Arch Linux

HotDogEnemy

Member

Registered: 2020-11-24

Posts: 72

CSGO low FPS and stuttering

So I just installed Arch Linux about a week ago, and so far everything's been running smoothly except I encounter massive FPS drops and stuttering while playing. I know this is abnormal because I previously had Kubuntu 20.04 installed, and CSGO ran just fine with a stable FPS and next to no stuttering. What could possibly be the problem?
My specs:

System:    Host: archlinux Kernel: 5.9.9-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.3 Distro: Arch Linux 
Machine:   Type: Desktop System: Gigabyte product: H110M-S2 v: N/A serial: <superuser/root required> 
           Mobo: Gigabyte model: H110M-S2-CF v: x.x serial: <superuser/root required> UEFI: American Megatrends v: F20 
           date: 11/16/2016 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-6100 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 29608 
           Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 800/3700 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 900 3: 900 4: 900 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Curacao PRO [Radeon R7 370 / R9 270/370 OEM] vendor: Tul driver: amdgpu 
           v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon R7 300 Series (PITCAIRN DRM 3.39.0 5.9.9-arch1-1 LLVM 11.0.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.2 
           direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: Gigabyte driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:1f.3 
           Device-2: AMD Oland/Hainan/Cape Verde/Pitcairn HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 7000 Series] vendor: Tul 
           driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.9.9-arch1-1 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Gigabyte driver: r8169 v: kernel 
           port: d000 bus ID: 02:00.0 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.16 TiB used: 75.91 GiB (6.4%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS240G1G0A-00SS50 size: 223.57 GiB 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD10EZEX-75WN4A0 size: 931.51 GiB 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: HP model: v210w size: 30.47 GiB 
RAID:      Message: No RAID data was found. 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 97.93 GiB used: 14.56 GiB (14.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb1 
           ID-2: /home size: 806.13 GiB used: 61.36 GiB (7.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb2 
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 8.00 GiB used: 2.0 MiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb3 
Info:      Processes: 194 Uptime: 7h 50m Memory: 15.58 GiB used: 3.08 GiB (19.7%) Init: systemd Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 
           clang: 11.0.0 Packages: 1288 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 inxi: 3.1.06 

Output of

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL"

OpenGL vendor string: X.Org
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon (TM) R7 300 Series (PITCAIRN, DRM 3.39.0, 5.9.10-arch1-1, LLVM 11.0.0)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 20.2.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile
OpenGL core profile extensions:
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 20.2.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile
OpenGL extensions:
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 20.2.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20
OpenGL ES profile extensions:

Irets

Member

Registered: 2019-02-01

Posts: 143

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

A common culprit that can cause such issues is a misconfigured compositor.
Do you happen to use picom or something similar?
If so, try killing the process and then proceed to test the performance of the game again.

If that solves the issue, reconfigure your compositor's config.

Last edited by Irets (2020-11-24 07:13:58)

HotDogEnemy

Member

Registered: 2020-11-24

Posts: 72

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

A common culprit that can cause such issues is a misconfigured compositor.
Do you happen to use picom or something similar?
If so, try killing the process and then proceed to test the performance of the game again.

If that solves the issue, reconfigure your compositor's config.

I use the default Kwin compositor, I tried running the game after turning off the compositor using the Kwin shortcut  alt+shift+f12, but it didn't affect the performance.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,339

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

Kubuntu has a lot of patches deviating from upstream defaults so it could indeed be normal. What kind of dips are we talking exactly? Constant low or fluctuating between high and low? Issues like these are often related to CPU scheduler default behaviours, you might want to give linux-zen a shot for a kernel that's more tuned for responsiveness.

HotDogEnemy

Member

Registered: 2020-11-24

Posts: 72

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

Kubuntu has a lot of patches deviating from upstream defaults so it could indeed be normal. What kind of dips are we talking exactly? Constant low or fluctuating between high and low? Issues like these are often related to CPU scheduler default behaviours, you might want to give linux-zen a shot for a kernel that's more tuned for responsiveness.

It's kind of fluctuating between high and low, for example it could be 180-200+ FPS in one area, and then it changes to 70-120 FPS in another, especially in smoke. I'll give linux-zen a shot and update in a bit.

EDIT: Now that I look at the FPS counter again, it's more of a constant low, but then again my hardware should be capable of more frames than what I'm currently getting

Last edited by HotDogEnemy (2020-11-24 08:15:12)

HotDogEnemy

Member

Registered: 2020-11-24

Posts: 72

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

Kubuntu has a lot of patches deviating from upstream defaults so it could indeed be normal. What kind of dips are we talking exactly? Constant low or fluctuating between high and low? Issues like these are often related to CPU scheduler default behaviours, you might want to give linux-zen a shot for a kernel that's more tuned for responsiveness.

So I tried out the zen-kernel, and the stuttering went away, but the fps is still low. It's playable (around 150-90 FPS), but I'd like to get as much FPS as possible due to the advantage it can give in games like CSGO

HotDogEnemy

Member

Registered: 2020-11-24

Posts: 72

Re: CSGO low FPS and stuttering

Hey everyone, thank you for the support that has been offered to try and fix this issue, ufortunately I was not able to resolve it, and have decided to switch to another distro for the time being. Aside from this issue, the time I spent on Arch has been pretty good. Please mark this as closed.

Last edited by HotDogEnemy (2020-11-25 10:09:16)