FPS went to drain after ugrading from 20 to 20.1

Really glad it helped. Im really no expert in this, I’d have said it was a kernel issue but you said you have changed kernels back.

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Yes, I tried it with kernels 5.6/5.7/5.8 with no difference. I am still pretty green in the linux realm myself. Do I need to “re-build” the nvidia driver for each kernel? Hopefully, experts will shed some light.

Thanks so much for getting me thus far @sawdoctor!

If you are updating with pacman,pamac,gui then the nvidia drivers will automatically get added to any new kernel that you get. I’ve been on linux for 5 years (2 months on manjaro) and still very green myself, trying to learn more about the cli

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Strangely the gamemode is an on and off type of solution. I tried launching the game again today with gamemode on and it was again fairly laggy. :frowning:

Update, it appears to be related to the Global Theme (Sweet mars - in my case)
Somehow, this eats away my FPS

Hi, I had a similar thing happen to me with Manjaro XFCE. In my case, it was the screen compositor, I binded a key that was unused on my laptop to toggle it on/off. I don’t recommend to keep it off, specially in KDE since it has so many animations and such that would be gone without the compositor, without mentioning the screen tearing, but definitely disable it when you play games. It makes my games go from sluggish to fully playable, at the press of a button, literally. I call it my “lag switch”.

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Thanks @tralph3,
It appears to be driven by some black magic.
Normally after installing Manjaro, I do this tweak that removes most of the tearing/lag on the desktop (not all): disable most of Compositor options and lean on Nvidia to handle composition. Perhaps this is part of the problem.
That said, on a fresh Manjaro install, with above tweak, I experience no issues in the game. That is (as per my testing yesterday) until I load the Global theme. I disable the Global Theme and it is back to normal.
I tried this approach on my current Manjaro and that does not appear to make a difference. Seems like more work to be done.

Looking for keyboard shortcuts for Compositor, i stumble upon “Kwin”? Is that it?

The command I use to turn it on/off is this one:

xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -t bool --toggle

That’s for xfce, I doubt it will work for KDE but you can give it a shot. I usually check if it’s off by opnening a terminal and seeing if the window borders on the right side have a shadow, if yes, it’s on.

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Thanks, giving it a go

Sadly. no change to gameplay with Plasmashell stopped.

All my experimentation points to a conflict with Compositor and Nvidia driver.
I switched to LTS Kernel 5.4.64-1, re-installed nvidia driver (450), still no luck.
Now the entire desktop is sluggish.
As per suggestion on the forum, in Compositor, switched to from OpenGL3.0 to XRender for backend.
Dekstop UI has become quite pleasant and smooth but the gaming experience has not changed:

Compositor settings:
image

Nvidia settings:

I came by this post which appears similar in nature to what I am experiencing. I am not skilled enough to understand what is happening in that config. Perhaps @bogdancovaciu can show me the light :slight_smile:

Below are my settings:

[user@puter ~]$ mhwd -li
> Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    video-nvidia-450xx            2019.10.25               false            PCI



[user@puter ~]$ cat /etc/X11/mhwd.d/nvidia.conf
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 450.66

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "DELL U2412M"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 61.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 970"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: 1920x1200_60 +0+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}, DP-1: 1920x1080 +1920+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Hello,

Please give this a try:

Don’t use both ForceCompositionPipeline=On, ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On just one. I would stay away from the Full one.

Also, don’t let out this two sections from the original config file, add it back to yours:


Section "Extensions"
    Option         "COMPOSITE" "Enable"
EndSection

 
Section "InputClass"
    Identifier          "Keyboard Defaults"
    MatchIsKeyboard        "yes"
    Option              "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
EndSection

Then change the compositor to this:

image

I have a GTX 960 and works flawlessly. Give me a sec to come back with a custom config eventually, but the topic i pointed to should clarify a few things.

Update
Here is what i would use:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "DELL"
    ModelName      "DELL U2412M"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     50.0 - 61.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 970"
    Option         "TripleBuffer"  "On"
    Option  "ConnectToAcpid"    "Off"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: 1920x1200_60 +0+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}, DP-1: 1920x1080 +1920+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "COMPOSITE" "Enable"
EndSection

 
Section "InputClass"
    Identifier          "Keyboard Defaults"
    MatchIsKeyboard        "yes"
    Option              "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
EndSection

And not forget about the kwin.sh mentioned in the other post.

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Thank you so much @bogdancovaciu.
I have just tried implementing these changes but sadly both the desktop and game performance are still pretty bad.
I will re-try this now again, perhaps I missed a step.

Sorry for the stupid question but where do I make the above changes?
/etc/X11/mhwd.d/nvidia.conf
or
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

I have re-done/reapplied these setting a number of times now. Even switched to the kernel 5.8.11 to see if there is a difference.
The Desktop UI performance is reasonable now but the gaming is still pretty laggy unfortunately.

OK, i got a bit crazy again.
Wiped my drive and reinstalled Manjaro 20.1 again.
Applied aforementioned settings and now both the Desktop and Game performance is back to normal.
I am not sure what to make of it.

I am very scared to change anything to under Appearance (Global Theme, etc) as this may break the performance again :sweat_smile:

You have to make sure the themes are updated. A workaround is to change only the color-scheme and Plasma Style.

Thank you @bogdancovaciu, that is exactly how I approached it this time. I did not download any themes but rather just downloaded Plasma Style, Application Style, Colors, Icons, Cursor which is really the same.

Heh, randomly the performance is again down:( I give up

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