Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

Bagetak · 2022-03-15 20:07:53

Hi, I am using KDE Plasma with two monitors 60Hz and 144Hz with AMD GPU. I switched to Wayland to get it work nicely without any stutters and tearing. The last thing that doesn't work properly is Chromium. Running Chromium natively on Wayland gives me poor performance. When testing with testufo.com I get around 58 fps and not 144 fps. It's not respecting my monitor's refresh rate. I personally don't use Chromium browser but many programs are based on it like vscode. Having everywhere around 50-60 fps it really bad. I tried run Chromium on GNOME and everything was nice smooth.

yochananmarqos · 2022-03-15 20:48:41

See: Issue 1200167: Running at 60Hz despite the monitor running at 144Hz

You can try chromium-framerate-fix in the AUR, that claims to fix it.

Bagetak · 2022-03-15 23:21:43

yochananmarqos wrote:

See: Issue 1200167: Running at 60Hz despite the monitor running at 144Hz
You can try chromium-framerate-fix in the AUR, that claims to fix it.

That seems to be only for X11 and I don't use chromium as browser. I just want to have my apps like vscode, Discord... to run smooth.

Last edited by Bagetak (2022-03-15 23:22:05)

liewkj · 2022-03-16 21:42:43

Vote for the fix -- https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/67035

I believe this will fix your issue. You will have to wait until the MR was accepted by MESA upstream or build your own MESA packages.

ArchLinux MESA maintainer does not seem to be interested to include the patch for superb Wayland experience. With wider Wayland adoption for modern distros and more affordable VRR display, let's hope the MR will see the light of the day.

yochananmarqos · 2022-03-16 22:01:23

I don't use chromium as browser

That contradicts what you said in your first post.

I just want to have my apps like vscode, Discord... to run smooth.

What does that mean? They're all Electron desktop applications, not games. I don't see how you can tell the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz.

You haven't mentioned what GPU you have, that will make a difference as well.

Bagetak · 2022-03-16 22:39:31

yochananmarqos wrote:

I don't use chromium as browser
That contradicts what you said in your first post.
I just want to have my apps like vscode, Discord... to run smooth.
What does that mean? They're all Electron desktop applications, not games. I don't see how you can tell the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz.
You haven't mentioned what GPU you have, that will make a difference as well.

It's all about the smooth scrolling. Sometimes I use some other Chromium base browser. It's really anoying that the most popular and used browser just doesn't work properly with 144hz screen.

liewkj · 2022-03-16 22:51:41

yochananmarqos wrote:

What does that mean? They're all Electron desktop applications, not games. I don't see how you can tell the difference between 60Hz and 144Hz.

That's not the point to argue and I presume you are not Wayland user. Both Firefox, Chromium & countless of web-based application using their web rendering engines are likely to be affected. When the rendering engine relies on predictable VSYNC to present rendered frames, a mis-predicted present would have caused visual stutter. In the case of Chromium, a simple scrolling of web pages would have shown the difference between buttery smooth and stuttering.

You're right that if mis-predicted present would still sustain 60Hz, then difference is just placebo effect. In fact, 60Hz present is hardcoded in Chromium as the last resort when programmable VSYNC prediction is unavailable. Unfortunately, my testing had shown that Chromium 60Hz hardcoded present failed on Wayland after 1.20 and that resulted in ~12 FPS stuttering. The difference is night & day between ~12 FPS & 60 FPS smooth scrolling.

Last edited by liewkj (2022-03-16 23:35:53)

yochananmarqos · 2022-03-16 22:57:15

That's not the point to argue

You're right, that wasn't the point. I was trying to prod more info out of the OP, but apparently he's allergic. We still don't know what GPU he's using.

I use Xorg + NVIDIA with three 144Hz external monitors on my main development laptop and Wayland + AMDGPU on my backup laptop, both running GNOME. I admit I don't use my backup laptop as much, however, I've never noticed any stuttering. I guess I'd have to connect one of my external monitors to it and use it for a few days to test.

liewkj · 2022-03-16 23:16:01

It's not your fault, the OP said he has an AMD GPU. For me, this was good enough and I offered the solution to my knowledge. If he had a NVIDIA GPU, then he may be screwed. AFAIR, NVIDIA blobs have no programmable predictable VSYNC exposed in GLX which is what Chromium will be looking at, but Chromium 60Hz hardcoded present works for Xorg, so 60Hz is rightfully what he would get without getting into your suggested AUR.

yochananmarqos · 2022-03-16 23:20:56

he OP said he has an AMD GPU

Oh boy... Apparently I'm blind, he did indeed.

Bagetak · 2022-03-17 00:19:32

yochananmarqos wrote:

That's not the point to argue
You're right, that wasn't the point. I was trying to prod more info out of the OP, but apparently he's allergic. We still don't know what GPU he's using.
I use Xorg + NVIDIA with three 144Hz external monitors on my main development laptop and Wayland + AMDGPU on my backup laptop, both running GNOME. I admit I don't use my backup laptop as much, however, I've never noticed any stuttering. I guess I'd have to connect one of my external monitors to it and use it for a few days to test.

Yeah I mentioned in the first post that I am using AMD GPU (RX 570 specifically)

Xorg is fine until you use monitors with different refresh rates. Using two 144 hz monitors is fine but if you have one with 60 hz then it sucks. You don't have any variable refresh rate, windows are rendering at 60 fps until you enable TearFree rendering that gives really big latency or some other workaround that gives screen tearing. I had to still manully disable compositor for some games. On Xorg I managed to get working Chromium with 144 hz with --use-gl=egl flag but that doesnt work on Wayland when launching Chromium as xwayland or wayland.

So I need to wait until the bug will be fixed? https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/is … id=1200167
But as I understand this problem is on x11 session. Is this going also fix running Chromium as native Wayland?

Last edited by Bagetak (2022-03-17 00:20:35)

liewkj · 2022-03-17 01:47:59

Bagetak wrote:

So I need to wait until the bug will be fixed? https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/is … id=1200167

Those bugs will never be fixed. They aren't Chromium's problem to begin with. The ball is on NVIDIA court. Google Chromium developers knew it pretty well and I am pretty sure they had silent good laughs behind the scene for those having NVIDIA GPUs with high refresh rate display and without knowing what they are getting into, especially for Linux. The Chromium bug OP even claimed that 60Hz refresh rate was choppy on 144Hz display, but it is not my call to challenge such assertion as myself have yet to taste the experience of 144Hz display. It is typical human nature who paid the premium for 144Hz display would "feel great" to have it regardless if the difference was really perceivable.

Apparently, the Chromium bug OP had not done enough homework to understand why NVIDIA GPUs stuck at 60Hz refresh rate and barked up the wrong tree.

Bagetak · 2022-03-17 23:10:26

I found out that Chromium runs completely fine and smooth on Gnome wayland. Can it be caused by kwin on KDE?

Arch Linux

#1 2022-03-15 20:07:53

Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#2 2022-03-15 20:48:41

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#3 2022-03-15 23:21:43

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#4 2022-03-16 21:42:43

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#5 2022-03-16 22:01:23

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#6 2022-03-16 22:39:31

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#7 2022-03-16 22:51:41

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#8 2022-03-16 22:57:15

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#9 2022-03-16 23:16:01

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#10 2022-03-16 23:20:56

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#11 2022-03-17 00:19:32

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#12 2022-03-17 01:47:59

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

#13 2022-03-17 23:10:26

Re: Chromium Wayland - 144Hz

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