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Linux gaming optimization kit 'GameMode' has a new release up

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Need an easy way to run a bunch of system enhancements? GameMode, originally made by developers at porting studio Feral Interactive has a new release out.

While all of the tweaks can be done by themselves, the point is to have an easy place for anyone and everyone to kick their Linux system into the highest performance possible. A great idea and it's getting quite featured-filled too.

The highlights of GameMode 1.6 include:

  • Created a new manpages for gamemoderun and the example, now called gamemode-simulate-game
  • Add ability to change lib directory of gamemoderun
  • Add option to use elogind
  • Copy default config file to the correct location
  • Allow LD_PRELOAD to be overridden in $GAMEMODERUNEXEC
  • Various minor bugfixes
  • Improvements to dependency management

It's worth noting, that most of the work going into GameMode now appears to be from outside contributors, not Feral Interactive directly although they still maintain control over it and do the releases.

Games can actually integrate support for it directly, so that it all becomes automatic if you have GameMode installed. A bunch of Feral Interactive's own Linux ports have it like DiRT 4, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and multiple more recent Total War titles.

What can you actually do with GameMode? Some of the features currently include adjusting:

  • CPU governor
  • I/O priority
  • Process niceness
  • Kernel scheduler (SCHED_ISO)
  • Screensaver inhibiting
  • GPU performance mode (NVIDIA and AMD), GPU overclocking (NVIDIA)
  • Custom scripts

See GameMode on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source
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19 comments
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DebianUser Sep 14, 2020
I'm wondering why there is not AMD overclocking, since its easyling tweakable from /sys/class/drm/ ?
Eike Sep 14, 2020
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Quoting: DebianUserI'm wondering why there is not AMD overclocking, since its easyling tweakable from /sys/class/drm/ ?

Overclocking should be up to the user.
tuubi Sep 14, 2020
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Quoting: Eike
Quoting: DebianUserI'm wondering why there is not AMD overclocking, since its easyling tweakable from /sys/class/drm/ ?

Overclocking should be up to the user.
It should be. But in /etc/gamemode.ini you'll find these lines:

; Setting this to the keyphrase "accept-responsibility" will allow gamemode to apply GPU optimisations such as overclocks
;apply_gpu_optimisations=0


No idea what it actually does, if anything at all.
DebianUser Sep 14, 2020
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: DebianUserI'm wondering why there is not AMD overclocking, since its easyling tweakable from /sys/class/drm/ ?

Overclocking should be up to the user.

Yes, but the software can provide overclocking options, the user may activate it or not ;).
DebianUser Sep 14, 2020
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: DebianUserI'm wondering why there is not AMD overclocking, since its easyling tweakable from /sys/class/drm/ ?

Overclocking should be up to the user.
It should be. But in /etc/gamemode.ini you'll find these lines:

; Setting this to the keyphrase "accept-responsibility" will allow gamemode to apply GPU optimisations such as overclocks
;apply_gpu_optimisations=0


No idea what it actually does, if anything at all.

It seems that when you activate GPU optimisations, like overcloaking, the soft warn the user.
A flag is stored in config file to not warn again and again.
I think that since overcloaking is juste for NVIDIA, you will see this message only if you have a NVIDIA card ?
tuubi Sep 14, 2020
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Quoting: DebianUserIt seems that when you activate GPU optimisations, like overcloaking, the soft warn the user.
A flag is stored in config file to not warn again and again.
I think that since overcloaking is juste for NVIDIA, you will see this message only if you have a NVIDIA card ?
What do you mean overclocking is just for Nvidia? I haven't overclocked an AMD GPU myself, but I did undervolt my old RX580 on Linux to deal with the crappy MSI card's overheating problem, and the same tools would have allowed overclocking as well.

Also, the comment above that setting pretty explicitly states that it'll be gamemode applying the overclocks, doesn't it? Maybe they haven't actually implemented overclocking, but I don't think the setting is supposed to be about notifications.
DebianUser Sep 14, 2020
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: DebianUserIt seems that when you activate GPU optimisations, like overcloaking, the soft warn the user.
A flag is stored in config file to not warn again and again.
I think that since overcloaking is juste for NVIDIA, you will see this message only if you have a NVIDIA card ?
What do you mean overclocking is just for Nvidia? I haven't overclocked an AMD GPU myself, but I did undervolt my old RX580 on Linux to deal with the crappy MSI card's overheating problem, and the same tools would have allowed overclocking as well.

Also, the comment above that setting pretty explicitly states that it'll be gamemode applying the overclocks, doesn't it? Maybe they haven't actually implemented overclocking, but I don't think the setting is supposed to be about notifications.

I'm mean that is stated in the article.
Obviously you can overclock AMD cards if you want to.
From the article, it's seems that overclocking via GameMode is only for NVIDIA cards:

"GPU performance mode (NVIDIA and AMD), GPU overclocking (NVIDIA)"

The comment above just say there is a guardrail in gamemode if you want to overclock (you have to set the option manually in the ini file), and the article says overclock is just for NVIDIA :)

If we go deeper, maybe the article is wrong ?

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GameMode-GPU-Overclock

Here, we can see overclock is for NVIDIA *and* AMDGPU... seems pretty logical because it is trivial to overclock via /sys like i was saying before.

The option in the ini does not prove anything, but this (merged) PR does: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode/pull/101 ;)

So we can wonder why Liam Dawe has witten "GPU overclocking (NVIDIA)" ? :s


Last edited by DebianUser on 14 September 2020 at 3:54 pm UTC
tuubi Sep 14, 2020
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Quoting: DebianUserSo we can wonder why Liam Dawe has witten "GPU overclocking (NVIDIA)" ? :s
Seems like a direct quote from the GitHub page. Maybe their Readme isn't up to date.
RedBatman Sep 14, 2020
Does anyone know how to update from 1.5.1 to 1.6 in terminal?
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