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I recently decided to hop over to Linux in a journey to experience the joy of low latency with free software. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to settle on anything ideal as my testing has yielded mixed results.

Wayland and X underpin the various desktops available, and they each seem to have certain properties that are significant in regards to latency. I was initially shocked when nothing I did could trigger a low-lag tearing mode when I first installed a desktop, despite clearly having seen this years prior. I presumed it came down to poor drivers, but I eventually discovered that this was an artifact of using Wayland specifically. Once I switched over to X, I felt right at home as a Windows gamer.

So is X the better choice when not considering VRR? I would have hoped it was that simple, but I have been able to see a notably higher GPU-bound performance on Wayland using KDE Plasma specifically. The behavior is rather inconsistent between distros and desktop environments, but Wayland is consistently equal or faster than X. X especially suffers when it runs a compositor in the background, and only GNOME has avoided doing that consistently. Despite turning off the compositor, it never runs quite as fast as I have seen on Wayland. This to me suggests that there is still some unnecessary work being done that steals resources from the game. In spite of this, I would still settle on X for now, as it at least doesn't feel like it suffers from latency the way Wayland does, though I'd love to see this not be the case.

One article suggests that Wayland is actually more responsive in composited desktop cases, though this seems largely inconsequential for gaming.

Are there some other quirks in the Linux desktop scene that may impact responsiveness in games?

I've used Linux primarily since Windows 10's release around 2015. Q/A went downhill late 2023 on multiple distros so I'm back on Windows :p

I'm convinced Wayland is a lie only entertained because people don't want to work on Xorg. Fedora specifically mentioned Xorg support as "maintenance burden".

I've seen distros defaulting to Wayland for years. For 8+ years until a few weeks ago, I could reproduce slower, inconsistent mouse/cursor movement with 1000Hz mice (multiple of em on different PCs) on GNOME on Wayland, which is what all the mainstream distros use or recommend (Plasma 6 wasn't any better Fedora 41). That's telling me that nobody working on this knows what low-latency is (GNOME is still guessing at it a month ago), but I'm even more skeptical of end-users praising Wayland for years (it was absolutely horrendous pre-GNOME 42). Never-mind resolution scaling or HDMI color profile selections still being a PITA today.

Wayland isn't for gaming (I take aim even at Valve with Steam Deck), and Xorg is deprioritized as a scapegoat. Linux is interested in becoming slower on desktop for developer convenience, while actively going against a good desktop experience for end-users (Fedora straight-up axing Xorg sessions, GNOME dropping it with GTK4, and whatever wheel KDE wants to re-invent). FreeBSD is serious about maintaining Xorg and doesn't present bias about it vs Wayland (you choose what you want without sway, and Xorg is first on the list ) And since it's been like this for years, I'm not sure cursor handling on Wayland can ever match Xorg consistency.

https://www.vsynctester.com/ on GNOME on Wayland out-the-box is jagged and all over the place with the bottom bar. Not a problem on GNOME on Xorg or Windows; mostly solvable with Wayland with CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-dynamic-max-render-time.

As for VRR, I'd assume that to only work right under Xorg.

Espionage724 wrote: ↑

13 Mar 2025, 12:08

I've seen distros defaulting to Wayland for years. For 8+ years until a few weeks ago, I could reproduce slower, inconsistent mouse/cursor movement with 1000Hz mice (multiple of em on different PCs) on GNOME on Wayland

I believe Wayland decided to vsync the mouse cursor, which I don't think any other OS is doing. Normally the mouse cursor is kept as a non-vsynced hardware overlay that's completely independent of pretty much anything else, which is why its latency is so low compared to other things on the screen.

RealNC wrote: ↑

13 Mar 2025, 13:44

Espionage724 wrote: ↑

13 Mar 2025, 12:08

I've seen distros defaulting to Wayland for years. For 8+ years until a few weeks ago, I could reproduce slower, inconsistent mouse/cursor movement with 1000Hz mice (multiple of em on different PCs) on GNOME on Wayland

I believe Wayland decided to vsync the mouse cursor, which I don't think any other OS is doing. Normally the mouse cursor is kept as a non-vsynced hardware overlay that's completely independent of pretty much anything else, which is why its latency is so low compared to other things on the screen.

That separate overlay sounds like the way to do it, but I wonder why Wayland chose something different that still isn't paying off years later?

I was on Windows 10 last week with flawless mouse movement, tried Fedora 42 beta Xfce and it was pretty good there too on X11. I'm on FreeBSD now with the same Xfce set-up and it's slightly better. That mouse movement to cursor movement on screen feel is incredible when it matches, but Wayland (Plasma 6 and GNOME 3-48) breaks that with having higher latency introduced between that along with inconsistency (having it based on timers that get prioritized based on scheduling; high CPU/GPU = cursor potentially de-prioritized). I notice this with an iGPU on 60Hz today, along with high-end NV/AMD 4K@60Hz HiDPI years ago.

I've heard Fedora mention supporting Xorg as maintenance burden. That implies there's people out there not interested in providing a good desktop experience over development efforts, and that's not sitting right with me largely because there's regular end-users sucked into this that strongly defend Wayland even with the knowledge of higher latency (and anyone praising this situation prior to GNOME 42 either had malicious intent or were incredibly naive).

