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cubethethird

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Registered: 2016-01-25

Posts: 87

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Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

I recently started playing Noita, and began noticing lag with my inputs, sometimes these getting dropped entirely (e.g. movement continues long after key was released).
After doing some testing, the patterns seems to be related to games running using Proton/wine, and not native games. These games all use to work without issue, though I cannot say for certain when this started. The last time I played a game through proton was on May 1st, and this too now has some odd latency issues. I have also tried switching to ProtonGE and older proton versions without any notable change.

I have Gnome as my desktop environment, running on X11, with an AMD GPU.

Relevant package version:

gnome-shell 1:46.2-1
linux 6.9.3.arch1-1
mesa 1:24.1.1-1

Any information about a known issue or possible things I could try to diagnose this would be much appreciated.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,964

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

Wine sometimes has trouble here with high dpi input devices, do you have e.g. a very high dpi mouse/configured higher usb polling rate or so? I could also see a GNOME regression, though less so if you're indeed running on X11 can you reproduce on other environments?

cubethethird

Member

Registered: 2016-01-25

Posts: 87

Website

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

No high DPI devices for me. One of the games tested doesn't even use mouse. 100% sure I'm on X11, though I'd have to install a different environment to test there.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,983

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

If you're going to try another environment I recommend KDE Plasma.  I was a long-time GNOME user and about six months ago I tried Plasma after many years of not seeing a KDE desktop.  You might be pleasantly surprised, Plasma is really good and I've switched I think for the better.  With your hardware, AMD, you should be able to run the Plasma Wayland session which has many benefits.

cubethethird

Member

Registered: 2016-01-25

Posts: 87

Website

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

I'm not planning on switching permanently to a different DE, and I'm sticking with X11 for now since redshift is only properly supported on it, plus I have multiple high refresh rate/variable refresh rate monitors, which (last I checked) don't yet play nice with Wayland.

I haven't had a chance to test other ones yet, but I've made a list of packages in between the time the issue started, and have narrowed it down to these as possible suspects:

amd-ucode
gnome-shell
ibus
linux
mesa
mutter
steam
vulkan-radeon

In particular, I'm curious if the ibus update had some impact. I'll update later once I do testing.

headkase

Member

Registered: 2011-12-06

Posts: 1,983

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

Here's the biggest difference between Plasma and GNOME: GNOME wants their desktop to be immediately recognizable.  You should be able to walk up to a GNOME system, recognize it as GNOME and immediately get down to business.  That's the philosophy, a uniform and modern desktop that is consistent between users.  Plasma on the other-hand is meant to be customized, the first thing that struck myself: in GNOME I had all sorts of extensions to make it into something like I wanted, and on Plasma all that customization functionality is built-in and easily added to from within the desktop interface - if it doesn't already have what you want a simple button brings you to more.

So, if you want a uniform one-size-fits-all experience then GNOME is it, but if you want some flair and basic functions like a system-tray that GNOME omits then it's all built-in in Plasma.

You can try Plasma with X11 too of course, and see how your refresh rate goes there with Plasma and see if the keyboard latency is also better.  I game extensively on Plasma with Proton and GE-Proton and it works here.  X11/Plasma is definitely worth a shot in my humble opinion.

cubethethird

Member

Registered: 2016-01-25

Posts: 87

Website

Re: Keyboard input latency issues when using Steam Proton

I'm fairly certain I've found the culprit. I downgraded ibus to the previous version, and so far I'm not noticing the input lag I was experiencing with the current version.

For reference:
current release  (broken for me): 1.5.30-1
older version (working fine): 1.5.29-5