Ubuntu 20.04 Gaming Performance Across Desktops, X.Org vs. Wayland

[oiaohm]

I actually did know that, but it's not an easy out-of-the-box feature. Unless ... do you know if Steam for Linux does this to enforce its own SDL2?

https://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/log/fdabcc...ADME-dynapi.md


Some key points here.
1) this is a feature added to SDL in 2014.
2) You build SDL using standard build without patching it as a static library this feature is built in by default there is no configuration off switch and this is intentional by the SDL developers.

So there is only 2 ways a SDL override is not going to work.
1) Game used SDL older than the 2014 version where the feature was added.
2) Game developer has custom patched the SDL code to remove this feature and hope they have not broken other things along the way.(what they normally do)
So basically either the game is over 6 years old or is likely to be unstable pain in the ass if this feature does not work.

Steam runtime provided version of SDL supports this feature and particular valve work around set this override.

[emblemparade]

Static (and dynamic) linkage can be overriden by SDL with SDL_DYNAMIC_API=/my/actual/libSDL-2.0.so.0 (more info at the link)

I actually did know that, but it's not an easy out-of-the-box feature. Unless ... do you know if Steam for Linux does this to enforce its own SDL2?

[Xaero_Vincent]

I hope XWayland developers can take a look at the Dirt 2.0 and Unigine regressed performance.

[Azrael5]

It really isn't the main opinion here in Europe, I'm not even sure it is in Italy.

But we all care for Italy. As we care for Spain.
Nobody cares about France, though. And nobody should.

Because you are not informed. In my country the premier Giuseppe Conte has a credibility between the 60% to 80%.

[mppix]

The benefit of the doubt has nothing to do with it. By your comment, you're still pointing to why Wayland is not mature. It might work for you, but by the simple fact of existing in several reported cases... bugs, lags, artifacts and non working apps are enough to demonstrate it is not mature, stable, but instead acting randomly depending on everyone's experience. You can't push forward something that doesn't act reliably. Wayland will certainly have its long era of glory, but it's just not now yet.

If everyone seems to have a problem (or in this case no problem), it is usually not the others.

[CochainComplex]

This is exactly what I meant. This song seems to be a symbol of anti-fascism in Italy.

Yes, the song of italian partisans during the WWII.

[CochainComplex]

Or maybe it's just your experience.
I've used Gnome+Wayland for about 15 minutes a couple of weeks ago, and I already had lags and artifacts, and apps not working... It's also my own little experience.
Everyone has a different experience. If it works for you, fine, use it then and be happy with it! But don't bury your head in the sand like an ostrich. There are literally dozens of users reporting lags, artifacts, apps not working (SMPlayer), slow games or with artifacts, and other broken use cases and workflows. This only is enough to demonstrate it is not mature enough to be mainstream, hence default, except for early adopters.

I was a big fan of the pulseaudio project when it was announced several years ago, in case the usual wayland fans lack of arguments would point resistance to change, but here it's just not working for me and many others yet. It will probably be another 3-5 years before it is for the common users (meaning no tinkering to solve issues).

Valid complains. I have not said that Wayland is super stable. My comment was targeting the "Wayland is bad by design" moaning. At the moment I have tried Wayland and Gnome on at least 5 Devices with different configurations and different Distros (Ubuntu 18.04/19.04, Debian Stretch (+backports), Pop_Os 19.10/20.04 and Clear Linux and once Arch and Parrot in the past) and all of them have been snappier and smoother on Wayland.
Yes, in one case I have had transparent elements on Firefox (Clear Linux) (inbetween addressbar and page) and another issue with Pop_os19.10 + 5700xt AC Syndicate was not launching on Wayland but on X11. I'm always using latest dxvk and mesa from git so not sure what to blame here.

From the statistics point of view this is also a too small group to make credible projections of the general state of Wayland. But in all of this cases (around 12-15 different setups) Wayland was less tearing and smoother then X11.
This shows me that one of the major user experienced issues with X11 (tearing and inputlag) has been tackled correctly.
And even after a short Dev period compared to X11, this already works better across the board.

