I am new to CachyOS and gaming centric Linux distributions in general and am wondering what I should focus on to really get the most out of my system in terms of software tweaks that may improve utilisation of my hardware (if any):
CPU: AMD 5700X (Zen3)
GPU: Nvidia 4070TI
RAM: 32GB
Storage: NVME (Game Data) and SATA3 (OS)
Generally, I have had a decent experience out of the box and dont have any major complaints, but I wonder what I can do to get those few extra frames in my games and/or push to get an even better desktop experience. I have read through the Wiki on multiple options to achieve this but I wonder what the community thinks and if my setup is worthwhile being messed with to eek out any potential gains.
Is there a consensus on any ‘sure wins’ in terms of additional config or is it mostly hit-and-miss?
Just about everything is going to be some kind of trade-off or variable dependent on hardware and use-case and so on.
On the extreme end for example you could max out your clocks to get theoretically or even measurably higher performance - but also hit instability, thermal problems, or just fry the component permanently.
If the community does want to take a swing at some general thoughts then a more comprehensive system overview is included with;
sudo cachyos-bugreport.sh
(share the link here)
Of course for all things the Arch Wiki is a great resource.
Though do keep in mind that a good amount of tweaks are already applied by Cachy and may overlap or conflict with any number of other advisements.
Besides using good drivers, setting whatever basic optimizations in the DE, and using a separate compositor (Gamescope) and other game launch options, I don’t think there’s much more that can be done. Cachy configures many small things already.
As has been said above, most of what can be done has been done already by default.
But one thing that often either fixes small issues or slightly improves performance is using Wayland to run non-native games using the environment variable:
PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
But, as has also been mentioned above, it comes with trade offs due to it still being labeled as experimental. Like not playing well with the Steam Overlay. That’s something I never use so it doesn’t bother me, but it may be of more import to you.
More information on it can be found in the link I posted above.
I know you only asked about software, but since I do not know what you have done on the hardware side of things, I would personally do the following (apologies if you already have):
Update BIOS to latest version.
Enable advertised memory profile for your RAM (DOCP).
Enable Resizable BAR (ReBAR) if possible.
Undervolting your CPU if you are comfortable doing that. Lower power draw, cooler temps, longer sustained maximum clock speeds.
I wouldnt have thought to check these. Thanks for pointing them out. BIOS is updated, but I havent explored ReBAR, DOCP or even considered undervolting. I do have a decent closed loop cooler for my CPU so I’m hoping undervolting is not neccessary but I’ll look into it.
For transparency, I have a B550M Aorus PRO motherboard. I believe thats good enough to do ReBAR. Thanks again.
I use a big AIO cooler for my AMD CPU as well, but I have always found a little extra performance by undervolting them. It is not always the same negative offset they are capable of, so you would have to test which ones are stable for you. At least it is safe and will probably prolong the life of your CPU instead, compared to overclocking it. It is an option to you, but no pressure at all.