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amazing performance on steam games here on artix

so past 3 days i had opportunity to play game called counter strike global offensive on 3 different linux distributions. that was linux mint linux manjaro and artix runit ;).
so performance is well...
linux mint i played on high settings for 2 days, screen was freezing for secs while game was going on. had to put graphics settings to lowest and it was slightly okay... i also had crashes during map change xD. one evening i performed hard reset of my laptop 5 times.

so my laptop has nvidia optimus technology. i have here intel 620 and nvidia geforce 940mx. today in the morning i decided to install manjaro openbox and see how their bumblebee and primusrun (stuff for nvidia optimus) gonna perform. i installed steam counter strike as well i run the game with primusrun %command% and performance was slightly okay, quicker than on linux mint though. but i think i played on default settings temperature was about 60 degrees i think. so its not so bad compared to win10

but laters convinced myself that if i can run bumblebee and primusrun on manjaro openbox i can do it on artix as well. so i installed bumblebee bumblebee-runit and other libs that came with bumblebee (libs32, primus) and nvidia drivers.
managed to get it all running and wow! :) so basically its unbelievable because i play counter strke global offensive on highest settings.
nvidia x settings has everything on max quality, antialiasing max 16x everything maxed.
ram usage i get here while playing this game is goddamn only 2700mb!! i only have 4gb but on manjaro i had weird errors and ram usage was constantly 100%.
and gpu temperature is about 60 temps. so its pretty amazing ;) i put command optirun  nvidia-settings -c :8 and i got settings

i am very amazed and thanks artix devs for bringing this amazing distro public, only if other people who play games could experience the difference... for some reason primusrun and nvidia wont run with some games on wine but all games that available for linux on steam run just perfect.

so as im more like into playing games than coding so far i had the best experience with playing different games on this os. its amazing!!!

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #1
Well, share your configuration (xorg conf for intel and nvidia, modules, etc) and make this thread a HOWTO.

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #2
well the intel isn't for bumblebee because intel is set by default to run whole system on the laptop. i use optirun/primusrun to use nvidia for certain apps.

i have default xorg conf of nvidia so i havent really changed anything, but its important to have driver=nvidia in bumblebee.conf
this is bumblebee.conf that i have here if somebody needs it ;)
Code: [Select]
# Configuration file for Bumblebee. Values should **not** be put between quotes

## Server options. Any change made in this section will need a server restart
# to take effect.
[bumblebeed]
# The secondary Xorg server DISPLAY number
VirtualDisplay=:8
# Should the unused Xorg server be kept running? Set this to true if waiting
# for X to be ready is too long and don't need power management at all.
KeepUnusedXServer=false
# The name of the Bumbleblee server group name (GID name)
ServerGroup=bumblebee
# Card power state at exit. Set to false if the card shoud be ON when Bumblebee
# server exits.
TurnCardOffAtExit=false
# The default behavior of '-f' option on optirun. If set to "true", '-f' will
# be ignored.
NoEcoModeOverride=false
# The Driver used by Bumblebee server. If this value is not set (or empty),
# auto-detection is performed. The available drivers are nvidia and nouveau
# (See also the driver-specific sections below)
Driver=nvidia
# Directory with a dummy config file to pass as a -configdir to secondary X
XorgConfDir=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.d

## Client options. Will take effect on the next optirun executed.
[optirun]
# Acceleration/ rendering bridge, possible values are auto, virtualgl and
# primus.
Bridge=primus
# The method used for VirtualGL to transport frames between X servers.
# Possible values are proxy, jpeg, rgb, xv and yuv.
VGLTransport=proxy
# List of paths which are searched for the primus libGL.so.1 when using
# the primus bridge
PrimusLibraryPath=/usr/lib/primus:/usr/lib32/primus
# Should the program run under optirun even if Bumblebee server or nvidia card
# is not available?
AllowFallbackToIGC=false


# Driver-specific settings are grouped under [driver-NAME]. The sections are
# parsed if the Driver setting in [bumblebeed] is set to NAME (or if auto-
# detection resolves to NAME).
# PMMethod: method to use for saving power by disabling the nvidia card, valid
# values are: auto - automatically detect which PM method to use
#         bbswitch - new in BB 3, recommended if available
#       switcheroo - vga_switcheroo method, use at your own risk
#             none - disable PM completely
# https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Comparison-of-PM-methods

## Section with nvidia driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nvidia
[driver-nvidia]
# Module name to load, defaults to Driver if empty or unset
KernelDriver=nvidia
PMMethod=auto
# colon-separated path to the nvidia libraries
LibraryPath=/usr/lib/nvidia:/usr/lib32/nvidia:/usr/lib:/usr/lib32
# comma-separated path of the directory containing nvidia_drv.so and the
# default Xorg modules path
XorgModulePath=/usr/lib/nvidia/xorg,/usr/lib/xorg/modules
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nvidia

## Section with nouveau driver specific options, only parsed if Driver=nouveau
[driver-nouveau]
KernelDriver=nouveau
PMMethod=auto
XorgConfFile=/etc/bumblebee/xorg.conf.nouveau

nvidia xorg conf is pretty straightforward as well

Code: [Select]
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Layout0"
    Option      "AutoAddDevices" "false"
    Option      "AutoAddGPU" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "DiscreteNvidia"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VendorName  "NVIDIA Corporation"
#   If the X server does not automatically detect your VGA device,
#   you can manually set it here.
#   To get the BusID prop, run `lspci | egrep 'VGA|3D'` and input the data
#   as you see in the commented example.
#   This Setting may be needed in some platforms with more than one
#   nvidia card, which may confuse the proprietary driver (e.g.,
#   trying to take ownership of the wrong device). Also needed on Ubuntu 13.04.
#   BusID "PCI:01:00:0"

