[RESOLVED] Tech support request: my game stream is lagging every five minutes
The Issue
I'm streaming games from a desktop PC hardwired into my router (running Sunshine) to a laptop wirelessly (using Moonlight). It works beautifully.
Except, every five minutes, the stream chugs: my framerate drops precipitously, and Moonlight gives me a warning telling me I should lower my bitrate. This happens for only a few seconds, before it resolves and goes back to normal.
I timed the interval between the chugs several times and got approximately 5:07 between each slowdown. It is remarkably consistent.
Because it's so consistent, I assume there's some scheduled task or something running every five minutes that's causing it to chug. Dropping the bitrate makes the chugging less noticeable, but it still happens.
Ruling Things Out
I think it's safe to rule out the idea that it's my router or the host PC.
I have a smaller 13" laptop that I used to stream to, and I just recently bought a 17" to replace it. The five-minute issue only happens on the 17", even with identical stream settings (same resolution, FPS, and bitrate).
The computers are obviously different hardware, but they're also running two different linux distros.
The 13" Laptop is running MX Linux 23.5 (KDE). This is the one that works.
inxi -Fxz
System:
Kernel: 6.1.0-32-amd64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.5 Distro: MX-23.5_KDE_x64 Libretto September 15
2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude 7370 v: N/A
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 0XFY7T v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell
v: 1.28.3 date: 02/07/2022
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 12.6 Wh (62.1%) condition: 20.3/34.0 Wh (59.6%)
volts: 8.1 min: 7.6 model: SMP DELL WY7CG58 status: charging
CPU:
Info: dual core model: Intel Core m5-6Y57 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Skylake rev: 3 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 4 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 2496 high: 2758 min/max: 400/2800 cores: 1: 2400 2: 2758
3: 2400 4: 2429 bogomips: 11999
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 515 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel
arch: Gen-9 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
bus-ID: 1-9:5
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 24.2.8-1mx23ahs renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics
515 (SKL GT2) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-32-amd64 status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 6c:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
bus-ID: 1-2:2
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 2.1
lmp-v: 4.2
RAID:
Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci
v: 3.0 bus-ID: 00:17.0
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 31.99 GiB (13.4%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: KSG60ZMV256G M.2 2280 256GB
size: 238.47 GiB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 232.43 GiB used: 31.47 GiB (13.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
mapped: luks-a8eaaa90-b4ba-4943-8c1d-ddace5892f40
ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 524.1 MiB (53.8%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/sda2
ID-3: /boot/efi size: 252 MiB used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 3 GiB used: 3.8 MiB (0.1%) file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 80.0 C pch: 68.0 C mobo: 48.0 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 251 Uptime: 33m Memory: 7.65 GiB used: 3.56 GiB (46.6%)
Init: SysVinit runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 Packages: 2789 Shell: Bash
v: 5.2.15 inxi: 3.3.26
/etc/crontab
17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily; }
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly; }
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly; }
The 17" Laptop is running Linux Mint 22.1 (Cinnamon). This is the one that has the five minute chugs.
inxi -Fxz
System:
Kernel: 6.8.0-58-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.3.0
Desktop: Cinnamon v: 6.4.8 Distro: Linux Mint 22.1 Xia
base: Ubuntu 24.04 noble
Machine:
Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 7773 v: N/A
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 0R58C3 v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell
v: 1.19.0 date: 12/15/2021
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 34.9 Wh (97.5%) condition: 35.8/56.0 Wh (63.9%)
volts: 16.0 min: 15.2 model: Samsung SDI DELL W7NKD7B status: discharging
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-8550U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Coffee Lake rev: A cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 8 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 658 high: 867 min/max: 400/4000 cores: 1: 400 2: 800
3: 400 4: 400 5: 800 6: 800 7: 867 8: 800 bogomips: 31999
Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel
arch: Gen-9.5 bus-ID: 00:02.0
Device-2: NVIDIA GP108M [GeForce MX150] vendor: Dell driver: nvidia
v: 550.120 arch: Maxwell bus-ID: 01:00.0
Device-3: Realtek Integrated_Webcam_HD driver: uvcvideo type: USB
bus-ID: 1-5:2
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
loaded: modesetting,nvidia unloaded: fbdev,nouveau,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,nvidia,swrast platforms:
active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland,device-2
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: intel mesa
v: 24.2.8-1ubuntu1~24.04.1 glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa
Intel UHD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2)
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3
API: ALSA v: k6.8.0-58-generic status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.5 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Intel Wireless 3165 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB
bus-ID: 1-7:3
Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 4 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 4.2
lmp-v: 8
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 36.5 GiB (15.3%)
ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLB256HBHQ-000H1
size: 238.47 GiB temp: 25.9 C
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 229.63 GiB used: 36.21 GiB (15.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-1
mapped: vgmint-root
ID-2: /boot size: 1.61 GiB used: 291.7 MiB (17.7%) fs: ext4
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
ID-3: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 1.91 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
dev: /dev/dm-2 mapped: vgmint-swap_1
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 30.0 C pch: 32.5 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 16 GiB available: 15.36 GiB used: 1.82 GiB (11.9%)
Processes: 338 Uptime: 2h 38m Init: systemd target: graphical (5)
Packages: 1996 Compilers: gcc: 13.3.0 Shell: Bash v: 5.2.21 inxi: 3.3.34
/etc/crontab
17 * * * * root cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly
25 6 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.daily; }
47 6 * * 7 root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.weekly; }
52 6 1 * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || { cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.monthly; }
Help Request
Anyone have any ideas for tracking down what might be causing this? I was going to just wipe the machine and replace Linux Mint with MX Linux to rule that out, but I figured I'd ask here before doing that, especially because it could be the hardware and not the distro that's causing the issue.
Update:
I said goodbye to Linux Mint (despite really liking Cinnamon!) and hello to another spin of MX Linux (this time I installed the XFCE version instead of the KDE version, just to see what it was like). It's now working great! No stutters at all. I love that we have options with Linux.
I'm changing the title to "resolved" rather than "solved" because I never actually figured out what's causing the issue, but it's also not an issue for me anymore.
Update to the Update:
The five minute issue is back, happening on Fedora this time. It wasn't there initially, but now it's returned. At this point I'm thinking it's just a quirk of the hardware? I've tried a bunch of different things, including some that are network based -- restarting my router, turning off other devices on the network, etc. I have no idea why it's happening.
If I turn the bitrate down, then the frame drops aren't too noticeable when it happens. I also have my previous laptop which still works fine, so if it's massively interfering with my enjoyment in a game I can fall back to using that one instead. (which I had to do recently -- not because of the lag issue, but because a game was giving me motion sickness on the larger laptop and reducing the viewport helps with that)
I'm not looking for a solution or anything, and I appreciate everyone who gave me pointers and helped me out. I just figured people might want to know the outcome, and I also need to publicly apologize for besmirching Linux Mint's good name! Turns out the distro is great, and it's my hardware that's the problem. Sorry Mint! You're wonderful.
That said, I do think I'm going to stick with Fedora for now. I'm loving it. Very simple and very polished (which is what I also liked about Mint). You're also wonderful, Fedora.
Linux in general is beautiful, and using a free operating system to stream a game nearly perfectly across my home is something that makes me feel like I'm living in the future.
Someone asked me about my
dmesgoutput and then maybe deleted their comment? (I'm not seeing it anymore)I ran through three five minute lag cycles and checked
dmesgafter each. Nothing popped up in it.Be curious to hear your experience with MX Linux, as I just switched to Mint on Friday and while I like it, I'm running into little issues here and there that...I wouldn't say they're driving me nuts, but they're if varying levels of annoyance. But I also want to be lazy and not reinstall/reconfigure things.
So, I only ended up staying on MX Linux for like an hour. I got the distro hopping itch! 😂
I installed openSUSE Tumbleweed, found out it didn't work out of the box with my NVIDIA card, so then I installed Fedora Workstation, which I'm very impressed with (I feel like I'm one of the few people out there that loves GNOME). I like that it's primarily based around Flatpaks, as those are "easy" for a Linux noob like me.
I did use MX Linux on my previous streaming computer, and I thought it was great. Perfect for older hardware. It's a little clunkier looking and less smooth than some other distros, but it also has some great QoL stuff built in (for example, I love their USB writer tool -- so simple!). I will say that I liked the KDE spin more than the XFCE one.
