Loss of performance after updating to 7

Issues & Assistance
1

New to Linux and CachyOS:

Cachy has been a total pleasure up until recently. It ran my game like butter. Since updating to version seven however, there is a significant performance drop.

As a new user, I’d like some input/direction as to how to approach troubleshooting this. Where do i even begin lol. I could try rolling the kernel back as has been suggested online. I’d just like to understand what changed! also, is there a way to navigate to very old snapshots on limine? (beyond the selection menu at boot)

*forgive my ignorance, just trying to learn how to help myself better here.

2

Hello and welcome,

There is no “Cachy version 7”.

Not least of which because we are rolling-release distro.

But there was linux kernel 7.0 released, or rather moved from ‘mainline’ into ‘stable’, somewhat recently. With 7.1-rc5 being the new current ‘mainline’.

If you want to continue using an older kernel you can install one of the LTS ones - the most recent of which correlates to 6.18.X.

ex;

sudo pacman -Syu linux-cachyos-lts
3

Apologies for ignorance of vernacular. yes, the Kernel release is what i was refrencing. The LTS version has the same dropped performance in game.

edit: in doing a sudo -Syu, there were a couple times i saw warnings, but proceeded anyway (will not be repeating that behavoir) could that have led to this change?

Second Edit: I’d like to try and repair, but if a fresh OS install could clean up any mistakes, i’ll happily settle for that

4

no new install ,
learn for chroot from usb and repair

5

No worries. But if other/older kernels exhibit the same behavior then it is not the kernel .. or at least not the kernel version per-se.

Unclear without knowing what they were?

Though if there was a problem with the upgrade it would normally cancelt the whole transaction.

You might go rummaging in /var/log/pacman.log to see what had happened.

Probably not necessary.

If there is nothing in the logs maybe we can also see about a current attempted sync/refresh/upgrade?

sudo pacman -Syu

And I have not had time to go over the bugreport yet.

6

Ah, this is useful, i’ll do some digging.

Having some more experienced eye’s on the bugreport is one of the goals to be sure, take ur time- any help is appreciated :))

7

I do note you have missing/pending BIOS updates.
Maybe less likely to be related here but probably something to be done regardless.
Maybe after we have finished the current query.

I notice here you have seemingly set the CPU and PPD to ‘powersave’ - is this intentional?
It might be set in the power widget slider.

8

In the Pacman log, there were the following msg’s:

[2026-05-28T12:19:47-0700] [ALPM] warning: directory permissions differ on /boot/, filesystem: 700 package: 755

and then a number of ones similar to these below:

[2026-05-20T12:42:40-0700] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-libgpg-error (1.60-1 → 1.61-1)

[2026-05-20T12:42:27-0700] [ALPM] upgraded libgpg-error (1.60-1.1 → 1.61-1.1)

9

OH! well that cpu powerstate could be something. one moment while i attempt to change that

10

As long as nothing is wrong, especially with your boot up, your current permissions are more secure than what the package is offering by default.

These ones are packages with the literal name of libgpg-error, etc.

11

Well, Powerprofile set to Performance, it does seem there is more cpu ulilization, but there is stil a performance drop…

edit: No changes to installed addons, graphics settings, hardware etc. Just an -Syu which resulted in about 15 fps loss and occasional stuttering. Wondering if this isnt somethign to do with steam…

12

If you have snapshots you could maybe test the theory of it being steam/game rather than cachy/packages.

I suppose you could maybe do the same by downgrading all upgraded packages but thats not exactly pitfall-free and might be a little involved.

13

Ok, I rolled back the kernel, to the lts- making sure the powerprofile was set correctly this time, and the performace is largely improved…

So many times since switching to Linux, I find the solutions are simpler than it would seem…

Thanks for your time :slight_smile: