6 ms·

Personally for me - the problematic part of gaming on Linux has been input(i.e mouse) latency and acceleration profile. I am not sure if this is just my experi

Personally for me - the problematic part of gaming on Linux has been input(i.e mouse) latency and acceleration profile. I am not sure if this is just my experience but when using libinput on Fedora for example - the cursor movement is not exactly precise. This is not obvious when working but while gaming this is a deal breaker.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
There is a "flat" profile that can be toggled in the Gnome Tweak Tool, assuming you're using Gnome in Fedora.
- sandov 7y ago
  Last time I tried it, flat didn't work correctly when using a touchpad, only when using a mouse. Touchpad flat profile was flat up to a certain velocity, but when you exceeded that it accelerated a lot. Flat profile on a physical mouse worked correctly. Even if I yanked the device, it wouldn't accelerate. This is one of the reasons why I'm sticking to Ubuntu 16.04: "xset m 1 0" disables all acceleration on xinput.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  wow thank you for this comment, for months i've struggled with the annoying acceleration.
- adrianmonk 7y ago
  Seems like in an ideal world, games would select that profile programmatically. Assuming, of course, that there's no reason to prefer mouse acceleration and that we're talking about using the mouse as a linear controller for stuff like aiming or moving.
  - TrueDuality 7y ago
    Ideally yes, but remember that a lot of these games aren't designed for Linux but are effectively running in a compatibility layer for Windows. There is no way for the programmers to know that they need to be interacting with a Linux window manager's behavior.
    - oliwarner 7y ago
      Sounds like something for Feral's gamemode utility.
    - adrianmonk 7y ago
      Good point. I guess the emulator could request the profile, but then you either need a one-size-fits-all approach or somebody has to maintain a database of which games to enable it for.
      - mjevans 7y ago
        A critical distinction is that it's not an emulator. "Compatibility layer" is a great description of what's actually happening. It's a (set of) native library(ies) which provide the ABI and call targets that are expected by the software and wrap around native OS functions to provide those. To use a metaphor, it's like someone made a replacement edge for a puzzle, which interlocks with a subset of existing pieces for another puzzle rather than someone making a table-sandbox within which to use the the entire initial puzzle.
        adrianmonk 7y ago
        Right. I've used the wrong terminology technically because the machine code is running natively. (I'm not aware of a succinct term for what WINE does, though, so I guess I'm being sloppy for convenience.)
Shorel 7y ago
Games in Windows can get raw mouse input just by writing the code for it, and Linux games usually don't because that would require root permissions, to add the user to the input group, etc. It is a security issue and an X-Window design issue.
- danappelxx 7y ago
  Oblivious question: is there any notion of granulated permissions, ie a ‘mouse’ user group that the game could add itself to? Seems like something like this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
  - LukeShu 7y ago
    There is an 'input' user group, which gives you access to raw mouse, keyboard, joystick, et c. under `/dev/input/`. (I'm sure you could configure udev to use more more granular user groups for different types of input devices, if you really wanted). Normal human users of a single-user system should be members of the 'input' group, so this "should" be a non-issue.
    - Crinus 7y ago
      I have added support for reading the input device directly on my 3D game engine exactly so i can provide unfiltered mouse input, but at least on Debian (and i think on derivatives) the user isn't on the 'input' group by default. The engine shows a message if raw input is enabled it cannot open the device handle (something like "cannot open handle check if you have permissions for accessing - maybe you need to be in the input group?") and it falls back to regular X11 events (the feeling of which depend greatly on the current configuration, which input driver is used, etc - on my PC where i use udev and 1:1 mapping it feels fine, but others use libinput, which i think is the default nowadays, and mappings can be all over the place).
- LukeShu 7y ago
  Normal human users will/should almost always be members of the 'input' group.

ilikehurdles 7y ago

There is a "flat" profile that can be toggled in the Gnome Tweak Tool, assuming you're using Gnome in Fedora.

sandov 7y ago
Last time I tried it, flat didn't work correctly when using a touchpad, only when using a mouse. Touchpad flat profile was flat up to a certain velocity, but when you exceeded that it accelerated a lot. Flat profile on a physical mouse worked correctly. Even if I yanked the device, it wouldn't accelerate. This is one of the reasons why I'm sticking to Ubuntu 16.04: "xset m 1 0" disables all acceleration on xinput.
Barrin92 7y ago
wow thank you for this comment, for months i've struggled with the annoying acceleration.
adrianmonk 7y ago
Seems like in an ideal world, games would select that profile programmatically. Assuming, of course, that there's no reason to prefer mouse acceleration and that we're talking about using the mouse as a linear controller for stuff like aiming or moving.
- TrueDuality 7y ago
  Ideally yes, but remember that a lot of these games aren't designed for Linux but are effectively running in a compatibility layer for Windows. There is no way for the programmers to know that they need to be interacting with a Linux window manager's behavior.
  - oliwarner 7y ago
    Sounds like something for Feral's gamemode utility.
  - adrianmonk 7y ago
    Good point. I guess the emulator could request the profile, but then you either need a one-size-fits-all approach or somebody has to maintain a database of which games to enable it for.
    - mjevans 7y ago
      A critical distinction is that it's not an emulator. "Compatibility layer" is a great description of what's actually happening. It's a (set of) native library(ies) which provide the ABI and call targets that are expected by the software and wrap around native OS functions to provide those. To use a metaphor, it's like someone made a replacement edge for a puzzle, which interlocks with a subset of existing pieces for another puzzle rather than someone making a table-sandbox within which to use the the entire initial puzzle.
      - adrianmonk 7y ago
        Right. I've used the wrong terminology technically because the machine code is running natively. (I'm not aware of a succinct term for what WINE does, though, so I guess I'm being sloppy for convenience.)

Shorel 7y ago

Games in Windows can get raw mouse input just by writing the code for it, and Linux games usually don't because that would require root permissions, to add the user to the input group, etc. It is a security issue and an X-Window design issue.

danappelxx 7y ago
Oblivious question: is there any notion of granulated permissions, ie a ‘mouse’ user group that the game could add itself to? Seems like something like this shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
- LukeShu 7y ago
  There is an 'input' user group, which gives you access to raw mouse, keyboard, joystick, et c. under `/dev/input/`. (I'm sure you could configure udev to use more more granular user groups for different types of input devices, if you really wanted). Normal human users of a single-user system should be members of the 'input' group, so this "should" be a non-issue.
  - Crinus 7y ago
    I have added support for reading the input device directly on my 3D game engine exactly so i can provide unfiltered mouse input, but at least on Debian (and i think on derivatives) the user isn't on the 'input' group by default. The engine shows a message if raw input is enabled it cannot open the device handle (something like "cannot open handle check if you have permissions for accessing - maybe you need to be in the input group?") and it falls back to regular X11 events (the feeling of which depend greatly on the current configuration, which input driver is used, etc - on my PC where i use udev and 1:1 mapping it feels fine, but others use libinput, which i think is the default nowadays, and mappings can be all over the place).
LukeShu 7y ago
Normal human users will/should almost always be members of the 'input' group.