Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

Histole · 2025-09-17 20:57:48

Latest packages, Zen Kernel (No difference on others). Micro stutter even in the desktop, not just scrolling, if I move a window around with my mouse I will notice it hitch from time to time, very annoying. Windows is as smooth as butter, and my laptop running Arch is also very smooth on the Zen kernel. I have a feeling this has to do with the nvidia drivers. I have nvidia-open-dkms installed.

I see no difference whether 1 monitor plugged in, or two, and no difference regardless of refresh rate. Tested with KDE on wayland, and X11, and tested Gnome on wayland, no difference. Tried different refresh rates but to no avail.

Thank you to all for help in advance.

seth · 2025-09-17 21:35:23

Please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General so we get some information about the actual hardware/setup.

not just scrolling, if I move a window around

Do videos stutter or is this input dependent?

I have nvidia-open-dkms installed.

Have you tried the not-open nvidia-dkms module?

smooth as butter

Who would ever want that? Butter is dis·gus·ting.

Histole · 2025-09-17 23:02:46

seth wrote:

Please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General so we get some information about the actual hardware/setup.

Do videos stutter or is this input dependent?

Playing this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVNO-ehIOdw shows that it does stutter a bit, but some of that is dropped frames, which I have never had < 5 in my life on any

Last edited by Histole (2026-08-25 05:28:18)

seth · 2025-09-18 07:57:51

Simple nvidia setup, no (reverse) prime, no software rendering.
Ftr: "nvidia.NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" is not an option w/ nvidia-open!

=> Test the behavior on a minimal, uncomposited X11 session (openbox will do) and glxgears or eglgears
If you still get framedrops, does that change w/ only one output at 60Hz?

Histole · 2025-09-19 18:17:57

seth wrote:

=> Test the behavior on a minimal, uncomposited X11 session (openbox will do) and glxgears or eglgears
If you still get framedrops, does that change w/ only one output at 60Hz?

With openbox the frame drops are gone on the desktop, I can move windows around without micro stutter, scrolling now has tearing, but the stutter is "mostly" gone, very minor hitching.

Last edited by Histole (2026-08-25 05:29:19)

seth · 2025-09-19 20:48:38

There's nothing such as a "linux vsync implementation", this is between the client (compositor, glxgears, browser) the GL library and the driver (nvidia) and the vblank signal of the monitor.

__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 glxgears

__GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE allows you to control which output is being synced to, setting it to DFP-1 or DFP-3 should™ work, if not, check the ouput names w/ "xrandr -q"

If I try doing the same scroling motion on a browser with glxgears open it hitches a lot with screen tearing as well. If it is closed, the scrolling is relatively smooth with tearing.

Is this also true w/ the single output @60Hz setup?
Can you get a screenrecording of this?

Since this seems to affect all composoitors, clients and display servers, you'd be looking at nvidia.
How do things behave w/ nouveau itr?

Arch Linux

#1 2025-09-17 20:57:48

Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

#2 2025-09-17 21:35:23

Re: Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

#3 2025-09-17 23:02:46

Re: Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

#4 2025-09-18 07:57:51

Re: Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

#5 2025-09-19 18:17:57

Re: Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

#6 2025-09-19 20:48:38

Re: Desktop Enviorment Dropping frames

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