Question about NVIDIA Drivers in Linux and Display Hang

Hardware Support
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Stepping back, you did try the other one I suggested above and it set polling to 500Hz, but you saw no change?

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I did try it yes and it confirmed being 500Hz but the issue persisted

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All this means is that suggestion is not working.
Even at a lower frequency rate, input flooding can still saturate the queue.
And game engine input lag could be where the fault lies.

Try to replicate it while running

sudo libinput debug-events

in terminal.

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Tried the and it said that the libinput command was not found am guessing I am missing a package? The one in the software manager did not seem to do it as it still said libinput command not found.

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I have also re-tested it differently and noticed that the issue is when alternating mouse and keyboard, or pressing mouse and keyboard together.

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You may be using input-synaptics package, instead of LibInput.

If it was polling, then this would not be the case.
This makes me think more that the game engine is where the lag happens.

Let's clarify what game (Or game Engine)?
It is native GnuLinux or is it Installed with Steam with Proton - if Steam, which Proton are you using?

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Morning Aravisian,

It did make me wonder the same, I've been looking into whether it might be something in my current winecfg (still searching and tinkering).

As to which game and engines, the game is World of Warcraft which I have currently running through Faugus launcher. I have also tried it via Steam and Lutris but Faugus has been the most stable for me.

I had it configured to GE-Proton but have tried all their layers with the issue remaining.

I'm leaving the gym now and will return to the tinkering when I'm home.

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Have you tried Valve's Gamescope microcompositor which might help isolate the games input from the rest of the system?

Also, the ArchLinux Wiki has some good documentation on the use of Gamescope as well as work-arounds for issues.

For example,

High polling rate mice cause stuttering

Moving a high polling rate mouse (observed with 4000Hz) in the game window might cause stuttering or temporary freezes [2]. Setting a lower polling rate like 1000Hz should work around this issue.
(src: Gamescope - ArchWiki)

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Morning HungryPooch,

I did read about it but ended up not going down the Gamescope path as it seems to be tailored to be used with Steam (according to their github instructions) and I am not using Steam as the launcher.

With regards to the polling rate, it has already been reduced to 500Hz and the problem has been diagnosed later to be triggered by multiple alternated inputs between mouse and keyboard in quick sucession.

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Hi Vaelk,

Apologies, if my previous comment disappeared from under you. I deleted it because I wasn't sure I could defend what I had written.

Here are a few more suggestions assuming wired devices:

  • Have you tried plugging the mouse and keyboard into different ports? The two ports you've chosen may share a common bottleneck on the motherboard. If you have usb ports offering different speeds (USB2 vs USB3, etc), plug the keyboard into the USB2 and the mouse into the USB3 to isolate them from each other. The bottleneck not necessarily being bandwidth, but interrupts (calls for attention) by the devices.
  • Disable USB Legacy support in the BIOS/UEFI unless for some reason you need PS/2 mouse support. Less is more.
  • Set your system to run at max performance to avoid power throttling and USB hiccups.
  • If on a laptop, check whether your temps are spiking when experiencing the issue as device interrupts will exercise the CPU and generate heat.
  • Try disabling/removing all unnecessary devices as an experiment (sound cards, microphones, usb webcams, etc.)
    Give the USB bus as little to do as possible by only starting with the bare minimum configuration to reproduce the problem. If the problem goes away, then build up from there until the problem comes back.

Does your system temperature go up significantly during the stuttering which would indicate that individual CPU cores are running full out? Performance monitoring tools, such as MangoHUD, tend to report system temperature as the temp of the hottest CPU core. So even if all the other cores are quiet, the temp of that single core (doing whatever it is doing) may result in throttling or be an indication of the bottleneck generating the device stuttering.
This can happen with games that make heavy use of the processor rather than the graphics card. It happens with my favourite game Hunt Showdown 1896.

Have you tried disabling the X11 compositor to give the system less to do whilst gaming?

If disabling the compositor helps, you can configure gamemode to disable it automatically when gaming.

I'll stop now. I'm really sorry with the constant edits. Once my brain latches onto something my brain goes into storming mode for hours. I'll step away from the keyboard.

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Hello HungryPooch,

That does explain it xD I was trying to find your reply but couldn't find it. Do not worry I completely understand your reasoning for the edit :slight_smile: honesty above all.

With regards to the problem, I was still tinkering in the background and somehow I fixed it. Sadly I am unsure of which step was the final solution as I did manage to break it during the fix :rofl: it wouldn't even launch anymore.

The steps I took were:

  • Moving the keyboard and mouse to the same USB port area in the motherboard.
  • Added MangoHUD to check thermals and %use, everything was chilling at <40% and cool temps in a high particle area in-game. And during the FPS drops it would go to 45%ish but that's about it.
  • PC was already set to max performance so I tried balanced. It is still on balanced but I do not think this was the fix.
  • Went to the winecfg and disabled the "CSMT for better graphic performance (deprecated)"
  • Enabled "Automatic capture of the mouse in full-screen windows" > didn't work so disabled again.
  • Emulating a virtual window > didn't work so disabled it again.
  • Launching Battlenet via Proton-CachyOS, GE-Proton, EM-Proton, UMU-Proton (via the Faugus Launcher settings)
    • Here it broke with the UMU-Proton and wouldn't launch and when going back to GE-Proton it was still broken with apparently a memory issue. Freed up some drive space and restarted a few times trying to launch it in-between resets.
    • At the 3rd reset it worked fine and normal again. Logged in (via GE-Proton in the edit settings of my faugus bnet installation) and the problem was gone.
    • Already tested several characters and it is gone. Success!

Highlighting below what I believe was the fix. For the benefit of others with the same issue.

When choosing which compatibility layer to launch the game with, do not go to the Faugus Launcher cogwheel settings menu as it does not seem to apply those changes to pre-installed stuff. Right-click the game/launcher in question and edit. There you can change the layer - in my case GE-Proton (latest) - and enable other addons like MangoHUD. I am still unsure what was the final fix but hopefully the tips shared in this thread will be useful for others.

2 Likes
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Congrats! and good write up :slight_smile:

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Do you have instructions for setting up GameScope with Zorin 18? I can't seem to find GameScope in the Software Store.

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It is not available for ubuntu 24.04. I think you must compile it.

Edit:
I just read that is it now available as a ppa:

But handle such ppas with care.

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An option is to install the Flatpak version.

$ flatpak install gamescope
Looking for matches

Remotes found with refs similar to ‘gamescope’:

  1. ‘flathub’ (system)
  2. ‘flathub’ (user)

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-2]: 1
Similar refs found for ‘gamescope’ in remote ‘flathub’ (system):

  1. runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope/x86_64/23.08
  2. runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope/x86_64/24.08
  3. runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope/x86_64/25.08
  4. runtime/com.valvesoftware.Steam.Utility.gamescope/x86_64/stable
  5. runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.gamescope/x86_64/22.08

Which do you want to use (0 to abort)? [0-5]:

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