I heard something like Wayland devs only using 125Hz office mice. I've seen this for years with an off-the-shelf $30 mouse from Walmart that had 1000Hz, and some other 1000Hz mice. That's implying to me that Wayland isn't serious about gaming; I had questions about Valve with Steam Deck also featuring Wayland, but I guess they're more-selling the controller format :p

Espionage724 wrote: ↑

31 Mar 2025, 14:01

I heard something like Wayland devs only using 125Hz office mice. I've seen this for years with an off-the-shelf $30 mouse from Walmart that had 1000Hz, and some other 1000Hz mice. That's implying to me that Wayland isn't serious about gaming; I had questions about Valve with Steam Deck also featuring Wayland, but I guess they're more-selling the controller format :p

Well, games is why I dual boot Windows. Even without the Wayland issues, the third party tools I use simply aren't available on Linux (RTSS, Profile Inspector, SpecialK, Lossless Scaling, HeSuVi, etc.) and many features on my Nvidia GPU aren't supported on Linux either (DLDSR and SGSSAA mainly.)

Running games on Linux is fine for more casual players, but power users don't have any other option than Windows right now. Linux infrastructure projects like Wayland, the kernel, etc, do not have teams that focus on gaming, like Microsoft's DirectX and DXGI teams.

I've recently switched to Wayland, and for now I'm happy with the move on my system. VRR on Gnome/Wayland is handled a bit differently (doesn't allow tearing for now). But some things aren't ready yet in Wayland, and I've also heard about stability/stutter issues on some users' systems.

Since X11 doesn't support multi-monitors properly, and never will, there is no way around Wayland in the future.

Saying Linux is for "casual players" is just not true. There are a lot of games, also competitive titles, that run much better (smoother and lower latency) on Linux, like Overwatch, Diabotical, etc. It's just that more competitive titles are available on Windows for anti-cheat reasons, that's it.

Wayland is indeed the future of high-Hz and HDR and multimonitor.

Wayland with good drivers does Linux VSYNC & VRR properly more commonly; and the Wayland team is actively working on adding HDR support. And TestUFO runs properly in several Chromium browsers, if the driver is setup properly!

That, and Valve SteamOS too.

Gamescope is a custom Wayland fork!

___

Linux gaming is already here if you're using a Steam Deck. It's building your own Linux gaming system that is messy.

Also, what I'm hearing about Valve's Deckard VR headset (late 2025 / early 2026) is that it's an upgraded Steam Deck strapped to your face. So I think it will run either recompiled APK-based VR games, or recompiled PCVR games, in addition to casting (2D+VR) from external computer, in addition to playing Steam Deck PC games on a virtual screen in-headset. From all the rumors I'm reading, that's one kickass Linux PC gaming machine.

I now predict the new Valve standalone headset is a Linux powerhouse:

- Essentially an upgraded Steam Deck strapped to your face
- PCVR Mode - Play PCVR games over cable or streamed
- Standalone Quest Style - Play .apk VR games ported/recompiled from a Quest codebase
- Standalone PCVR - Play PCVR games recompiled to ARM64 target, and run directly in-headset via Proton/Wine
- Steam Deck mode - Play any 2D Steam Deck games (x86 or ARM) directly in-headset (virtual big screen)
- Streaming mode - Stream any 2D or VR games over the cloud (ugh, but this option'll be there anyway)
- Docked Mode - Connect headset (like a Switch 2 dock) to a TV, and play it like a Steam Deck to your TV for your 2D games
- USB docking station capability (Steam Deck can do monitor/keyboard/mouse/Ethernet over USB too)
- Pair any Bluetooth mouse/keyboard/controller and play FPS normally too

One heck of a Linux gaming system, no?

I saw a lot of source code commits by Valve, plus a few youtuber reverse engineers, that defacto confirms these features. So in other words, install PC-based Cyberpunk 2077 into the next Valve VR headset coming out -- and play on an IMAX screen. Yeah, downgraded graphics to mobile, but probably guessing roughly RTX 2000-series or 3000-series-ish graphics quality, it should be OK. Think like Switch 2 graphics quality, which is still a big upgrade on the original Steam Deck / Quest headsets. Last launch date late 2025, but I bet 2026/2027 if trade wars continue.

Granted, Wayland is still flippin' new compared to X and there are problems, but good momentum going forward. The Wayland team is also getting some of the improvements transferred to Wayland too from all that SteamOS Gamescope momentum too, these little bits of code tends to feed each other, lifting all boats.

If your goal is a smooth path from X11 to Wayland, and want to run a lot of legacy stuff, it's a world of pain. But if you're starting clean with a reduced base set of apps, and going for the common stuff (Steam for Linux on Wayland), things are getting a lot less painful now -- and you're getting the "Better Blur Busters Goodies" like VSYNC / VRR / high-Hz / multimonitor / etc goodies you didn't easily have before on Linux.

Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑

04 Apr 2025, 15:37

Granted, Wayland is still flippin' new compared to X and there are problems, but good momentum going forward.

That started getting old after 5 years of hearing it :p

Until Wayland can drive the few 1000Hz mice I have, Windows already has Vsync/VRR/high Hz/multi-monitor working and no-sweat even at 8K mouse polling.

As much as I enjoy Wayland on the desktop, it still doesn't deliver when running fullscreen games. I'm back on x11 because it's still a much superior gaming experience (on Nvidia). Hope, we'll get a true flip mode on Wayland in the future:

https://github.com/netborg-afps/dxvk?ta ... esentation