Arch Linux

jmissao

Member

Registered: 2011-12-04

Posts: 3

Periodic Framerate Drop while Gaming

Hi everyone,

I've been having an annoying performance related issue while running some games on Archlinux, and thought I might as well share it and perhaps somebody
would come along and help solve it.

The Problem: System has a noticed performance drop which comes and goes while playing games:

• For one minute the game runs as smooth as it should, and in the next one it all seems to run in slow motion.

• Does not seem to be related with the complexity of the graphics being rendered; the game may run 60fps on an online game with many things happening at once, and
  also run at 5fps on an idle screen offline regardless.

• Happens both with Wine games and native applications (but not all of them).

• On an instance (skyrim), quick saving/loading the game makes it better for some time.

What doesn't seem to be related

• System/graphic card capabilities: The system has a good setup, more than enough to run the applications. Also, it works smoothly for a considerable amount of time.

• Other processes slowing the machine: Whilst having the problem, top/htop/ps show no other processes using the CPU intensively.

• Connectivity: Happens both on online and offline games, at home, or at a friend's home, so it does not seem to be an connectivity related issue.

• Sound related: Tried with pulseaudio, alsa, and with no sound. Same issue still.

What I have already tried

• Different video driver: This has been happening for about 8 months, have had a number of driver updates with no change.

• Another kernel: Same as above, this have been happening since 2.6.38 I think (I keep the system uptodate).

• Renice the process: tried with some values (0, -5, -10, -15, -19, -20). Haven't had a noticeable difference.

• Changing process CPU affinity: using taskset, tried diverse combinations of affinities. Still no considerable difference.

• Changing video settings of the games: problem happens regardless, whether the settings are on very high or very low.

Other information

• Games I'm sure this happens: Heroes of Newerth (native), Skyrim (wine), Diablo 3 (wine).

• I have done some searching, and the problem seems to be similar to this. However, the post is over 4 years old and the
  solution does not apply anymore

• My system is an Alienware M11xr3: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2617M CPU @ 1.50GHz, 8GB RAM, Crucial M4 128GB SSD, GeForce GT540M

• I run an Archlinux, vanilla kernel, up to date

• It is one of the new Optimus laptop, but since the DisplayPort is directly connected to the NVidia card, I can fire up an X server without Bumblebee,
  if an external monitor is connected (which is the case, when I'm gaming).

• dmesg does not show any strange messages

• wine has the regular windows-application-not-running-on-windows-related messages being output to the console

• I'd much rather not dual boot. Really.

For some time I was aware of this, but since gaming was never really the main thing I was doing, I haven't looked more into this before.
Any information, tips or anything which might help debug this is welcome.

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: Periodic Framerate Drop while Gaming

Try BFS scheduler. My tips collection.