if they aren't, some games just don't even have monitor selection settings. So if you get one without those settings, and it can't cope with swapping monitors with the arrowkey method, it's just stuck on that other screen forever
Hmmm. I know a lot of games actually default to borderless windowed instead of "true" fullscreen, I wonder if that's why I haven't seen the behavior you're describing.
Maybe, I dont know. But even then, I know a couple games that dont have a borderless option (which like- idk how but they dont lol)
It's also possible I made some config change a long time ago that I don't remember anymore off the top of my head...
You might try running Steam games through nested Gamescope. The simplest way to do that is probably with ScopeBuddy, https://docs.bazzite.gg/Advanced/scopebuddy/ I think if they run in nested Gamescope they only "see" the one monitor of whatever resolution you pass to ScopeBuddy so even if you end up having to move the window it shouldn't upset games that are sensitive to that.
ScopeBuddy - Bazzite Documentation
Bazzite is a custom image built upon Fedora Atomic Desktops that brings the best of Linux gaming to all of your devices.
What does that even do? I've never heard of it lol
I am still very new to Linux anything lol
Did some quick reading on it and it seems pretty cool, but apparently is sometimes borky with Nvidia cards. Which is a big RIP for me because I have one XD
Ah, that's unfortunate.
Indeed