Hi.
I am using GNOME on Ubuntu 25.05. Graphic card is Intel Arc A380.
In order to monitor and graph graphic card usage, I am trying to use command similar to this one:
intel_gpu_top -J -s 20000
This command produces output with sections ‘engines’ and ‘clients’.
My understanding is that ‘engines’ section should represent sum of all ‘clients’ utilizations, but summing up Renderer/3D, Blitter, Video, VideoEnhance and Compute usage percentages from ‘clients’ does not add up to the same values in ‘engines’.
In the following example, while running 3 different UHD videos in kodi, mpv and firefox/youtube, ‘clients’ section shows some utilizations, but ‘engines’ section stays almost at zero - which is not realistic:
{
"period": {
"duration": 20022.692524,
"unit": "ms"
},
"frequency": {
"requested": 1957.728710,
"actual": 1523.571316,
"unit": "MHz"
},
"interrupts": {
"count": 830.357854,
"unit": "irq/s"
},
"rc6": {
"value": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
},
"imc-bandwidth": {
"reads": 1226.772180,
"writes": 506.619317,
"unit": "MiB/s"
},
"engines": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": 0.000000,
"sema": 0.000000,
"wait": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": 0.003410,
"sema": 0.000000,
"wait": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": 11.033113,
"sema": 0.000000,
"wait": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": 0.000000,
"sema": 0.000000,
"wait": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": 0.000000,
"sema": 0.000000,
"wait": 0.000000,
"unit": "%"
}
},
"clients": {
"4294905208": {
"name": "mpv",
"pid": "62088",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "50814976",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "50413568",
"purgeable": "16384",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "447827968",
"shared": "226492416",
"resident": "427380736",
"purgeable": "1245184",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "22.089722",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "23.688267",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294906883": {
"name": "RDD Process",
"pid": "60413",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "26705920",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "25174016",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "266387456",
"shared": "190840832",
"resident": "199540736",
"purgeable": "262144",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "13.916087",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294916811": {
"name": "kodi.bin",
"pid": "50485",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "13271040",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "12738560",
"purgeable": "131072",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "760999936",
"shared": "694157312",
"resident": "725282816",
"purgeable": "1572864",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "2.522520",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "5.413740",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294967295": {
"name": "systemd",
"pid": "1",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "6217728",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "2605056",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "2117632"
},
"local": {
"total": "1020858368",
"shared": "236978176",
"resident": "1019744256",
"purgeable": "655360",
"active": "304152576"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "5.729490",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294907075": {
"name": "firefox",
"pid": "60221",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "6840320",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "5251072",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "357421056",
"shared": "121634816",
"resident": "357421056",
"purgeable": "262144",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "2.258048",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294941605": {
"name": "Xwayland",
"pid": "25691",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "1191936",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "1056768",
"purgeable": "524288",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "131555328",
"shared": "96600064",
"resident": "118448128",
"purgeable": "1048576",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "2.167758",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294905251": {
"name": "smplayer",
"pid": "62045",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "393216",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "0",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294905326": {
"name": "nautilus",
"pid": "61970",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "3346432",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "319488",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "124878848",
"shared": "33554432",
"resident": "124878848",
"purgeable": "2162688",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294941587": {
"name": "mutter-x11-fram",
"pid": "25709",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "3026944",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "0",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294941597": {
"name": "gsd-xsettings",
"pid": "25699",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "393216",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "0",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
},
"4294944572": {
"name": "gnome-shell",
"pid": "22724",
"memory": {
"system": {
"total": "0",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
},
"local": {
"total": "0",
"shared": "0",
"resident": "0",
"purgeable": "0",
"active": "0"
}
},
"engine-classes": {
"Render/3D": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Blitter": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Video": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"VideoEnhance": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
},
"Compute": {
"busy": "0.000000",
"unit": "%"
}
}
}
}
}
Example totals:
mpv: ~21.9% 3D, ~21.4% Video
kodi: ~2.5% 3D, ~7.0% Video
RDD Process(Firefox): ~14% Video
Others (Firefox UI, systemd, Xwayland): ~10% total 3DBut top-level ‘engines’ section says:
Render/3D: 0.000000%
Video: 3.056086%
All others: ~0%
Is this a bug or expected behavior of intel-gpu-top?