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[help][solved] Getting input lag on Bazzite (lemmy.nz)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hi all, I have recently installed Bazzite, after previously being on Nobara.

I have been playing Dave the Diver and DOOM (2016), both through Steam, and I get pretty serious input lag. A second or more delay at times, generally when FPS is struggling.

I'm running on a laptop with integrated graphics, so the struggling integrated GPU is not a surprise, but I didn't have this input lag issue with the same games on Nobara.

Any tips on a setting or something to help this?

I have lowered graphics settings to help with FPS, but ultimately I am not going to be able to avoid occasional FPS dips. The mouse input is instant, it's just an issue with the keyboard.

Any help appreciated!

Edit with solution: it seems the problem is IBus, see this comment: https://lemmy.nz/post/23401044/15684126

Basically the solution is to add IBUS_ENABLE_SYNC_MODE=2 to /etc/environment and restart.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

We need more specs. Input lag is almost always due to resource constraints, and in gaming because the kernel is busy trying to to keep itself alive in some sense (meaning the scheduler is going crazy). My guess is this is a memory issue, so get your memory util while the games are running with free -m and post that, and also get dmesg output when the lag hits.

It should give some extra info. I'm guessing you've got a memory constrained system with regard to gaming, and insufficient swap on Bazzite.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

So this is a bit of a dumb solution, but I went to the accessibility settings in the OS and dropped the repeat frequency a bit. Now it seems to work fine!

It did seem like the events were triggering faster than the games could process them, so dropping the repeat speed a little stopped the events queueing up.

screen shot of accessibility setting to set the speed of repeating keys when a key is held down

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

👍

If it works, it works.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

At the same time as installing Bazzite, I also upgraded to 64GB RAM.

Here's the output of free -m when the game is being problematic.

$ free -m
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           64076       14703       43303        3643       14036       49372
Swap:           4095           0        4095

Here's a pastebin of the dmesg output: https://pastebin.com/N6h3HP7D

I am sure you're right about it being resource contrained. It seems to get worse over time, and the GPU reports 100% all the time while the game is running. Just trying to work out if there is something I can change to make it happier.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

The issue is you say it didn't have this issue when it was running a different distro, so we know there is an acceptable state somehow. What the delta between that install and this current one is the question.

That being said, there isn't anything obvious in the dmesg output. You ran that command WHILE the problem was happening, right?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

That being said, there isn’t anything obvious in the dmesg output. You ran that command WHILE the problem was happening, right?

Yes, as close as I could. I had the game open and while using it the keyboard actions were delayed. Then I switched to the terminal to run the commands. So I guess not while I was pressing keys in the game, but I did it at a time when the keyboard controls were lagging.

Edit: One thing I noticed is that it appears to happen only when holding down a key. So for example, if I tap left then tap right, the character reacts instantly. But if I hold down left and the character is going left, then I switch to pressing right instead, it can take over a second to react. Like it’s not able to process the key presses as fast as they are being generated.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

So this is a bit of a dumb solution, but I went to the accessibility settings in the OS and dropped the repeat frequency a bit. Now it seems to work fine!

It did seem like the events were triggering faster than the games could process them, so dropping the repeat speed a little stopped the events queueing up.

screen shot of accessibility setting to set the speed of repeating keys when a key is held down

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Yeah, you're not running into paging issues. That's plenty of memory available.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I have (sort of) solved the issue. When holding a key down, the events seem to be firing faster than the games can keep up with. The longer a key is held down the more it queues up. So if I hold left for a while, then suddenly switch to right, it seems to have a backlog of left events to get through before it processes the right event.

I went into the system settings and changed the keyboard repeat speed to be a bit lower. Now it seems to send events at a speed the games can keep up with, even if I'm holding down a key.

I'm not sure if this counts as a real solution but it seems to solve the issue for me, and I doubt I'll notice the slightly slower repeat frequency (I think games are only listening for the up/down events so the repeat frequency probably doesn't affect them).

this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
25 points (100.0% liked)

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