Fps drops almost to zero after few minutes

Support Gaming
1

Hello,
2 months ago i switched from windows to linux. And i loved. The only problem i have are the games.
I play only csgo and quake arena. And after a few nice minutes suddenly fps drops almost to zero. I can’t do nothing, i just see some small movements every minute. But somethimes if i alt+tab and switch to another software and back i can play again maybe 3 minutes. And this problem is hauting me in every linux distro so far.( mint, mx linux and here on manjaro too) I tried old drivers, different kernels, window mode… with no luck. Is there still something i can do?

Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.26.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.99.0
Qt Version: 5.15.6
Kernel Version: 5.15.76-1-MANJARO (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
Memory: 3.8 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960/PCIe/SSE2
Manufacturer: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
Product Name: EP31-DS3L

2

Next to impossible have any opinion - I suggest you keep your expectations down with this kind of system.

A CPU released Q1 08 with 2 core 4 threads - 4GB ram and an aged GPU - not a good recipe - is your harddrive the good old spinning type device?

The only suggestion in such case is to ensure you have enough swap and if you are playing online ensure your local network connection is stable.

EDIT: a thought

The kernel implement migitations for a several - highly hypthecial - CPU exploits.

You could try this - you can always revert it.

Open a terminal then edit the default grub config

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Edit the line to look like below - do not delete anything just insert at the beginning (I have left out the remaining part of the line)

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="mitigations=off quiet "

Save the file and rebuild grub config

sudo update-grub

A second thing to check is the default /tmp

Which may be assigned as tmpfs in /etc/fstab - which in turn will use some of your RAM as /tmp.

Comment the line tmpfs in /etc/fstab - save the file and reboot.

2 Likes
3

I think that’s your bottleneck. :point_up_2:

While it’s possible to use Manjaro (or any other modern GNU/Linux) on such a system, expecting a decent gaming performance out of 4 GiB or less is a bit of a stretch. I’d recommend upgrading the RAM to at least 8 GiB, and if you’re going to be gaming, then 16 GiB is better.

3 Likes
4

as @Aragorn already stated the RAM is the bottleneck. while a lot of games are often single-threaded and more cores won’t effect in better performance the missing RAM will cause a lot of trouble because of the missing capacity of RAM-swap. there had been some issues with the ibt-parameter but it is not recommended to turn it off due to severe security leaks.

2 Likes
5

Could also be overheating. The system is potentially 14 years old.

6

No, linux partition is on SSD drive.

i have 5 GB of swap and connection is excellent.

i need to change the line after GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= right?

7

When was the last time you took the 960 apart, cleaned it, and reapplied thermal paste?

8

My motherboard support only 4GB of ram that’s the problem.
But why i can play on win10 without problem although windows need more ram?

9

What is the result of this command in the terminal?
swapon

10

Last year i upgraded cpu from dual core to quad( my motherboard is limited i know) and i also buy big fan. Temperature is not a problem

11

Can you post inxi -Fza on console ?

12

please post the full output of

inxi --admin --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host --width

first

13

The temperature issue is likely in the GPU, have you ever taken it apart to reapply thermal paste?

15

`swapfile file 5G 829,3M -2

hmm maybe, what is the best tool to test this on linux?

16

If you have lm-sensors installed and configured you can use the sensors command. But the nvidia settings gui should give the information.

That being said you will need to run the game and then check the temps.

17

Disable baloo

18

I missed that he was running KDE, with only 4gb of ram. Its the ram usage. The games likely suck up any free ram.

21

if i copy everything i got a message - Sorry, you can’t include links in your posts?

i have same problem on mint xfce too.

where is this settings?

22

With only 4gb of ram you need a very low resource desktop like LXQT or Openbox to run hungry applications.

23

Baloo Configuration
Baloo Configuration1920×1080 140 KB