Horrible Performance in CS:GO

abdulhakeem · 2022-10-05 18:02:39

Laptop is a Thinkpad E595 with a Ryzen 3700U + Vega10 graphics. Also running KDE Plasma.

Supposedly, I should be able to run CS:GO at a decent framerate, maybe not always 60fps but at least close enough to be playable. But for some reason I'm getting maybe 15-20fps max in-game and it's completely unplayable. I've got the CSGO graphics on the Lowest possible settings, and I even decreased resolution, but it hasn't seemed to make any difference.

I've Google'd the problem and it seems that the most common explanation is that the CPU/GPU is throttling, possibly due to Lenovo forcing throttling for some reason. However all the solutions I've been able to find for this involve installing Windows applications like Throttlestop.

Another theory was that it was due to single channel vs dual channel memory, but I should have 2x 8GB RAM modules installed according to

sudo dmidecode -t memory | grep -i size

, so I don't think it's a lack of dual channel issue. dmidecode also says "Channel A" and "Channel B" so I think that confirms that it is indeed dual channel.

I've checked KDE System Settings > Power Management and I don't see anything in there about throttling. I'm about to reboot and check my BIOS/UEFI after posting this to see if there's anything in there (EDIT: There wasn't).

But I was hoping someone might be able to advise:

1. Is there a way to confirm that throttling is indeed happening?
2. Is there a solution for Linux to stop it from happening?
3. Does anyone have any other suggestions to increase the performance?

Also not sure if related but I am playing on an external monitor connected to the laptop's HDMI port, native resolution is 1680x1050, so I'm not even at 1080p in the first place, but even if I drop down the resolution it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I'm also running in Xorg because from what I understand Wayland can still be wonky, plus I use TeamViewer to access my other machines and TeamViewer doesn't work with Wayland.

Even though I have 16GB ram installed, system ram shows 13.5, which means that memory should be getting allocated for the Vega 10 GPU.

I'm also running the default Mesa driver, which from what I understand has the AMD graphics driver built in?

Thanks in advance

SOLUTION:

1. Install Autocomposer (if running KDE) and either logout/login or reboot: https://store.kde.org/p/1502826/
2. Switch to Wayland if still running Xorg

Last edited by abdulhakeem (2022-10-06 13:06:49)

V1del · 2022-10-05 18:35:22

Check whether toggling the compositor with Alt+Shift+F12 helps. Steam/source games should be using SDL which normally does that by default, but this is the second CSGO related framerate issue post in a week I see that got fixed by explicitly disabling the compositor manually.

Other than that for checking if/whether you get throttled use turbostat and/or cpupower to check your frequencies, you should reach turbo boost clocks on at least some processors while gaming, maybe also monitor dmesg (dmesg -W is your friend) on whether you get kernel messages that the CPU is being throttled.

abdulhakeem · 2022-10-06 01:00:39

V1del wrote:

Check whether toggling the compositor with Alt+Shift+F12 helps. Steam/source games should be using SDL which normally does that by default, but this is the second CSGO related framerate issue post in a week I see that got fixed by explicitly disabling the compositor manually.
Other than that for checking if/whether you get throttled use turbostat and/or cpupower to check your frequencies, you should reach turbo boost clocks on at least some processors while gaming, maybe also monitor dmesg (dmesg -W is your friend) on whether you get kernel messages that the CPU is being throttled.

Toggling the compositor seems to have done the trick, thank you so much.

Just curious, is that an Arch thing? KDE? Steam? CSGO specifically? I didn't have the issue in TF2, only CSGO specifically for some reason. I've never heard of this problem before.

Also, am I going to need to toggle that every time I run the game? Should I toggle it again when I close the game? Does it effect my entire system or just CSGO specifically?

EDIT: Well the FPS is much better, but now the game is stuttering/freezing pretty frequently for some reason

Last edited by abdulhakeem (2022-10-06 01:19:00)

V1del · 2022-10-06 08:19:34

Are you using xf86-video-amdgpu or the modesetting Xorg driver? There are some reports there might be some issues with the latter currently. Toggling the compositor affects your entire system (you'll primarily lack fancy window effects and will likely see tearing in "normal" desktop usecases without the compositor). Toggling the compositor like that is a KDE/KWin thing. As mentioned "normally" Steam games would suspend the compositor and reactivate it when they stop. That CSGO seems to have stopped doing that might be due to an update/change there. Because of this you will need to start and stop it explicitly yourself.

FWIW I personally had very good experiences with Wayland, and my main motivation to switch was to not lose desktop effects while playing a game on the secondary monitors, something that was a stuttery mess on Xorg in any capacity.

Slithery · 2022-10-06 09:23:38

Do you have all of the needed lib32-* drivers installed?

abdulhakeem · 2022-10-06 11:57:48

V1del wrote:

Are you using xf86-video-amdgpu or the modesetting Xorg driver? There are some reports there might be some issues with the latter currently. Toggling the compositor affects your entire system (you'll primarily lack fancy window effects and will likely see tearing in "normal" desktop usecases without the compositor). Toggling the compositor like that is a KDE/KWin thing. As mentioned "normally" Steam games would suspend the compositor and reactivate it when they stop. That CSGO seems to have stopped doing that might be due to an update/change there. Because of this you will need to start and stop it explicitly yourself.
FWIW I personally had very good experiences with Wayland, and my main motivation to switch was to not lose desktop effects while playing a game on the secondary monitors, something that was a stuttery mess on Xorg in any capacity.

Hmm I believe I just have Mesa and the Vulkan packages listed here installed: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU#Installation, although I'm not sure if the Vulkan packages are actually getting used.

Thanks for the explanation. I'll give Wayland a shot and see if it improves anything. I suppose if nothing else I can always just switch back and forth if needed.

EDIT: Upon Googling it seems that CSGO can be launched with the -vulkan flag (Properties > Launch Options in Steam), so I'm gonna try that as well and see if it makes any difference

Slithery wrote:

Do you have all of the needed lib32-* drivers installed?

I believe so. I definitely have multilib activated. lib32-mesa is installed. Not sure if there's anything else I need?

Last edited by abdulhakeem (2022-10-06 12:12:45)

V1del · 2022-10-06 12:13:05

If you have xf86-video-amdgpu installed you'd generally be using that, if not you'd generally be on the modesetting driver

abdulhakeem · 2022-10-06 12:20:11

V1del wrote:

If you have xf86-video-amdgpu installed you'd generally be using that, if not you'd generally be on the modesetting driver

Yeah definitely don't have that installed, just mesa and lib32-mesa

I found a KDE Addon that's supposed to automatically disable the compositor when a fullscreen game is launched so maybe this will also help, at least I (hopefully) won't have to keep doing it manually: https://store.kde.org/p/1502826/

EDIT: MUCH better in Wayland. Stuttering is pretty much entirely gone. So that's nice.

Last edited by abdulhakeem (2022-10-06 12:54:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2022-10-05 18:02:39

Horrible Performance in CS:GO

SOLUTION:

#2 2022-10-05 18:35:22

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#3 2022-10-06 01:00:39

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#4 2022-10-06 08:19:34

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#5 2022-10-06 09:23:38

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#6 2022-10-06 11:57:48

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#7 2022-10-06 12:13:05

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

#8 2022-10-06 12:20:11

Re: Horrible Performance in CS:GO

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