And btw it was always the major issue for me on Linux since I have switched from Mac around 2012 ....tearing on window moving and playing movies. That is super anoying and even in the year 2013 a no-go (if you compare this to windows and mac at that time). I remember I had to set DRI=3, tearfree etc somewhere to get "tearfree" on x11 with the hd4000 igpu.

Now today 2020, with a brand new Quadro T1000 (440.82) and gnome 3.34 and a decent 8Core Xeon..... I have to set "Force Full Composition Pipeline = true" in the Nvidia settings to have tearfree movies on X11 especially for 4k playback. But of course a slightly higher inputlag as written in the nvidia docu.
If I switch to the weak iGPU on the same device and start Gnome with Wayland, there is no need to"hack" anything and I still have the better experience even with 4k.

So we have already 30+ years on X11 and tearing etc is still an issue which can not be mitigated without hacks/workarounds etc. Dispite of having enough horses under the hood.

Yes Wayland is not perfect yet but it is definitely the future and we should get rid of X11 as fast as possible to make the transition faster.

p.s.: According to your testcase - do you have a Nvidia GPU? They are known for treating Wayland stepmotherly - no wonder if you experience it like described.

[Mez']

Italy has the better Prime Minister in the last century. He is competent, learned in laws matters, poliglotte, and an honest person.

It really isn't the main opinion here in Europe, I'm not even sure it is in Italy.

But we all care for Italy. As we care for Spain.
Nobody cares about France, though. And nobody should.

[Mez']

Instead of indulging in the same old flame wars, how about trying to reproduce the alleged performance gap? I did, but can’t reproduce any significant difference with Unigine Heaven / Superposition on Xorg vs GNOME Wayland (with Navi 10). Giving Michael the benefit of the doubt, there may be some kind of setup-specific issue. But there’s certainly no such huge difference in general. It’s mostly the same xserver / Mesa / kernel code being measured in both cases after all.


P.S.



GBM has nothing to do with the kernel, it’s a userspace library provided by Mesa and some proprietary driver stacks.

The benefit of the doubt has nothing to do with it. By your comment, you're still pointing to why Wayland is not mature. It might work for you, but by the simple fact of existing in several reported cases... bugs, lags, artifacts and non working apps are enough to demonstrate it is not mature, stable, but instead acting randomly depending on everyone's experience. You can't push forward something that doesn't act reliably. Wayland will certainly have its long era of glory, but it's just not now yet.

[Mez']

birdie have you ever used gnome with wayland ? it is much snappier and "micro tearing free". At the moment I have a navi 10, multiple intel igpu running on wayland. and a nvidia quadro t1000 running on gnome with x11. even with the latest driver 440.82 and full sync pipeline thingy on the x11 gnome is less smooth then all the other cards with wayland - even the igpu on the very same device is snappier. Of course if I switch back from wayland to x11 I have the same behaviour on amd and intel aswell. This are different rigs and different distros. I'm very sensitive to microlags, stutter etc fps ...but some people arent so maybe you are not able to recognise it?

Or maybe it's just your experience.
I've used Gnome+Wayland for about 15 minutes a couple of weeks ago, and I already had lags and artifacts, and apps not working... It's also my own little experience.
Everyone has a different experience. If it works for you, fine, use it then and be happy with it! But don't bury your head in the sand like an ostrich. There are literally dozens of users reporting lags, artifacts, apps not working (SMPlayer), slow games or with artifacts, and other broken use cases and workflows. This only is enough to demonstrate it is not mature enough to be mainstream, hence default, except for early adopters.

I was a big fan of the pulseaudio project when it was announced several years ago, in case the usual wayland fans lack of arguments would point resistance to change, but here it's just not working for me and many others yet. It will probably be another 3-5 years before it is for the common users (meaning no tinkering to solve issues).