I'll also qualify all of this with the idea that I'm like, the least demanding Linux user in the world. My streaming laptop literally needs to do three things and three things only: stream games via Moonlight, let me browse the internet with Firefox, and open my notes app (Standard Notes). That's it. Pretty much ANY distro will meet my needs, so trying out different ones is mostly about look-and-feel for me.
With that said, I think I'm probably going to stay on Fedora rather than keep hopping because it's beautifully smooth.
I ended up becoming frustrated with all my little annoyances this afternoon and just reinstalling my Windows SSD in my laptop.
I really like Linux and I want to daily it, but there's just so many of these little pain points for me that I don't think it's a good fit.
That said, a few weeks ago I did build a "new" gaming computer for my kids with 12 year old parts and installed Mint on it. All the games they want to play work great through proton and since they'll only be doing that and watching Netflix, I think it'll work great for that application.
In case you are not aware: Fedora has also alternative desktops, and one of them is Cinnamon. I used it about two years ago, it was well maintained then and came with a good default setup.
I was not aware! Thanks.
Also wow, they’ve got everything! Even COSMIC. That’s very cool — Fedora is continuing to impress me.
Here's my list:
After a long sleep mode, screen would flicker for 10 minutes or so on resume.
Mouse seems inaccurate. I like to use Trackpoint on my Thinkpad and the mouse just never felt "correct". I know that sounds odd, but I would just have difficulty getting it to exactly where I wanted.
Middle Mouse on Trackpoint doesn't function as middle mouse. This is an issue with all distros and how Linux handles MMB, something I've learned to work around, but don't like.
KDE Connect is finicky. Often it wouldn't sync and let me send anything and more often when trying to scroll down in a thread, it would scroll all the way up and refuse to let me scroll back down. The problem was intermittent and the behavior inconsistent, but very annoying. This is one of the ones that pushed me over the edge. I text a lot from my PC.
Fans do not work correctly. Doing some benchmarking, in many games I saw a 3-8 FPS uplift (RDR2, Cyberpunk, Deus Ex MD and a couple others) in other games, my PC would struggle with games that run absolutely fine in Windows, which I'm attributing to the fans. The fans would stay at pretty much half their max RPM and not push enough air, causing the machine to overheat and throttle. This was reflected in my temps through PSensor, as well as just the general heat on the deck lid. Trying to control my fans through terminal tells me they're locked down and I'm unable to create a custom config for them.
These were my main issues that I'd find myself frustrated with. Mint seems to work fine for the basic stuff I need for a gaming machine I'll be giving to my kids, playing everything they want to play and being relatively seamless; I don't think they'll notice the transition away from Windows. But for me, it's just constant troubleshooting and little issues that drive me up the wall; it's not Mint in particular, it's just Linux in general. I daily drive it periodically and tend to end up going back to Windows because I end up spending more time tinkering and troubleshooting than doing what I want to do with my PC.
Linux is fine, I have at least three machines in my house that I run it on and don't have issues with and I'll be installing it on 3 more come October with Windows no longer supporting old hardware, but for my daily PC, Windows is just less fuss.
Before getting too specific, it's definitely worth using various methods of trying to nail down if it's a cpu/memory hogging kind of issue or not. During the chugging, I'd be curious if a particular process (that isn't the streaming/gaming software) noticeably rises to the top of cpu/ram/etc usage. Might be able to narrow down what exactly is interfering at that interval.
Otherwise, could be something weird with the wireless driver potentially? If it has an Ethernet port and you have a way to hook it up temporarily that way as a test, that could at least rule that out, since it might be more a connection thing than a hogging process.
Is the 17" using a docking station with the lid closed, by chance, or multiple monitors/external monitor setup? Sometimes graphics drivers can get wonky with multiple displays, esp if they run at different refresh rates, etc. No real consistent advice here, other than swapping the setup various ways to see if anything causes the issue to stop happening at that interval. Probably unrelated but worth a mention: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2288357
Also it could be some kernel weirdness that switching to a different kernel version could help. Semi-related to the above, where hardware is involved. Looking up a bunch of Linux Mint "stutters, lag, etc" online seems that a number of people throughout the years have had issues with particular kernel versions causing some problems, either due to bugs, or driver issues, etc
I'm running the laptop normally, no docking station or anything. I also tried out three different kernels: two different 6.8 ones and the most recent 6.11. All had the same problem.
