Ubuntu 21.04 - X.Org vs. Wayland Linux Gaming Performance

[Zan Lynx]

Why does a game need X? Of all kinds of programs I suppose games should only care about initializing a window, and then ok receiving input. EGL does the window initialization IIRC.

Most likely problem in my opinion is that the programmers thought X11 would always be the SDL backend. And then they made their own calls to X11 functions without going through SDL. This would result in crashes whenever the SDL backend is not X11.

I've seen this with some Android NDK code. It checked for Linux preprocessor macros and then made Android calls. Trying to correctly port that to real Linux was a bit of a pain.

[oiaohm]

Gaming also has its problems with Wayland. Some games (native and nonnative) refused to start. Another problem is the missing VRR/Freesync support. The usability of Freesync is limited on linux by X11/X.Org but at least it works for exclusive fullscreen OpenGL/Vulkan games. I guess i will wait another full year before trying Wayland again. Maybe it will be in good shape by the time Kubuntu 22.04 will be released.

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=405912#c14

KDE 5.22 that is the June this year release unless something happens will have VRR/Freesync support in Wayland mode. There is a possiblity that Kubuntu may update part way though the cycle from 5.21 to 5.22.

The missing support of different Wayland compositors are disappearing fairly quickly.

[oiaohm]

Most likely problem in my opinion is that the programmers thought X11 would always be the SDL backend. And then they made their own calls to X11 functions without going through SDL. This would result in crashes whenever the SDL backend is not X11.

That is most likely the problem.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/libw11/

In time people could make wrapper libraries to allow programs like that to run without XWayland but we would be talking per application hacks here.

For now the simplest route is just force game under XWayland. There are enough other problems to deal with before getting into fixing up solo applications where a lot of them are closed source.

I do think at some point game distributitor will do a xlib/xcb wrapper library to wayland for old applications if there is a performance gain there.

[dpeterc]

This means that all that is based on Xorg must be dismissed quickly and replaced by programs based on Wayland.

Feel free to rewrite all the software, instead of telling other people what to do.

[oiaohm]

Feel free to rewrite all the software, instead of telling other people what to do.

The point to remember is 90%+ of software did not need a rewrite for Wayland just a toolkit update.

Now the 10% that broken yes to keep therm will require a lot of effort or maybe they will just end up superseded by other software.

XWayland stop gap before bothering to make legacy applications allows to reduce the work load by allowing them to come superseded. This is also why Xwayland does not have to have perfect X11 feature one to one match its the place for applications to in time be replaced due to being superceded or have a compatibility hack placed over them if they turn out to be items user are interested in.

[nist]

The name of the article is wrong in my opinion. It's called "Ubuntu 21.04 - X.Org vs. Wayland Linux Gaming Performance" but it should be called "Ubuntu 21.04 - GNOME Shell desktop environment under X.Org vs. GNOME Shell desktop environment under Wayland Linux Gaming Performance".
Wayland is not Gnome Shell and viceversa.

[Azrael5]

Feel free to rewrite all the software, instead of telling other people what to do.

It's not my duty. The duty deals with people which have assumed the responsibility. Your answer is stupid because if I told someone to make what is my duty to avoid to make it on my own, my answer would be stupid and arrogant as a pretext to not make what is my duty. So, avoid to make the scammer with me, otherwise change your nickname in "cheater".

[pmorph]

It's not my duty. The duty deals with people which have assumed the responsibility. Your answer is stupid because if I told someone to make what is my duty to avoid to make it on my own, my answer would be stupid and arrogant as a pretext to not make what is my duty. So, avoid to make the scammer with me, otherwise change your nickname in "cheater".

We can reformulate. You demanding a quick rewrite was a bit pointless, because it will have no effect at all in getting it done.

[Azrael5]

We can reformulate. You demanding a quick rewrite was a bit pointless, because it will have no effect at all in getting it done.

I don't demanding anything. I just notice the problem on make a right comparison simply why games are still based on xorg because wayaland is not integrated yet. It's not a complain, it's just a description of an actual condition. If wayland was defined 5 years ago, games would have been realized in Wayalnd which is a better graphical stack while X11 is deprecated. I notice that another problem will happen when the linux Oses are wayland based, that is games based on xorg. Structure must be ready before the use of it by means, otherwise the means are conditioned. A window is placed after the wall. No one put a window in a wall that has to be replaced by another new wall. Do you?

[lyamc]

It's not a complain, it's just a description of an actual condition.

Same for me in regards to VNC. Once Gnome fixes their stuff, I’ll be able to use wayvnc.

Until then, I’ll keep using X11