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CS:GO has become unplayable for me due to stuttering since a week or two ago
scr0llbaer Nov 16, 2022
Hi all,

I have been playing CS:GO just fine for over a year, but suddenly it has become unplayable for me, due to stuttering since a week or two ago. I can play fine for 2-3 single rounds (i.e. maybe 5 minutes) and then sudden stutters, lags and freezes appear, often complete freezes for more than 1 second.

It doesn't seem to be related to these issues:

- https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/3044
- https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/2887

Although I have the problems mentioned in those issues too, it seems to be a new problem, as it happens with or without Vulkan.

I have already tried all kinds of hints, tricks, startup parameters and settings on and off you find floating around on the internet.

I deleted various shader caches and freed up enough hard disk space.

I already run Steam "beta experience" and use "Proton experimental".
I'm running on Arch Linux, makes no difference if I use GNOME or Xfce desktop manager.

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics
Memory 32268MB
Machine Type Notebook
Resolution 3840x1600 pixels
OpenGL Renderer NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060/PCIe/SSE2
Session Display Server The X.Org Foundation 21.1.4
Kernel Linux 6.0.8-zen1-1-zen (x86_64)
Version #1 ZEN SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu, 10 Nov 2022 21:14:22 +0000
C Library GNU C Library / (GNU libc) 2.36
Distribution Arch Linux

I haven't found anyone else on the internet reporting this yet, so maybe anyone here with a similar configuration wants to give CS:GO a try again? Maybe someone more experienced with such issues than me can give some help or hints into some direction, thanks!
dvd Nov 17, 2022
Might be something to do with arch, i recently updated to the same kernel version (and have the same libc) on debian, and haven't noticed any stutters in the 2-3 long matches i played since. Only difference i can see in your post is that i'm running wayland although i don't think that should make that big of a difference.
scr0llbaer Nov 17, 2022
Ok reverting to Linux-LTS seems to "fix" this.

Latest kernel versions seem to be the culprit, curious if I'm the only one affected by this.
scr0llbaer Nov 17, 2022
I have to take that back, LTS did not "fix" this.

Apparently it's just that randomly and rarely when booting up the game, the mentioned problem doesn't appear, and the game works like it used to for a few hours.

I've also found that in NVIDIA Settings, setting the "PowerMizer" "Preferred Mode" to "Prefer Maximum Performance" mitigates the issue, making it *almost* playable, but doesn't completely remove the problems, there are still occasional stutters, but fewer of them. So the cause is yet something else.
dvd Nov 17, 2022
Might be Nvidia, i have an amd card.
scr0llbaer Nov 21, 2022
thanks for the hint.

instead of reverting to older drivers i installed the newer nvidia-beta-dkms and related drivers and modules from the AUR, i.e. currently 4.6.0 NVIDIA 525.53

to get steam working again i had to do a steam-runtime --reset — i had forgotten about this.

and lo and behold, it's working again! *most* of the time at least, in one session the problems came back, but that is what's the rare case now as it seems, most of the time it's working again.

*maybe* the steam reset alone would have sufficed though, who knows, i won't bother to reinstall the other drivers again for now.
scr0llbaer Jan 10, 2023
to report back on this, i eventually went back to using the normal current (not beta) nvidia drivers, the issue seemed to have been resolved, and everything worked beautifully and smooth for a few weeks, especially under vulkan.

a short intermezzo was this weird bug, which had a similar effect, but not the same. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/csgo-osx-linux/issues/3105

now i'm back at having this problem again, probably because of some recent updates. if it's the graphics driver or some standard linux library related thing like in the linked recent bug i don't know. but it's frustrating that such regressions happen over and over again.
Liam Dawe Jan 10, 2023
Moved to the correct forum.
Nanobang Jan 11, 2023
I've had a stutter/freeze problem playing Saint's Row 3 (SR3) recently, so I thought I'd jump in and offer whatever help I'm able. We both have AMD CPUs with NVIDA GPUs, though I'm not on a rolling release. I'm on Xubuntu 22.04.x. But here's a few things to consider trying maybe?

One of the first things helpful people suggested was to start steam from cli, run the game, play only until it stutters and then stop it, stop steam and read the results, looking for errors. Look at your logs too, if you haven't already, for hints about what's going on.

Have you seen problems with any other games? In particular, other Source engine games? My SR3 problem is just with SR3, SR4 runs fine.

Although I could run SR3 at 1920p x 1080p, it seems to be more stable at the next lower 16:9 resolution, so I wonder if reducing your GPU's load---if only for testing purposes---by reducing some or all Counterstrike's graphic settings might improve things?

You might also consider editing this thread's title to reflect that this is on Arch, as there are some very competent Arch users on GoL who might be willing to help a fellow "Archie" if they knew. Maybe a title something like "Latest Arch update broke CSGO."

good luck!
scr0llbaer Oct 18, 2023
The issue was my HDMI cable, which was baffling for me because it behaved more like a driver problem.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=287313
Grogan Oct 18, 2023
Quoting: scr0llbaerThe issue was my HDMI cable, which was baffling for me because it behaved more like a driver problem

It's almost NEVER a cable (whatever the device is)... and that's why a subtly faulty cable has you chasing your tail for days :-)

I once had a SATA cable that first had me thinking it was bad sectors, but the faults were happening on my Manjaroo system (more gyrations, more polling etc.) and not hitting it on my LFS system. Same kernels (I build my own). When I finally got around to trying a new cable... there it was. I had forgotten that I nicked the plastic insulation just a little, and wrapped black tape around the nick. That cable was fine for like 8 years! Even when it started to show fault, it was subtle, more likely to have the crosstalk when things were hot and also more likely when there was more i/o.

Good that you found it.
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