Very choppy frame pacing in GameScope mode (FF7 Rebirth) - fine in gnome. How do I investigate?
I'm trying to never use Windows again for my gaming PC. Bazzite seems like the perfect fit. I do occasionally like to use the desktop, and really don't like KDE (it's terminally ugly, I don't know why).
My system is a mix of older and upgraded components:
- MSI B450 Gaming Plus
- 16GB system RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series (Intel XMP) DDR4 RAM 16GB (2x8GB) 3200MT/s CL16-18-18-38
- XFX AMD Radeon RX 6800 - 16GB RAM
- AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
- WD Black SN750
- A really old 3TB spinner drive from an old server, just for older games.
- There's also a questionable cheap wifi/bluetooth PCI-express card in there, intel based.
The game I'm mostly playing ATM, is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I've tried it with and without various patches - FF7 fix, and the DLSS shim thingy, but the framerate is just choppy when running in GameScope mode. Other demanding games like Final Fantasy XVI are smoother, but still much more choppy than on Windows or Gnome. I would just run it in Gnome, but I can't access HDR there.
I thought of trying to switch to the KDE version of Bazzite, but I don't know if that'll have much impact. Any ideas about what I could try to fix this up? I really don't want to go back to Windows... I want to finally be done with Microsoft's abuse.
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Some info ℹ️ while somebody can actually help you:
GNOME 48 will launch soon (it will be updated into bazzite a bit later) and it will properly support HDR.
🔗 Links to some news 📰 about this ⤵️ :
https://news.itsfoss.com/gnome-48-features/
https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNOME-48-Release-Candidate
It's FOSS News
Discover What's New in GNOME 48 With Our Feature Rundown!
GNOME 48 is just around the corner. Explore what's coming with it.
GNOME 48 Release Candidate Brings Late Mutter Features & Other Changes
The GNOME 48 release candidate '48.rc' is out this evening as we approach the stable release of the GNOME 48 desktop in two weeks.
Is there any way to get on that version of gnome now using some pre-release channel?
Gnome 48 hasn't been released yet. It will be some time around mid/end of March
You will have to wait some time after the release to be added to bazzite
Is it possible the problems I'm seeing are from VRR issues with HDMI?
I'm mostly seeing these issues on my TV - which is an LG OLED C1 - and only supports HDMI...
On my 1440p monitor, I just tested to make sure I'm not missing something - it's actually kind of smooth. At least, according to the frame graph, it's a lot smoother than it has been on the TV. A big difference, is that I'm using DP on the monitor.
I'm not sure how to get a framegraph in Gnome though
hmm, definitely don't want to break anything https://www.reddit.com/r/Bazzite/comments/1fcff26/is_there_a_reason_why_goverlay_is_not_installed/
No, it's just subjectively WAY smoother on Gnome, compared with gamescope.
Even on DP - not sure how to get a frametime graph though
Okay, it seems like every so often, some combination of settings works. I'm not sure it's reproducible (that is, it doesn't seem to work every time.) But the last thing I tried worked at least once.
That was, I set the game (FF7 Rebirth) to "window" mode (rather than borderless window) then explicitly set the window size to exactly match the configured GameScope display mode - that seemed to smooth out the jitter (at least as much as that game ever is "smooth").
That is without any multiplier set in the dynamic resoution settings (both set to 100%)
So what I was seeing was better performance at 4K (around 30fps) than I can get even at 1080, when the configured display mode doesn't match the DE display mode, due to the smoother frame pacing.
I'll do more testing later - doing things like restarting, with or without HDR enabled, all these settings seem to have an impact at startup (toggling them on and off later seems to cause inconsistent behavior)
Which makes testing tedious
I did spot something that looks like a bug - sometimes, maybe when I turn on the PC with the TV off, the mode as reported by the TV does not match the mode configured in the GameScope settings. I had the mode set to 4K@120, but the TV was reporting a mode of 4K@60 - I toggled it to 4k@100 then back to 4k@120, and it reported the correct value. And then when I launched the game, it ran WAY less janky.
This could explain it - if it's trying to send variable frames at 120Hz, but the TV is only running at 60Hz, it would definitely get janked
(On the LG OLED C1 I can spam the green button on my remote to get it to show me the mode. Pretty handy.)
I'm relatively sure the above is the answer to my problem. Game's been running smoothly today - just have to make sure the TV's mode matches the one configured in GameScope's settings, and/or the game.
I can say that KDE has issues with VRR and HDR as well.. As for HDR on Gnome, this might be worth a shot? https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1j5ocvo/comment/mgj5pz3/
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I might just switch to KDE until gnome supports HDR
The above issue is real thoulgh - it runs a LOT better if I just make sure the actual display mode, and the settings all match. When they get out of sync, that's when I see the issue.
I dont doubt that, I've had similar issues of misreported values, though in KDE
Doubt which point? The TV definitely ends up in @60 mode, while the GameScope settings reports @120 - it's entirely possible something, somewhere in the chain is aware that it's actually running in @60 - but it's also possible, it's just all mismatched. When it's in this state, frame pacing is horrendous.
(Oh, don't doubt that.lol - damn these ancient eyes!)