Arch Linux

avi9526

Member

Registered: 2015-05-15

Posts: 116

linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Tested in Grid Autosport

FPS is almost the same, but there is "heavy" video and audio lags

linux-4.9.6-1 and nvidia-375.26-6 - lags, game unplayable
linux-4.8.13-1 and nvidia-375.26-1 - no lags

update 2017-02-05
temporary solution

cpupower frequency-set -g performance

thnx letku

Last edited by avi9526 (2017-02-05 11:28:22)

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Linux 4.9 has some kind of scheduler issue, I have noticed that when I change scheduler (governor actually) to performance or cpu to maxfreq ,then my
games run well. With older kernels all my games run well , and I don't have to adjust schedulers (governor).

UPDATE
Sorry I mixed up the governor and scheduler..

Last edited by letku (2017-02-05 14:23:52)

avi9526

Member

Registered: 2015-05-15

Posts: 116

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Linux 4.9 has some kind of scheduler issue, I have noticed that when I change scheduler to performance or cpu to maxfreq ,then my
games run well. With older kernels all my games run well , and I don't have to adjust schedulers.

yes, it seems there is a problem with scheduler or freq. scaling. Does it reported already? Can't find anything

Last edited by avi9526 (2017-02-05 11:46:23)

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

I took a quick look at the LKML, and noticed that there's quite a bit going on with the scheduler.
For example this:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/12/11/111
Tough this ain't the bug that we are experiencing right now, but it shows that scheduler really needs some TLC.
Let's hope that kernel devs get the scheduler sorted for our beloved OS.

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

This regression could also be in the CPU frequency scaling (as avi9526 suggested), and not in the scheduler.. I mixed things up ,as I'm not an IT pro.
I think frequency switching threshold is one thing to look at..

UPDATE
Linux-ck 4.9.8 ,solved the regression for me, ondemand governor was still a bit jittery with COH2 (but MUCH better than with 4.9.6 & .7)
Schedutil governor was as good as the performance option. Haven't tried the vanilla 4.9.8 yet..

Last edited by letku (2017-02-05 15:09:10)

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Tested COH2 with 4.9.8-ARCH ,performance is acceptable with ondemand governor ,but still not as good as it used be.

hobarrera

Member

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2011-04-12

Posts: 355

Website

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

I've an AMD/Nvidia desktop, and an Intel/Intel laptop. Games seems to run better on the laptop (at least now that there's a HUGE lag on the nvidia system) than they do on the desktop, even though the desktop has a GTX1060. So it looks like the regression only manifests when using the nvidia driver.

Last edited by hobarrera (2017-02-25 01:15:48)

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letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

I tested COH2 and 378 drivers are really slow, on Kubuntu 17.04 with 375.39 it runs like it should

ghus

Banned

Registered: 2016-11-14

Posts: 420

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Sorry but can it be that the "regressions" differencies are  because running steam with

STEAM_RUNTIME=1 steam

instead

STEAM_RUNTIME=0 steam

( or viceversa , depending of the game ? )
I see games running slowly with the steam's libraries , and good otherwise ( viceversa some games I start with the steam libraries runtime ) .

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

Steam runtime don't make such a big difference, tried it. Some games even run faster with steam's own runtime. Kernels and drivers affect things much more..
Biggest change recently has been that default governor is now schedutil (since 4.9.->) but those with older installations it still could be ondemand which performs
poorly with games.. Check your governor or install paramano which makes changing governors a breeze.
To check governor:
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

Last edited by letku (2017-03-03 10:43:53)

ghus

Banned

Registered: 2016-11-14

Posts: 420

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

If I am not too much off topic , do you think it's possible to try to run some games ( the ones that maybe have the possibility to turn off the Antialiasing setting ) using the Antialiasing from the Nvidia control panel and reach a better performance and quality ? .... On Windows I know sometime this things are possible ... may this to be not impossible on Linux ?
Yes , I have seen that some games run better with the Steam libraries .

Last edited by ghus (2017-03-03 10:31:51)

letku

Member

Registered: 2017-02-02

Posts: 12

Re: linux 4.9.6 and nvidia 375.26 - performance regression

For me FXAA definetly gives better performance on some games