Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

LarryDave · 2023-08-27 18:57:42

So I dual boot Windows 10 and Arch on this PC. I have a 1080p 144Hz monitor. I recently sold my dedicated NVIDIA GPU that I was running at 144Hz using DisplayPort. Both Arch and Windows were running smoothly at 144Hz with the NVIDIA GPU. After I sold it, I booted into Windows and installed the last official Intel HD 4600 drivers from Intel, which is version 15.40.48.5171 from 2021. I selected 120Hz, which is the max for some reason, and it is almost indistinguishable from 144Hz and is very smooth. Before booting into Arch, I chrooted into my installation with a live USB and removed nvidia and nvidia utils, cleaned my /etc/environment, removed nvidia modules from mkinitcpio.conf, reinstalled mesa, added i195 as mkinitcpio module, also added i915.fastboot=1 as a kernel parameter.

My setup:
linux 6.4.12.arch1-1
mesa 1:23.1.6-1
mesa-amber 21.3.9-4
vulkan-intel 1:23.1.6-1
libva-intel-driver 2.4.1-2
gnome-shell 1:44.4-1
mutter 44.4-1

The CPU is an Intel i7-4790K. iGPU is Intel HD 4600. It's Haswell. Wikipedia says it's a Gen7 iGPU.

I'm running GNOME on Wayland. I'm using an HDMI Ultra Certified HDMI 2.1 (so the cable isn't the problem) cable to connect from my motherboard's HDMI 1.4 port to the monitor's HDMI 1.4 port. I can select 120Hz from GNOME settings. Here is the problem. It is not smooth at all, compared to Windows 10. It is choppy, laggy and is tearing. Even moving the mouse around from side to side, it is choppy. It is terrible to be honest. Arch wiki says to use mesa for Gen8 and newer, and to use mesa-amber for Gen7 and older. Well I tried both and the problem is still there. Please help as I'm going to be removing Window from this PC and make this a Linux only family computer so I don't want to sell it.

YouTube and mpv are dropping frames on Arch but not on Windows.

Another question I have is that my HDMI cable, the motherboard and the monitor supports HDMI 1.4, which itself support 144Hz at 1080p according to Wikipedia but I can select 120Hz max on both Windows and Linux, why is that?

Last edited by LarryDave (2023-08-27 19:17:16)

seth · 2023-08-27 19:28:13

3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.

also added i915.fastboot=1

Why?

Try not-gnome, eg. openbox on X11 (also not GDM!) to get the mutter compositor out of the equation.
Then try explicitly GDM and gnome on Xorg (cause the present nvidia GPU will most likely have gotten you that)
And post your xorg log.

select 120Hz max on both Windows and Linux, why is that?

Because that's probably the maximum signal the IGP can produce.

LarryDave · 2023-08-27 19:40:33

seth wrote:

3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.
also added i915.fastboot=1
Why?
Try not-gnome, eg. openbox on X11 (also not GDM!) to get the mutter compositor out of the equation.
Then try explicitly GDM and gnome on Xorg (cause the present nvidia GPU will most likely have gotten you that)
And post your xorg log.
select 120Hz max on both Windows and Linux, why is that?
Because that's probably the maximum signal the IGP can produce.

Fast startup has been disabled on the Windows side ever since I installed it, still disabled. Hardware fast boot is also disabled in BIOS. I only added that to kernel parameters so it doesn't flicker, don't even know if it does anything at point but why not. I have never used Xorg, don't intend to start now. Been using Wayland exclusively since 2017. I just logged out to test sway, and the GDM login screen is even slower and more choppy. I tried sway, worse than GNOME Wayland, logged out, tried GNOME on Xorg, worst experience by far. Mouse was moving at 1 fps probably. Writing this from GNOME Wayland and it made appreciate it more after seeing GDM, sway and GNOME Xorg. However, it is still choppy like those, just not that much. But when compared to Windows it is still terrible. The move from 144Hz to 120Hz on Windows was exactly the same. But not here on Arch.

Also what do you mean about NVIDIA? I said I removed everything that can possibly be removed relating to NVIDIA when I chrooted.

Last edited by LarryDave (2023-08-27 19:41:01)

seth · 2023-08-27 19:55:38

gnome on nvidia will default to Xorg and you have to jump through some extra hoops to get it to run on wayland, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GDM#Wa … DIA_driver
So I just doubt your assertion about having always used wayland if you weren't even aware of that.

1fps is indicative of https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PRIME#Reverse_PRIME but the cursor would also be rendered directly into the framebuffer and not be affected by anything reg. the display server.

If you want to fix this, you first need to understand where the problem is, so get all gnome stuff out of the way, test the behavior w/ an uncomposited X11 session (without GDM!) and post your xorg log as well as a complete system journal.

LarryDave · 2023-08-27 20:04:46

seth wrote:

gnome on nvidia will default to Xorg and you have to jump through some extra hoops to get it to run on wayland, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GDM#Wa … DIA_driver
So I just doubt your assertion about having always used wayland if you weren't even aware of that.
1fps is indicative of https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PRIME#Reverse_PRIME but the cursor would also be rendered directly into the framebuffer and not be affected by anything reg. the display server.
If you want to fix this, you first need to understand where the problem is, so get all gnome stuff out of the way, test the behavior w/ an uncomposited X11 session (without GDM!) and post your xorg log as well as a complete system journal.

Yes I have lol, I ran

ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/61-gdm.rules

a year ago. Weird hill to die on me not using Wayland but ok. I have always used Wayland. I know this forum gets a lot of newbies but please don't treat everyone as a newbie.

There is literally no other GPU inside the PC right now, how can it be related to PRIME? I never used PRIME even when I had the GPU. Since I made sure to disable the iGPU in the BIOS when I had my NVIDIA card. 1 fps was just a way of me saying it is horrendous to look at, and that both sway and GNOME Xorg is running worse than GNOME Wayland.

seth · 2023-08-27 20:08:13

how can it be related to PRIME

Technically it can't but technically you can also not get 1fps on a HW cursor.

1 fps was just a way of me saying it is horrendous to look at

The problem with this thread is that it's full of, apparently inaccurate and misleading, adverbs and adjectives but not much data to go by.
If you want it to go anywhere, this will have to change: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

Edit: this hill only one of us is gonna die on is to get any compositors, and in particular gnome ones that might be spoiled by exisiting configuration, out of the way and extract some data about the system (configuration) - and unlike X11 the wayland compositors don't produce too much useful itr.

Last edited by seth (2023-08-27 20:13:17)

Arch Linux

#1 2023-08-27 18:57:42

Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

#2 2023-08-27 19:28:13

Re: Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

#3 2023-08-27 19:40:33

Re: Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

#4 2023-08-27 19:55:38

Re: Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

#5 2023-08-27 20:04:46

Re: Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

#6 2023-08-27 20:08:13

Re: Intel HD 4600 not running smooth at 120Hz compared to Windows

Board footer