[solved] is my laptop not powerful enough? is my driver config wrong?

toogy · 2023-08-13 15:27:17

hi guys, i've been having graphical performance issues for a while now, though i'm not doing anything particularly intensive on my laptop.

when i say "graphical performance issues", what i mean is that everything seems kindof the opposite of smooth. it's not entirely terrible, but at the same time it still bothers me all the time, compared to other computers i use, where everything seems "smoother".

i suspect something wrong with how i configured my drivers. i'm gonna give you as much info as i can, so you can help me figure out what i can try to improve the state of things.

first of all, when i run [c]glxgears[/c], i get this

~ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh.  The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
273 frames in 5.0 seconds = 54.266 FPS
277 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.216 FPS
278 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.596 FPS
281 frames in 5.0 seconds = 56.013 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.993 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.996 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.996 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.997 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.999 FPS
280 frames in 5.0 seconds = 55.997 FPS
286 frames in 5.0 seconds = 57.198 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.996 FPS
296 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.197 FPS

not sure it's expected to have something that's less than the monitor's freq (60 Hz)

here are my specs (7th gen X1 Carbon from Lenovo, with a UHD Graphics 620, running Hyprland under Wayland, though perf issues also happen on X11)

~ inxi -CGxxIM
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20QES0802N v: ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 20QES0802N v: SDK0J40697 WIN
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO v: N2HET74W (1.57 )
    date: 06/01/2023
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-8365U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Comet/Whiskey Lake note: check rev: C cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
    L3: 6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1093 high: 1900 min/max: 400/4100 cores: 1: 1900 2: 638
    3: 600 4: 1900 5: 600 6: 608 7: 1900 8: 600 bogomips: 30409
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel WhiskeyLake-U GT2 [UHD Graphics 620] vendor: Lenovo
    driver: i915 v: kernel arch: Gen-9.5 ports: active: DP-1 off: eDP-1
    empty: DP-2,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3ea0
  Device-2: IMC Networks Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-8:5 chip-ID: 13d3:56bb
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.8 with: Xwayland v: 23.1.2
    compositor: Hyprland driver: X: loaded: intel dri: i965 gpu: i915
    display-ID: 1
  Monitor-1: DP-1 model: Dell S2722QC res: 3840x2160 dpi: 163
    diag: 685mm (27")
  Monitor-2: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x233d res: 1920x1080 dpi: 158
    diag: 355mm (14")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.1.5 renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 620 (WHL
    GT2) direct-render: Yes
Info:
  Processes: 218 Uptime: 3h 31m Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.54 GiB
  used: 2.62 GiB (34.8%) Init: systemd v: 254 default: graphical Compilers:
  gcc: 13.2.1 clang: 15.0.7 Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 2124 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
  running-in: foot inxi: 3.3.28

i've set up my system to load the i915 driver, here in [c]/etc/mkinitcpio.conf[/c]

MODULES=(intel_agp i915)
HOOKS=(base udev autodetect modconf block keymap encrypt lvm2 resume filesystems keyboard)

with the following options:

~ cat /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
options i915 enable_psr=1
options i915 enable_guc=2
options i915 enable_fbc=1
options i915 fastboot=1

i've tried playing with the psr, guc and fbc, disabling them, but this did not help.

i expect this X11 config is not used by Wayland in any way, but here it is, taken from [c]/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf[/c]

Section "Module"
  Load "dri3"
EndSection
Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver "modesetting"
  Option "TearFree" "true"
  Option "DRI" "3"
  Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
  Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
  Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
EndSection

i also tried the xf86-video-intel driver but this did not help either.

i also increased the gpu memory from 256MB to 512MB in the BIOS

any idea of what my next steps could be?

Last edited by toogy (2023-08-14 09:44:08)

V1del · 2023-08-13 18:08:04

AccelMethod SNA is invalid on the modesetting driver, and basically everything in that config is the default safe for tearfree. So I'd suggest to trim that down relevantly

FWIW if you are truly limited to 512MB graphics memory that could well be the bottle neck, though normally they should share more with system RAM.

And you literally have 4k external monitor with high refresh rate, that alone can make this choke already. Can you reproduce these issues with the internal monitor only?

toogy · 2023-08-14 09:43:43

yes, this happens on a 4k monitor with 60Hz, turns out my GPU is not powerful enough for that kind of monitors... marking this solved as i think i can't tune anything to make it work! except maybe invest in a more powerful laptop (but i don't need that!)

Arch Linux

#1 2023-08-13 15:27:17

[solved] is my laptop not powerful enough? is my driver config wrong?

#2 2023-08-13 18:08:04

Re: [solved] is my laptop not powerful enough? is my driver config wrong?

#3 2023-08-14 09:43:43

Re: [solved] is my laptop not powerful enough? is my driver config wrong?

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