5mo ago

Have you ever experienced stuttering in a game if you receive a message in a desktop messaging app during gameplay?

Solution

This is a bug in KDE Plasma [1.1][2]. It appears that it might be fixed in KDE Plasma v6.2 [1.2][3].

Original Post

I have noticed this behavior with Element and Signal while playing Deadlock. The game will have a pretty severe stutter, ie the frame-rate will substantially dip, for half a second or so at the exact moment that a message is received. It seems to happen with every message. Do note that these are only messages that would result in a system notification. All other messages that are silent, ie they have no pop-up notification, do not result in any stutter.

OS: Arch Linux, Kernel: v6.6.49-1-lts
DE: KDE Plasma v6.1.4
WM: Wayland
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6600

Updates

I have tried disabling this setting in Deadlock:
I have tried windowed-borderless
I have noticed that the moment that the stutter occurs, my CPU spikes maybe 20% and my GPU drops to 0%.

8 comments

Yes, it's a bug in KDE Plasma that might be fixed with 6.2: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=487780
- Thank you! Solved!

I think there is a setting in some games where the FPS lowers when not focused, to save system resources. It happens with notifications for a lot of games I play too
- Thank you for the information! Perhaps that's what this setting is:
  
  I will disable it and report back.
  EDIT (2024-09-09T22:09Z): @ccf@lemmy.world, unfortunately, with that setting disabled, I still am experiencing the stuttering.

Look into turning off desktop effects while playing there is a key combo for that with f12 of I remember correctly.
- Both not possible and unnecessary on Wayland.

Yep, with the desktop versions of Signal, Matrix (Element) and Steam chat.
I'm yet to try out gamemode, which may help. But I typically close Signal and Element when I'm gaming, so it's usually not an issue for me.
Edit: I'm on EndeavourOS, KDE, i7, 16GB, Nvidia 2060.
- steam chat brings my machine to it's knees if any game is running. not only the game stuttering, the whole system becomes a potato. and this is on mint cinnamon with xanmod kernel, 7800x3d, 32gb, 3060ti...

8 comments