Micro-freezes during gaming

Lockheed · 2012-07-30 12:50:05

When I run exquake (OpenGL) every few seconds I get micro-freezes, usually while there is some new sound about to be played or some new model loaded. This of course does not occur when under Windows.

How can I find out the source of the issue?

DSpider · 2012-07-30 13:09:45

I hope you're not trying to use the open source driver for gaming.

How big is your root partition (assuming you don't have a separate /usr partition). Because if it was installed on a HDD, the read head could be travelling too much to get to the files. Bigger than 10 GB is a no-no in my book, but I guess it depends what you install and how much free space there's left... While Linux filesystems manage fragmentation better, there's a myth that there's no fragmentation on Linux. Not so. Here's how you check an EXT4 fs:

# fsck.ext4 -f -E fragcheck /dev/sdb3

You may wanna do this from a LiveCD. Do *not* run it on a mounted filesystem (i.e. while your "/" partition is in use).

Additionally, you may want to set the noatime option in fstab on your root or /usr partition, or both.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fstab

Lockheed · 2012-07-30 13:27:46

1. I am using Nvidia drivers.
2. http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/7804/image1wj.png
/opt/quake is a link from root partition to folder on /dev/sda1
3. I have no access to a liveCD at the moment, so can't do fragcheck.
4. I already have noatime for all ext partitions

Pawlerson · 2012-07-30 21:13:51

Lockheed wrote:

When I run exquake (OpenGL) every few seconds I get micro-freezes, usually while there is some new sound about to be played or some new model loaded.
How can I find out the source of the issue?

What dekstop environment are you using? Do you have compositions turned on? If yes, do you have suspend compositions option enabled?

This of course does not occur when under Windows.

This sentence is totally wrong, because there are many examples of micro-freezes under windows. You probably never played Skyrim.

Lockheed · 2012-07-31 08:16:09

XFCE stripped down, and compiz. I have not seen an option to suspend compositions anywhere but I doubt it's related because of the pattern of this behaviour.

That sentence was not wrong, because related to QuakeWorld, not Skyrim.

DSpider · 2012-07-31 08:45:26

That's not a bad idea... Disable compositing and any other Compiz effects and see if it helps. Because they use OpenGL as well.

3. I have no access to a liveCD at the moment, so can't do fragcheck.

With Arch Linux you should. Because you never know when you might need it. It doesn't necessarily have to be an Arch LiveCD and it can also run from a USB stick:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/US … tion_Media

Pawlerson · 2012-07-31 11:48:46

Lockheed wrote:

XFCE stripped down, and compiz. I have not seen an option to suspend compositions anywhere but I doubt it's related because of the pattern of this behaviour.

Could you check if disabling compiz helps? Because if not then suspending compositions won't help either. The package that brings compiz settings is "ccsm".

Lockheed · 2012-08-04 11:01:27

Here's the result of fragcheck:

D: 263758/17530880 files (3.3% non-contiguous), 54211193/70091587 blocks
arch: 408616/1050576 files (1.2% non-contiguous), 3479761/4194973 blocks

If ext4 can fragment, are there any tools to defrag it? I never heard of any.

Last edited by Lockheed (2012-08-04 11:02:49)

Cloudef · 2012-08-04 11:06:54

@lockheed
shake
I use it to defragment my PS2 hard drive.

Also, these micro freezes sound like what I had with Ys origin in the past..
Try 'schedtool -I ./game' or 'ionice -c 2 ./game' I don't remember which one helped.
Anyways don't use schednice or verynice-fork, those are quite horrible (and discontinued)

If you find that some of those helps, I just suggest creating wrapper executables manually.

Other thing to try is add 'Option "RegistryDwords" "OGL_MaxFramesAllowed=0x0;" to your nvidia Xorg configuration.

Last edited by Cloudef (2012-08-04 11:12:36)

Lockheed · 2012-08-04 11:12:08

Well, that's news to me. I was always told fragmentation on linux does not exist, and neither do defragmenting tools.

But is it worth bothering with 3.3% fragmentation? Is it significant at all?

Cloudef · 2012-08-04 11:14:34

Lockheed wrote:

Well, that's news to me. I was always told fragmentation on linux does not exist, and neither do defragmenting tools.
But is it worth bothering with 3.3% fragmentation? Is it significant at all?

There will be always defragmentation, the amount in most linux filesystems is however really small.
With SSD you won't even have to worry about defragmentation.

brebs · 2012-08-04 13:35:46

Lockheed wrote:

But is it worth bothering with 3.3% fragmentation?

Nope.

See suggestions in thread.

I run darkplaces in a script, containing:

ionice -c2 nice -n -3 /usr/games/darkplaces -nocdaudio -sndspeed 48000 "$@"

Here's further info on my config.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-30 12:50:05

Micro-freezes during gaming

#2 2012-07-30 13:09:45

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#3 2012-07-30 13:27:46

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#4 2012-07-30 21:13:51

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#5 2012-07-31 08:16:09

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#6 2012-07-31 08:45:26

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#7 2012-07-31 11:48:46

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#8 2012-08-04 11:01:27

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#9 2012-08-04 11:06:54

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#10 2012-08-04 11:12:08

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#11 2012-08-04 11:14:34

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

#12 2012-08-04 13:35:46

Re: Micro-freezes during gaming

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