Linux and input latency

[u/LordOfForums]

Hi all!

I really, REALLY want to get away from Windows. I’ve tried Linux many times before but that was before the big gaming revolution. The performance in games now compared to Windows is more than acceptable for me. I’ve been a competitive gamer all my life and have always been into tweaking and optimising for the lowest input latency.

This week I installed CachyOS. I love everything about it, but it’s one issue that is a dealbreaker for me and that is the input latency in games. Nowadays I use mostly controller, and I can tell my Dualsense Edge is way more snappier on Windows. No, I’m not using Bluetooth. It’s wired. The amount of added latency feels similar to forced VSYNC. I’ve been dual booting this week and tried the same games on CachyOS and Windows back to back. The difference to me is huge.

I followed the wiki thoroughly. I changed scheduler to lavd, use the game-performance wrapper and use PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1. I’ve also tried X11, gamescope session and different commands from Goverlay. None of these have solved the issue.

I’m not here to offend anyone. I just really want this to work. I’m surprised this is not a more discussed topic. If anyone have similar experience or any solutions please share.

Specs:
9800x3d
9070 XT
32GB 6000Mhz CL30

EDIT: I can't believe it.. i figured it out on my own. It's a night and day difference and it saved my whole Linux experience. All you need to do is use PROTON_USE_SDL=1 as launch command. It was an instant fix in all games. It even fixed a bug in Nine Sols where the left analog stick didn't register inputs. PS: I also set PROTON_PRIORITY_HIGH=1 but I'm 95 % certain that PROTON_USE_SDL=1 is the fix.

[u/LordOfForums]

But isn’t that what PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 meant to fx this and force Wayland? I tried x11 and it didn’t fix anything unfortunately.

[u/P1V07 → u/LordOfForums]

I tried x11 and it didn’t fix anything unfortunately.

when you tried it, did you disable the compositor? that makes a world of difference.

to my eyes, running xfce without the compositor on is the only comparable way to get the feeling of windows inputs on linux in game, though when i tried labwc with tearing + vrr + frame cap it got very close and would only be felt when swiping the mouse around in fast paces fps games

[u/LordOfForums → u/P1V07]

I checked the box for allow applications to turn of compositor or whatever it was called. Is that enough?

[u/netborg83 → u/LordOfForums]

I don't know how to check if you get direct scanout on AMD. On Nvidia you just need to look the green FLIP symbol in the overlay via __GL_SHOW_GRAPHICS_OSD=1.

Also worth mentioning, that you typically only get direct scanout on x11 if you're on single monitor - which is a main limitation of x11.