#   Setting ProbeAllGpus to false prevents the new proprietary driver
#   instance spawned to try to control the integrated graphics card,
#   which is already being managed outside bumblebee.
#   This option doesn't hurt and it is required on platforms running
#   more than one nvidia graphics card with the proprietary driver.
#   (E.g. Macbook Pro pre-2010 with nVidia 9400M + 9600M GT).
#   If this option is not set, the new Xorg may blacken the screen and
#   render it unusable (unless you have some way to run killall Xorg).
    Option "ProbeAllGpus" "false"

    Option "NoLogo" "true"
    Option "UseEDID" "false"
    Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"
EndSection

here is nouveau xorg.conf
Code: [Select]
Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier  "Layout0"
    Option      "AutoAddDevices" "false"
    Option      "AutoAddGPU" "false"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "DiscreteNvidia"
    Driver      "nouveau"pu ju

#   If the X server does not automatically detect your VGA device,
#   you can manually set it here.
#   To get the BusID prop, run `lspci | egrep 'VGA|3D'` and input the data
#   as you see in the commented example.
#   This Setting is needed on Ubuntu 13.04.
#   BusID "PCI:01:00:0"

EndSection

well right now i noticed there is some difference between using primusrun/optirun for apps i need wine for and stuff like linux games on steam or opensource free linux native games like supertuxkart. they always run, but for example i noticed that counter stke source wont run under primusrun or optirun. i can run wine stuff or counter strke source using intel gpu just fine, but if i type primerun wine app i usually get crash. but its not artix fault, its more like gpu or bumblebee.

i read on internet that ubuntu and ubuntu based distros have something like nvidia prime set up where u can just change what gpu you wanna use then you need to reboot and you have your nvidia gpu loaded but it will use it for everything, not just certain app.
i also read on internet that manjaro or antergos have something similar.
Manjaro has its named Optimus Manager
https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?title=Optimus_Manager

while on mint when i load nvidia gpu i can run every app just fine, but well... only if mint had the same performance that artix has + nvidia prime choose gpu and that would be just fabulous. but i get lots of freezes when im on mint unfortunately, however i can confirm that counter stke global offensive dota 2 supertuxkart or wesnoth run just great under nvidia ;).

right now i only wanna get hold of custom made PC with proper AMD gpu and cpu + use open source drivers and install artix on it and see how everything performs ;). but well i think artix has very huge potential in terms of games because its extremely light fast and easy. if i get errors they're pretty straightforward. i noticed that logs on manjaro looked a bit different but maybe that was my imagination, not sure.
i am very pleased for artix performance, i hope that as soon as i will have some amd pc artix will still be supported so i can play games on it and tell everybody how fast and stable it is ;D.

sorry i am not sure what do you mean modules because i'm not really into tech ;P.
so i have to say i tried to configure bumblebee primus to play cs go with my friend, anything else that isn't so gpu demanding like this game, runs just fine under intel gpu i have here. last week i bought about 10 second hand games for pc. well and i have them all installed, so somebody who has old pc and wants to play xp games he can just install artix...
of course games made in xp era i noticed have some DRM stuff so some of them need no cd patch to be downloaded, for example medal of honor allied assault, stronghold 1, battlefield 2 perhaps gothic series as well... ;)
but well i am very satisfied. i wish mint was so lightweigh and stable like artix is, but well it isn't ;). i also dont have network manager here and pulseaudio as well, i am very satisfied with sound quality i have on artix, its really good in games.
i dont know what to say but well everybody who plays games should install artix and use it!!! :)

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #3
ok it seems like to run wine games under optirun/primusrun i need lib32-nvidia-utils package ;))

yeah i could actually create a wiki article about running bumblebee on artix and necessary libs. cuz i had to deal with with bumblebee even at begininng of last year when i was using devuan ;P.

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #4
From my experience the only difference between Artix and Arch when it comes to Bumblebee is that in Artix you need to install separate package for init script and activate bumblebeed service.

I think everythingelse is covered in Arch wiki (please correct me if I am wrong).
So if there is something so general as 32 bit libraries lacking inbumblebee article on Arch wiki please correct it there.

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #5
okay i think i was wrong actually...
this nvidia optimus i have here mint has this nvidia prime configured and i get there about 140-230 frames per second with everything on low and nvidia x settings everything on performance
on artix with primusrun i get rougly 50 fps.

so i think i just got excited that i managed to configure primusrun and use nvidia geforce on artix. However i am very convinced that non systemd distros should have better performance than systemd ones... but maybe with open source gpu drivers...
still the temperature of gpu is lower on artix, its about 47 now, on mint its always about 60.
unfortunately i wasnt buying this laptop to play games on linux at the time i didnt know that im gonna use it

 

Re: amazing performance on steam games here on artix

Reply #6
ok this is my last post i think sorry that i wont edit but i treat it as a something new update to this topic.
i can't go and check performance and fps of counter strike or dota 2 on steam because i decided to delete my steam account, i simply don't like an idea of playing games that require internet to open.
However i wanna write that typing: vblank_mode=0 gives me the best performance there. normal primusrun and optirun gives me normal 60fps while glxspheres, however vblank_mode=0 optirun glxspheres64 gives me better performance it gives me about 90fps. im not sure what is vblank_mode=0 but i just played battlefield 2 single player mode and it's actually very playable now. I have lots of single player games installed here. And because i am new to linux and thanks to artix i started to enjoy maitaining my os a bit more now, it's very interesting i run runit.

So to be fair even if ubuntu nvidia prime gives better performance than bumblebee on artix i think it's still better to use non systemd distros. I believe true gaming experience relies in maitaining your OS and device that runs this games. ;).
Thanks because i am very happy with my laptop now, it's running artix runit and computing is a pleasure now, thanks!!