NTSYNC Linux Patches Revived To Help Boost Steam Play Gaming Performance

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NTSYNC Linux Patches Revived To Help Boost Steam Play Gaming Performance

Back in May for the Linux 6.10 kernel the initial bits of the NTSYNC driver was upstreamed for helping to emulate the Windows NT synchronization primitives so Windows games running under Wine/Proton (such as Valve's Steam Play) can enjoy a very nice performance boost. That NTSYNC code for Linux 6.10 wasn't yet in functioning shape and now a half-year later the newest NTSYNC patch series has been sent out for review...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NTSYNC-Linux-v6-Patches

[Kjell]

Here's an old FPS benchmark of NTSYNC v5 + kernel 6.8.4 + Wine 9.6 in Cyberpunk 2077

Driver	MIN	AVG	MAX	Image
FSYNC	89.97	115.44	143.43	https://i.imgur.com/Uh0iY14.png
NTSYNC v5	121.15	149.44	182.01	https://i.imgur.com/HdMH09U.png

[shmerl]

New patches are nice, but reviewers didn't respond for months and months to v5 iteration. Hopefully they'll handle it better this round.

UPDATE:

Looks like the new set was already acked by one of the maintainers, that's great!

[skeevy420]

New patches are nice, but reviewers didn't respond for months and months to v5 iteration. Hopefully they'll handle it better this round.

UPDATE:

Looks like the new set was already acked by one of the maintainers, that's great!

It's surprising what random Phoronix coverage manages to accomplish.

[shmerl]

Here's an old FPS benchmark of NTSYNC v5 + kernel 6.8.4 + Wine 9.6 in Cyberpunk 2077

Driver	MIN	AVG	MAX	Image
FSYNC	89.97	115.44	143.43	https://i.imgur.com/Uh0iY14.png
NTSYNC v5	121.15	149.44	182.01	https://i.imgur.com/HdMH09U.png

Why such big difference? According to previous presentations, all of those esync / fsync / ntsync should be close in performance and the only major difference is that ntsync in addition covers some obscure / in practice never used Windows functionality that makes it fully correct for Wine use case. I.e. it shouldn't be that hugely more performant.

[ObscureAngelPT]

Kjell Hi,
This performance improvements from NTSync v5 are obtained in GPU Bound situations or GPU Bound?

[geerge]

I had to google what the hell acked meant. Am I old?

[intelfx]

I had to google what the hell acked meant. Am I old?

Don't know about old, but you sure as hell ain't paying much attention

[Kjell]

Why such big difference?

Performance uplift from NTSync varies heavily between games

Majority have slightly better average FPS and reasonable improvement to 1% LOW. Typically the difference in FPS isn't that massive apart from noticeably less frame jitter/latency with improperly configured VRR.

Cyberpunk 2077 is on the extreme end of the spectrum

Kjell Hi,This performance improvements from NTSync v5 are obtained in GPU Bound situations or GPU Bound?

GPU bound

Game is running at 3840x1600, no AA, no RT, highest settings (apart from a few which ruined performance with no tangible benefit to quality)

---

Edit: make sure to raise ulimit -Hn to 214748364 due to NTSync (memory leak or the way its designed) causing file descriptors to be created indefinitely.

[braiam]

Edit: make sure to raise ulimit -Hn to 214748364 due to NTSync (memory leak or the way its designed) causing file descriptors to be created indefinitely.

Can you contact Elizabeth Figura for that. If it's needed by the driver, then it should be part of the patch, otherwise maybe it needs to look at it more closely. (Maybe something else in the kernel changed).