I have sluggish, not smooth video playback in plasma x11. Xfce or cinnamon works ok.
Can anyone provide me some steps to solve this issue?
Hi @wennaspeedy,
What media player are you using in Plasma? Also, you have provided the necessary info, so please do so and provide the output of:
inxi --verbosity=5 --filter
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Hi there. I tried Haruna, vlc and smplayer (mpv/mplayer - mplayer better results, but lags every few seconds).
output:
System:
Kernel: 6.9.12-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 14.1.1
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.0.5 Distro: Manjaro base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 82RF v: Legion 5 Pro 16IAH7H
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: NO DPK serial: <superuser required>
uuid: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO v: J2CN56WW date: 09/18/2023
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 77.4 Wh (100.0%) condition: 77.4/80.0 Wh (96.7%)
volts: 16.2 min: 15.4 model: Celxpert L21C4PC1 status: full
Memory:
System RAM: total: 32 GiB available: 31.07 GiB used: 8.69 GiB (28.0%)
Array-1: capacity: 32 GiB slots: 2 modules: 2 EC: None
max-module-size: 16 GiB note: est.
Device-1: Controller0-ChannelA-DIMM0 type: DDR5 size: 16 GiB
speed: 4800 MT/s
Device-2: Controller1-ChannelA-DIMM0 type: DDR5 size: 16 GiB
speed: 4800 MT/s
CPU:
Info: 14-core (6-mt/8-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H bits: 64
type: MST AMCP arch: Alder Lake rev: 3 cache: L1: 1.2 MiB L2: 11.5 MiB
L3: 24 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1089 high: 2282 min/max: 400/4600:4700:3500 cores:
1: 1128 2: 740 3: 453 4: 400 5: 1637 6: 1538 7: 2104 8: 1958 9: 2282
10: 1060 11: 2026 12: 400 13: 586 14: 1428 15: 1519 16: 400 17: 400
18: 400 19: 931 20: 400 bogomips: 107560
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Lenovo
driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-12.2 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: NVIDIA GA104M [Geforce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU] vendor: Lenovo
driver: nvidia v: 550.107.02 arch: Ampere bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.13 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.1 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: 1: 3840x2160~60Hz 2: N/A
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,swrast platforms:
active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa v: 24.1.5-manjaro1.1
glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2)
API: Vulkan Message: No Vulkan data available.
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
Device-2: NVIDIA GA104 High Definition Audio vendor: Lenovo
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
API: ALSA v: k6.9.12-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api
Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off
Server-2: PipeWire v: 1.2.2 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
bus-ID: 00:14.3
IF: wlp0s20f3 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Lenovo driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 3000 bus-ID: 34:00.0
IF: enp52s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-3: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter driver: r8152 type: USB
bus-ID: 4-4.3.1:5
IF: enp0s20f0u4u3u1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: cscotun0 state: unknown speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel AX211 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB
bus-ID: 3-10:11
Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 2 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 4.59 TiB used: 725.4 GiB (15.4%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Intel model: SSDPEMKF010T8 NVMe 1024GB
size: 953.87 GiB temp: 38.9 C
ID-2: /dev/nvme1n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVL21T0HCLR-00BL2
size: 953.87 GiB temp: 53.9 C
ID-3: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WD30NMZW-11A8NS1
size: 2.73 TiB type: USB
Message: No optical or floppy data found.
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 382.94 GiB used: 123.8 GiB (32.3%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme1n1p5 label: N/A uuid: 5bddcf14-48c0-40b5-acd9-1a8367b61c2f
ID-2: /boot/efi size: 1.8 GiB used: 424.4 MiB (23.0%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme1n1p1 label: N/A uuid: 9A7A-5BA6
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 17.45 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
dev: /dev/nvme1n1p6 label: N/A uuid: d98733e7-46b1-4f72-91ec-dc2e12af2946
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 70.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Processes: 414 Uptime: 3h 7m Init: systemd
Packages: 2003 Compilers: clang: 18.1.8 gcc: 14.1.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
inxi: 3.3.35
I have no problem with video playback with SMPlayer under KDE at 1440p with my nvidia 2080Ti.
Probably the video player is using your iGPU and because you have a 4k display it lags for that reason.
I personally would try to disable in your Bios the iGPU and see if anything changed.
inxi --admin --verbosity=5 --filter --no-host --width
shows also your grub output.
I have hybrid GPU. I want not to use discrete mode because of huge power consumption.
I almost think that if you’re going to play video at that resolution on the integrated GPU, you have to know it’ll lag. I think.
All videos has worked perfectly on my GTX960, so your dedicated GPU is obviously more than good enough.
The integrated one? Well, maybe not. 
Well, it seems to me you have a choice: Have better video performance of the dGPU at the expense of greater power consumption; or, accept the inherent pitfalls of using the iGPU for intensive graphic application.
The best that might possibly be achieved is to minimise any screen tearing artifacts by tweaking specific video application settings. Apart from that, I (for one) have no magic 
or stardust to sprinkle.
Cheers.
1 Like
So tell me why these symtoms are not present in XFCE or GNOME DEs.
Different window managers, most likely.
Have you tried a Wayland session on Plasma? This might work better for you. Easy to switch back to x11 if it doesn’t.
Yes, wayland seems ok, but x11 is smoother and has better performance.
It also depends on the GPU which your system is using… AMD GPU’s in general works better on Wayland since Plasma 6.
I think Intel GPU’s works mostly better on Wayland with the newest Plasma 6.1 changes but nvidia is another story and works better with X11 (sometimes excluded for some newest 40x0 Gen owner’s).
Any GPU will have its own idiosyncrasies, dependent upon the environment in which its used; the display environment; available system resources; the OS itself.
As @Kobold indicated, the iGPU too can play a part in how well a system seems to perform with any given combination of hardware and software. Either way, it falls back to the underlying performance (or, lack thereof) of the iGPU.
An example; I use a system with an RX 580 dGPU and Intel UHD 630, and despite others claiming next to miraculous performance from the iGPU, mine typically struggled with anything more demanding than playing mahjongg.
Now, I use the iGPU only for higher calculation and processing, in addition to the dGPU; it doesn’t drive a monitor at all.
What you might need to focus on are the individual applications in use; whether it may be SMPlayer (I usually recommend this), VLC, or whatever. There are usually app-centric tweaks to be found that might improve things.
Cheers.