Arch Linux

Isukali

Member

Registered: 2021-03-08

Posts: 4

KDE Plasma suffers from constant FPS Drops on a high end machine

Just completed a fresh install of Arch Linux and KDE Plasma on top of it. I first set up X Server through the CLI before installing the DE. Then, I installed all of the default K apps as well as some of my own including Brave browser, Discord, OBS Studio, and Visual Studio Code. Changed my theme as well and I also checked the "Wobbly Windows" effect which I absolutely love. However, at this point, I started having problems. Whenever I am running some kind of playback, my overall FPS noticeably drops to what feels like 40-60 fps. I am running two monitors, one 1920x1080,  144hz, and the other 2560x1440, 60hz. If I am running,  for example, YouTube and it is being displayed (When minimized, FPS goes back to normal), my  overall FPS drops. Doesn't matter if the play back is on either monitors. Even something as simple as GIF being displayed also causes the FPS to drop. Furthermore, when I am running OBS and the display isn't hidden, the FPS also drops. In OBS, it fluctuates between 40-50 FPS. I have a GTX 1080 and Intel i7-7700K (4.2 gHz) with 32 GB of RAM. I have a dual boot setup and on Windows 10 I have no frame rate issues like this which leads me to believe something is wrong with KDE itself? KDE is ABLE to display 144hz, that's for sure, but it's not very consistent. I was at least able to solve the playback problem by switching my compositor from OpenGL 2.0 to XRender, but that doesn't solve the frame rate drops when recording with OBS ( Also lost Wobbly Windows since XRender doesn't support it ). Furthermore, when minimizing windows, the animations play with a definitively lower FPS. Each animation, the FPS drops and once the animation is over, it goes back to normal. FPS also drops to what feels like 30hz when viewing all the windows at once. Not sure what that is called. It's when you move your mouse to the very top left corner of the screen and all the windows open come up and you can choose between them. There are huge FPS drops here and the cursor stutters a lot until you select a window to focus back into. Any help on these issues is greatly appreciated! It seems as if I have seriously screwed something up given my extensive graphical problems.

System Monitor always shows Disk as <20% and CPU < 20%. Memory usage is always < 10 GB.

Last edited by Isukali (2021-03-11 17:19:17)