Linux for competitive gaming and input lag?

[nogrin]

hey i made an account here just to reply to this, i have been daily driving linux, using wayland. i switched to the new proton update and instantly noticed improved input lag, i then looked online and saw that was a known effect of the update so it wasn’t just placebo.

to me personally now linux feels better than windows for input lag, but i came here to see if anyone has tested it.

and please keep in mind, the new proton update only improves input lag for those running wayland. Wayland is also the only way to run variable refresh rates. the new update doesn’t effect x11 performance, and for a no v/g sync solution x11 still seems like it would be faster or the same input lag. but also these days everyone is moving away from x11 anyway.

[RealNC]

Wayland is also the only way to run variable refresh rates. the new update doesn’t effect x11 performance, and for a no v/g sync solution x11 still seems like it would be faster or the same input lag. but also these days everyone is moving away from x11 anyway.

G-sync works fine in X11. But you need to disable compositing. Depending on the DE you're using, this can happen automatically, or you can toggle it on/off manually with a keyboard shortcut. With KWin, it's Alt+Shift+F12.

[GammaLyrae]

It can be done, but it can take some work at times. Expect to lose some performance on maximum fps (0.1 and 1% lows are often the same), and do troubleshooting that you may not have had to do on Windows.

it usually comes down to issues with the anticheat. All of the popular ones (easy anticheat, battleeye, VAC, etc) either have native Linux binaries or can have flags custom set by the developers to be OK with being ran through WINE. Not all developers enable these flags, either out of ignorance (the flags are not on by default for the version they shipped) or malice (they were enabled at some point, but were later intentionally disabled). "are we anticheat yet" and protondb are good sources to review to see if your game of choice will work.

As for myself, I have over 200 hours in marvel rivals... All of it on Linux. Netease has shipped patches to address bugs that exclusively or primarily affect Linux players, even though they don't technically support the OS (ie, it must be played using proton).

Meanwhile, EA used to explicitly support playing Apex Legends on the steam deck and let Linux users play from their desktop too, but then they decided to no longer allow their anticheat to work on Linux. EA, Activision, Epic, and Riot Games are the worst offenders in general. If you play any of their games, and it uses anticheat, it's probably not going to work on Linux. The "live service" nature of always online games with anticheat / tamper protection also means that any single patch could be one that breaks compatibility accidentally, requiring an update from Valve for Proton to make it work again, or intentionally broke compatibility and now you're stuck with a game you can't play. If you are uncomfortable with this, stick to windows or play the affected game on console.

[Hyote]

It can be done, but it can take some work at times. Expect to lose some performance on maximum fps (0.1 and 1% lows are often the same), and do troubleshooting that you may not have had to do on Windows.

it usually comes down to issues with the anticheat. All of the popular ones (easy anticheat, battleeye, VAC, etc) either have native Linux binaries or can have flags custom set by the developers to be OK with being ran through WINE. Not all developers enable these flags, either out of ignorance (the flags are not on by default for the version they shipped) or malice (they were enabled at some point, but were later intentionally disabled). "are we anticheat yet" and protondb are good sources to review to see if your game of choice will work.

As for myself, I have over 200 hours in marvel rivals... All of it on Linux. Netease has shipped patches to address bugs that exclusively or primarily affect Linux players, even though they don't technically support the OS (ie, it must be played using proton).

Meanwhile, EA used to explicitly support playing Apex Legends on the steam deck and let Linux users play from their desktop too, but then they decided to no longer allow their anticheat to work on Linux. EA, Activision, Epic, and Riot Games are the worst offenders in general. If you play any of their games, and it uses anticheat, it's probably not going to work on Linux. The "live service" nature of always online games with anticheat / tamper protection also means that any single patch could be one that breaks compatibility accidentally, requiring an update from Valve for Proton to make it work again, or intentionally broke compatibility and now you're stuck with a game you can't play. If you are uncomfortable with this, stick to windows or play the affected game on console.

Except if you're on an all-AMD system, then Linux can make your 1% lows much higher and give increased smoothness compared to Windows. The problem with Linux as I mentioned many times, is that if you try one distro, you pretty much got the whole experience. The amount of tweaking you can do will not go as deep as Windows, which is almost like an iceberg by now.
If someone wants to install an operating system and chill with settings out of the box then Linux is a much better choice in 2025. Obviously I mean distros, like Cachy, Nobara, Bazzite, not just Arch by itself.

[Hyote]

I gathered some tweaks for Linux and applied my SCEWIN settings, which I haven't done previously. It feels very solid like this and I would say it's lower latency than Windows (CachyOS).

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-meta

sudo find /sys/devices/system/cpu -name scaling_governor -exec sh -c 'echo performance > {}' ';'

sudo pgrep -P 2 | xargs -i taskset -p -c 0 {}

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_low_latency=1

sudo find /sys/devices/virtual/workqueue -name cpumask -exec sh -c 'echo 1 > {}' ';'

sudo sysctl vm.stat_interval=120

sudo swapoff -a

w /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled - - - - never
w /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/defrag - - - - never

echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

sudo systemctl disable systemd-timesyncd.service
sudo systemctl stop systemd-timesyncd.service
sudo systemctl stop systemd-journald

sudo pacman -S xf86-input-evdev

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-evdev.conf

add these lines, save with Ctrl+O, press enter:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "Mouse"
MatchIsPointer "on"
Driver "evdev"
Option "AccelerationScheme" "none"
Option "AccelerationProfile" "-1"
Option "VelocityReset" "30000"
EndSection


Apply on startup:
sudo sysctl kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0
sudo cpupower frequency-set -g performance

[netborg]

dxvk low-latency 2.7 now features a new VRR mode, preventing the pacing to go into v-sync buffering. Note that x11-flip is still strongly recommended in place of Wayland. On Nvidia this is, I don't know if it's different for other manufacturers.

https://github.com/netborg-afps/dxvk/releases

[roro13200]

I've been trying Linux for a while (bazzite/cachyos/ubuntu/manjaro...) with AMD/Nvidia GPUs and Intel/AMD CPUs.
The Linux system is very good, as is the desktop fluidity, and the package management, all of that is good.
I noticed that the frame rate is better than on Win11, but the big negative point for gaming is the input lag!! I find that the input lag on Linux is too significant, and that's a deal breaker for me.

[netborg]

I've been trying Linux for a while (bazzite/cachyos/ubuntu/manjaro...) with AMD/Nvidia GPUs and Intel/AMD CPUs.
The Linux system is very good, as is the desktop fluidity, and the package management, all of that is good.
I noticed that the frame rate is better than on Win11, but the big negative point for gaming is the input lag!! I find that the input lag on Linux is too significant, and that's a deal breaker for me.

Well, seems like you didn't use my low-latency dxvk, so not surprising. But if you use it (on x11), then you'll have better input lag than on Windows.

I still need to implement a few things until I consider it finished. I just implemented real-time GPU submission tracking which improves smoothness quite a bit, and I need to properly integrate the dx-to-vk step into the pacing. After that, I'll look into making it work on vkd3d-proton too (if it's possible to control frame pacing in dx12 like on dx8-11, idk yet).

[MontyTheAverage]

Hard to ever consider switching or testing linux when lot of them aren't supported on linux and unplayable like Apex, Battlefield etc.