Linux games experience delays or freezing issues.
Linux games experience delays or freezing issues.
Hello, I’m experiencing issues with my games stuttering during gameplay. It seems difficult to diagnose the problem on my own. After roughly an hour of play, the frame rate drops drastically, falling from 30 to just 10 frames per second when moving the mouse. Holding the mouse steady and using WASD for movement doesn’t reduce the stutter significantly. This behavior isn’t present in Windows 11 with the same hardware, nor does it occur during older titles like Fallout: New Vegas or MW2 Classic (2009). It appears to affect more demanding games such as Fallout 4 and Cyberpunk.
My system is a Lenovo Thinkstation P520 running Pop OS. It features an Xeon W-2135 processor, two 16GB Samsung DDR4 memory modules, a WD Black SN850X 2TB drive, a 900W power supply unit, and the Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card. I recently updated to the latest BIOS from Lenovo and installed the newest Nvidia drivers available for Linux. The Pop OS firmware is regularly updated—about once a week.
I’m using GEProton9-21 via Steam, but stuttering persists regardless of the Proton version. The issue seems tied to my graphics card. I suspect two broken fans on the 1070 might be causing thermal throttling and performance drops. One fan appears missing in my setup, though it still spins when forced. When both fans are running, temperatures stayed between 70-72°C without throttling, but stuttering still occurred at typical times.
Please share your insights, and thank you for your responses. I might post my answers later, similar to Arch Dornan—I work hard and have limited time.
I attempted using LD_PRELOAD and adjusting Steam overlay settings in those guides, but nothing worked. After roughly 55 minutes CyberPunk kept lagging, so I’d probably try Fallout 4 next—though I suspect it would face the same issues. One person mentioned mangohud was triggering an error; I’ve turned it off in Fallout 4 because the game won’t start when it’s active and keeps stuttering. The video shown matches the problem well, though the experience varies between games.