Linux Gaming

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Gaming on the GNU/Linux operating system.

Sway

In sway, I set adaptive_sync on for my display, and swaymsg -t get_outputs reports Adaptive sync: enabled

Unfortunately, by default stuttering in games is present
To fix, I had to use sway -Dnoscanout. Apparently, this has its drawbacks.
Even with -Dnoscanout, moving the mouse breaks VRR and causes stuttering

Hyprland

In hyprland, I set vrr = 1 and get similar results as sway -Dnoscanout

Fluent motion by default, but moving the mouse introduces stuttering

Gamescope

In gamescope (embedded from VTT, with --adaptive-sync), I get the best results yet

Stable fluent motion
Mouse doesn't break it

My setup is 6600xt, Gigabyte M28U monitor, Arch 6.1.64-1-lts. I test with vrrtest and with Ghostrunner on wine-tkg-staging-fsync-git 8.13.r7.gc210ef9f-327

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

On sway it works fine for me except in fullscreen Xwayland apps, so that's all of my games.

Plasma Wayland works flawlessly and I use it daily for gaming.

Plasma X11 works only in fullscreen apps and with one screen only, and it requires custom X.org configs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Currently none, because I'm using the forbidden combination of Nvidia GPU + multiple monitors.

Thankfully most of the games I play are lightweight and can run at a constant 120FPS, but for any demanding game it's back to Windows.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

There's currently a bug with AMDGPU wherein aggressive power management causes constant micro-stuttering and that also appears to break VRR for me.

Set power management to 3D_FULL_SCREEN or VR on the GPU.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I use kde wayland and I have cheap monitors with small vrr ranges. Games with fps drops and stuttering cause the monitor it's on to flicker. A lot. So I leave vrr disabled.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If you run Wayland then you have to use KDE because VRR does not work on GNOME

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Work fine for me on plasma wayland. Even the system settings has an option for it

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've been fucking around a lot with this same stuff on a similar setup (6900XT, sway, M27QP, Arch 6.4 tkg-pds). I managed to make it work more or less flawlessly. Here's how I did it:

I use MANGOHUD=1 gamemoderun %command% in Steam to run my games.
When Gamemode runs, it's configured to enable adaptive_sync, start gpu-screen-recorder, and run a script that sets pp_power_profile_mode to 1 and power_dpm_force_performance_level to high. As @Atemu mentioned, there's some kind of bug with amdgpu, so by default the power management will be all over the place.
The built-in frame limiter in some games (e.g. Apex Legends, Risk of Rain 2) can cause stutter for some reason I don't understand. V-Sync also had stutter and also caused noticeable input lag. The solution was to use MangoHud's frame limiter with fps_limit=165 in MangoHud.conf.
This patch fixes the mouse move VRR issue. There's instructions on how to apply it if you scroll down a bit. If it still doesn't work right, try launching sway with WLR_NO_HARDWARE_CURSORS=1 sway. No need to disable direct scanout either.

Let me know if it works!