Have you tried running
htopornethogs(Edit2: meantnethogs, notnettop) while the lag spike occurs? That could point to a specific process if something is causing it by itself. Failing that, wireless drivers seem like a potential culprit.Edit: Just realized that Mint is a systemd-based distro. Have you checked the systemd timers on your system? Those aren't necessarily in the crontab file.
systemctl list-timers --allNothing shows up with a five minute interval in
systemctl list-timers --all. I also couldn't find anything fishy usinghtopornethogs.I have no idea if this is relevant, but I had a very similar issue with a MacBook. The culprit turned out to be Location Services: apparently it had a tendency to completely hog the network at regular intervals. Could be something similar here?
Good clue! I used
systemctl mask geoclue.serviceto disable Mint's location services. Unfortunately, it didn't change anything.Pull up the moonlight stats overlay (either from moonlight settings or ctrl + alt + shift +s).
I'd also try using an ethernet cable if you have a spare. It's a quick test that either affirms your assumptions or gives you a hint that the problem is in the wifi path.
Edit: a word
It looks like your 17" has an Nvidia card while your 13" is relying on the Intel integrated GPU to decode the stream. You could try forcing software decoding to see if it's a GPU issue. You could see if changing codecs (h264, h265, av1) makes a difference. You could disable your Nvidia GPU and force your 17" to use the Intel one. Make sure you enable Moonlight's overlay so you know which codec is being used btw.
Good pointers.
I get the five-minute hiccups when on the Intel GPU regardless of the codec.
When I try to run it under the NVIDIA GPU, I get an error message about no compatible codecs for hardware decoding. This is the recommended help page, and I've tried the instructions for both the Flatpak and AppImage (and have run it separately in both). Despite that, I still can't get hardware acceleration going with the NVIDIA GPU.
Software rendering for me was laggy enough by default that I wouldn't be able to tell if it was happening every five minutes, because it was pretty much consistent.
Looking at your stats above, are you sure the 17 is plugged in? I know that powersaving schemes can cause unexpected shifts in performance when on battery. Those are also likely to be different across distros.
The 17 also seems to be under some hefty memory pressure. Things might be hitting swap. Check with a
swapon. If it's more than a few MB something might be going on there.Crazy thought: swap their hard drives, see if issue persists.
It wasn't plugged in when I ran
inxi, but it normally is plugged in when I'm gaming. I can confirm that the issue still happens when plugged in.This doesn't look like it to me from the
inxioutput. Where are you seeing this?You're right, tired brain was transposing the 'available' and 'used'.
Is there a screensaver or monitor trying to be turned off under power settings? Of course the correct thing to do would be for the OS to skip screensaver altogether, but maybe it's doing something partway and then cancelling it causing jank?
Dang, glad to hear that using a different distro solved but, but sorry to hear we never landed on knowing the cause. I'm on a very frankenstein'd version of Kubuntu at the moment (ripped out KDE, installed Cinnamon) and have eventually been considering a move to Linux Mint (I've enjoyed Mint on other machines) but tbh this makes me worry about running into a similar issue. I have completely different hardware, so maybe it's really a rare concern, but if I jump distros and reinstall my OS completely only to have periodic lag I'm going to be so frustrated lol
A relatively quick way to check if it is OS versus hardware would be to boot up a live USB and see if the issue persists. Based purely on my gut, I'm suspicious of the two GPUs and Cinnamon. Wish I had more specific advice!
One step ahead of you! I was actually about to post separately that I tried streaming using the MX Linux live distro on this hardware. It wasn't as performant as it running on metal, but I also didn't run into the consistent five-minute lags. If I can't get it fixed in Mint, I don't mind just wiping the computer and putting MX Linux on it.
Yeah depending on what you use it for, may be easier to replace the OS than fix it, doubly so if you prefer MX. I should've noted a live USB won't be as performant, but yeah, seems you figured out it was mainly a test for that 5min.
Cinnamon, being a GNOME derivative, may be doing something different with your desktop environment that's causing the affliction. I recommend trying out game scope, the compositor Valve built for the Deck.