Arch Linux

suka

Member

Registered: 2025-07-08

Posts: 1

Low CPU/GPU utilization - Low FPS in games (Intel/NVIDIA Optimus/Prim

Low CPU/GPU utilization - Low FPS in games (Intel/NVIDIA Optimus/Prime/Gamemode) on Arch Linux

Hello everyone,

First off, I apologize for my lack of knowledge; I've just started my journey with Arch and am really hoping to get into gaming on Linux. I'd be very grateful for any help.

My laptop's gaming performance with Steam on Arch is almost half of what I get on identical settings in Windows. For example, in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, CPU and GPU usage hovers around 50%, temperatures are around 50-60°C, and FPS is significantly below 60. In cities, I get about 30 FPS, but CPU and GPU utilization remains below 50%. Increasing graphics settings only slightly increases hardware usage and causes a small drop in FPS.

Dark Souls 3 maintains a locked 60 FPS, but it's not a very demanding game.

In Ghost of Tsushima, the situation is slightly better than KCD, but results are still significantly worse than on Windows. Here, CPU and GPU usage is around 75% on high settings. In crowded areas, I get about 30-40 FPS, where on Windows, it's consistently above 60.

Below, I'll describe my setup and everything I've checked so far.

System Information:

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Host: AORUS 17 YE5
Kernel: Linux 6.15.5-arch1-1
DE: KDE Plasma 6.4.2
WM: KWin (Wayland/X11)
CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700H (20) @ 4.70 GHz
GPU 1: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile [Discrete]
GPU 2: Intel Iris Xe Graphics @ 1.40 GHz [Integrated]

What I've noticed/tested so far:

1.  NVIDIA Drivers: There's no significant difference between using `nvidia` and `nvidia-open` packages.
2.  Driver Status: Drivers seem to be loading correctly. `nvidia-drm` is loaded at system startup.
   

    suka@witek:~$ sudo dmesg | grep -i nvidia
    [    0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=f01f81c7-51e8-465a-8773-4eeb8c253ab2 rw loglevel=3 quiet nvidia-drm.modeset=1
    [    0.053135] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=f01f81c7-51e8-465a-8773-4eeb8c253ab2 rw loglevel=3 quiet nvidia-drm.modeset=1
    [    0.972671] nvidia: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
    [    0.972679] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
    [    0.972683] nvidia: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
    [    0.972683] nvidia: module license taints kernel.
    [    1.140400] nvidia-nvlink: Nvlink Core is being initialized, major device number 240
    [    1.144072] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0003)
    [    1.144175] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: VGA decodes changed: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
    [    1.191972] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  575.64.03  Wed Jun 25 18:40:52 UTC 2025
    [    1.218235] nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA Kernel Mode Setting Driver for UNIX platforms  575.64.03  Wed Jun 25 18:07:15 UTC 2025
    [    1.226765] nvidia_uvm: module uses symbols nvUvmInterfaceDisableAccessCntr from proprietary module nvidia, inheriting taint.
    [    1.329891] [drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00000100] Loading driver
    [    4.194593] [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0
    [    4.195134] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes
    [    5.221151] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card0/input26
    [    5.221189] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=7 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card0/input27
    [    5.221216] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=8 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card0/input28
    [    5.221266] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=9 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.1/sound/card0/input29
    suka@witek:~$ sudo lsmod | grep -i nvidia
    nvidia_drm             143360  3
    drm_ttm_helper         16384  2 nvidia_drm,xe
    nvidia_uvm            3874816  0
    nvidia_modeset        1843200  3 nvidia_drm
    video                  81920  4 asus_wmi,xe,i915,nvidia_modeset
    nvidia              112238592  34 nvidia_uvm,nvidia_drm,nvidia_modeset
    suka@witek:~$ sudo lspci -k | grep -i -A 3 vga
    00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] (rev 0c)
            DeviceName: Onboard - Video
            Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 79aa
            Kernel driver in use: i915
    --
    01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GA103M [GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Mobile] (rev a1)
            Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 79aa
            Kernel driver in use: nvidia
            Kernel modules: nouveau, nvidia_drm, nvidia
    

3.  Nouveau: Nouveau is blacklisted and not loaded.
4.  Prime-run: `prime-run` correctly launches programs on the NVIDIA card (`prime-run glxgears` / `vkcube`).
5.  nvidia-smi: `nvidia-smi` shows no errors.
6.  Gamemode: Using `gamemode` (Steam launch command: `gamemoderun prime-run mangohud %command%`) with various `renice` values (0-20) does not improve the situation. In fact, FPS count and stability are worse.
7.  Gamemode Errors: `gamemoderun` causes errors at startup:
   

    ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
    Adding process 4208 for gameID 379430
    ERROR: ld.so: object 'libgamemodeauto.so.0' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
    Adding process 4211 for gameID 379430
    

    I haven't found a working solution for these yet. I have `gamemode` and `lib32-gamemode` packages installed, and the `libgamemodeauto.so.0` files are on disk.
8.  GPU Power State: The GPU switches to P0 mode regardless of whether `gamemode` is enabled. Without `gamemode`, `cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor` shows `powersave` on all cores; with `gamemode`, it shows `performance`.
9.  Power Mode: Setting the power mode to "performance" (e.g., via Plasma settings) changes nothing.
10. Wayland vs. X11: There's no significant difference between Plasma X11 and Wayland sessions. (X11 is even less stable in terms of FPS than Wayland - stuttering, buggy windows).

Is there anything I can do to get performance closer to what I see on Windows?
Is this purely a matter of the Aorus GCC dedicated software on Windows, which automatically manages power, modes, and clock speeds, meaning I'll never be able to achieve similar results on Linux?

Again, I apologize for my potato-level knowledge of Arch and thank you in advance for any help!

mostafatouny

Member

Registered: 2022-10-13

Posts: 7

Website

Re: Low CPU/GPU utilization - Low FPS in games (Intel/NVIDIA Optimus/Prim

Check if your user is added to `gamemode` group. if not, execute: `sudo usermod -aG gamemode $(whoami)` then reboot.

Last edited by mostafatouny (2025-07-26 15:32:01)