Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

manu · 2023-01-21 15:57:49

Hello!

I run XFCE 4.18 on Arch Linux. When I use Lutris, I have noticed that playing under XFCE introduces a large amount of stuttering that is not present when gaming under a different DE/WM. Basically, the game has micro-freezes every second or so, independently of the actual point of the game: this happens constantly even in static, 2D scenes and in very old games. If I run the same game, with identical Lutris settings and identical xorg.conf file, but switch DE in my `.xinitrc` from XFCE to say, Cinnamon or i3, the level of stuttering reduces dramatically. Mavbe it's not stutter-free, but it playable while under XFCE it is absolutely unbearable. This happens with both OpenGL and Vulkan games.

Information:

* OS: Arch Linux
* GPU: NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1060 6GB
* Driver: nvidia binary driver 525.85.05
* Xorg 21.1.6
* XFCE 4.18

Things I have tried:

* Disable the compositor
* Disable vsync via `xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p "/general/sync_to_vblank" -s false`
* vsync via mangohud

Nothing worked.

Last edited by manu (2023-01-21 15:58:44)

ToZ · 2023-01-21 17:47:51

Hello and welcome.

I don't have an nvidia card to help, just wanted to point you to this open bug report where I believe something similar is being discussed. There are some workarounds and solutions listed there, especially towards the end. Perhaps it can be of help?

manu · 2023-01-22 10:48:22

Thanks!

I'm reading the other issue looking for tips.

For completeness, I'll add that further tests show that this issue is apparently also game dependent. In most Windows games I've tried so far under Lutris the amount of stuttering is much worse under XFCE than in any other DE, but surprisingly some games do not show this issue. For example, the GOG version of Doom 64, which uses the KEX Engine, is absolutely perfect, no matter which API I ask it to use (OpenGL Vulkan or DX11, which is then wrapped via DXVK, the same exact DXVK that tuttering games use).

This is puzzling to say the least.

ToZ · 2023-01-22 12:07:23

Did you try the suggestion about disabling g-sync for xfwm4? If that is the case as suggested in that post, then the other DEs (compositors) are already blacklisted by the nvidia driver but not xfwm4.

manu · 2023-01-28 09:03:43

I forgot to mention that my screen is not G-Sync capable. I still tried that suggestion but it did not help.

For comparison, I tried a clean installation of Garuda XFCE on the same hardware (without any tweaks at either system level or via Lutris), and while it also stuttered, it was much less frequent. So this is probably an issue with my local configuration.

ToZ · 2023-01-28 15:47:41

It appears that garuda uses the same repositories as Arch and more importantly, the same xfwm4 package. It does however, ship with its own xfwm4 configuration settings.

Can you test the different vlbank modes as detailed here to see if there is any noticeable difference?

manu · 2023-02-05 10:50:17

I tried the solution described in the link but it made no difference.

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#1 2023-01-21 15:57:49

Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#2 2023-01-21 17:47:51

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#3 2023-01-22 10:48:22

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#4 2023-01-22 12:07:23

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#5 2023-01-28 09:03:43

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#6 2023-01-28 15:47:41

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

#7 2023-02-05 10:50:17

Re: Heavy stuttering in games under XFCE 4.18

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