KDE Plasma | Wayland + Nvidia | Low fps, Stutters

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1

Hello everyone!

While searching for a solution to the stuttering and low FPS issues I’ve been having with KDE Plasma on Wayland with Nvidia GPU, I came across an interesting comment. The person mentioned that running OBS somehow makes the stutters disappear. To my surprise, this actually worked!

When I maximize Firefox without OBS, I see stutters, but when OBS is opened, the experience becomes much smoother. There are still occasional stutters here and there, but overall, the performance is much more stable.

Has anyone else experienced this, or can explain why OBS might have this effect?

Thanks in advance!

OS: Arch Linux
Kernel: 6.12.3-arch1-1
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER
Display: 2560x1440 @ 170Hz
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
KDE Plasma: 6.2.4

2

Have you disabled GSP Firmware?

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4

Yes, I’ve tried many fixes, but nothing seems to work. Constant drops make the session annoying.

5

Hi - a different spin on that question, perhaps…if you close Firefox, do you still notice stuttering? I’ve noticed fairly consistently that everything on my system is just a little bit janky when Firefox is running, for some reason.

That issue in particular hasn’t been an enormous deal for me with my system, but for folks who are tracking FPS carefully, it might stick out more?

It might also be worth double-checking if the Linux 6.12 kernel on Arch is involved somehow - improved performance via some sort of screen-sharing or recording made me think of this thread, which eventually narrowed down to something in that kernel version: Skipping frames with external monitor plugged in - #26 by willard

Hope that helps,

6

There should be some kind of memo for people to use AMD GPUs (even onboard Intel graphics) if they want a good Wayland experience.

7

Nvidia here, Wayland runs fine with GSP firmware disabled.

11

Yeah, closing Firefox helps a lot, but it’s still far from perfect. I have tried the LTS kernel, but nothing changed. I also tried using KDE on Arch, Nobara, and Fedora, and they all stutter.

12

Hmm, just checking then, have you tried switching refresh rates, or toggling Adaptive sync / VRR to a different setting to see if the issue continues?

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Yes, I tried every possible option with VRR and didn’t notice any changes. Disabling GSP also did nothing. I tried both open and closed drivers, but there were no changes.

However, when I tried KDE Neon with Nouveau drivers installed, the desktop was surprisingly very smooth.

For now, I switched to GNOME, and it works quite smoothly. However, there are still occasional stutters, though they’re rare. I’m not sure if the problem lies with KDE Plasma itself or if it’s related to the NVIDIA drivers and Wayland.