Linus Torvalds has announced the release of Linux Kernel 5.16, bringing with it the usual assortment of new hardware support and improvements everywhere. Plus, there's something big for Linux gaming fans.
The one many have no doubt been waiting for is the inclusion of Collabora's work on FUTEX2 with futex_waitv(). This is supposed to help Linux gaming with Proton / Wine and also Native Linux gaming too. As Collabora developer André Almeida previously described it: "The use case of this syscall is to allow low level locking libraries to wait for multiple locks at the same time. This is specially useful for emulating Windows' WaitForMultipleObjects. A futex_waitv()-based solution has been used for some time at Proton's Wine (a compatibility layer to run Windows games on Linux). Compared to a solution that uses eventfd(), futex was able to reduce CPU utilization for games, and even increase frames per second for some games. This happens because eventfd doesn't scale very well for a huge number of read, write and poll calls compared to futex. Native game engines will benefit of this as well, given that this wait pattern is common for games.".
So with this Kernel version, plus a version of Proton / Wine and any Native games / game engines that support it, you might be able to see better performance.
Masses of other changes as well of course, although plenty of it most normal consumers won't be too excited about just yet. However a few noteworthy interesting bits for desktop / laptop users and gamers (more on KernelNewbies) like:
- The addition of DisplayPort 2.0 for AMD GPU
- Initial USB4 DP tunnelling support for AMD GPU
- More work towards supporting Intel Xe discrete GPUs
- Improvements for the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller
- Better support of HP Omen laptops
- A small fix for the Steam Deck screen
- Nintendo Joy-Con and Pro Controller support
- Hardware monitoring support for many more ASUS motherboards
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Very exciting, looking forward to try futex2 in a couple of games.
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according wine devs fsync dont be approved for now
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50281
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 10 January 2022 at 12:09 pm UTC
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50281
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 10 January 2022 at 12:09 pm UTC
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Very exciting, looking forward to try futex2 in a couple of games.How does one try it out? Does it need to be enabled in some way?
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according wine devs for now fsync dont be approvedDoesn't stop any of the various Wine builds like Wine-GE, Staging, Tkg and so on using it.
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50281
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according wine devs for now fsync dont be approved
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50281
Wine devs were always reluctant on adding Linux specific code. Take Gallium Nine for example. But who cares about vanilla Wine nowadays anyway when we there is Proton and even Proton GE?
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Doesn't stop any of the various Wine builds like Wine-GE, Staging, Tkg and so on using it.
yeah but unsupported is unsupported
......however still life like a hack
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 10 January 2022 at 12:14 pm UTC
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Very exciting, looking forward to try futex2 in a couple of games.How does one try it out? Does it need to be enabled in some way?
I can only speak for Lutris right now, but they have a simple checkbox for enabling Fsync in the runner options.
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Wine devs were always reluctant on adding Linux specific code.
Take Gallium Nine for example.
But who cares about vanilla Wine nowadays anyway when we there is Proton and even Proton GE?
similar situation with dxvk because dxvk use c++ and wine use only plain c and other things according wine devs
actually most people use dxvk because wined3d performance on dx9 is very poor
without talk wined3d in dx11 is only a:
Last edited by mrdeathjr on 10 January 2022 at 12:34 pm UTC
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Does users need to do something to enable Futex2 benefits, besides installing Kernel >=5.16 and the latest version of proton?
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fsync(futex) and futex2 has been usable quite some time thanks to TkG kernel (and ofc tkg wine/proton, GE and official proton builds have supported it quite some time), but nice to finally see it land on the vanilla kernel. Though most of the games already benefited from esync, but there were few that didn't work well with esync, but performed amazingly with fsync.
Official proton builds from 6.3-8 have that enabled by default if you have kernel that supports it
Last edited by Xpander on 10 January 2022 at 2:01 pm UTC
Does users need to do something to enable Futex2 benefits, besides installing Kernel >=5.16 and the latest version of proton?
Official proton builds from 6.3-8 have that enabled by default if you have kernel that supports it
Last edited by Xpander on 10 January 2022 at 2:01 pm UTC
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Nintendo Joy-Con and Pro Controller supportBought a Pro Controller a month ago and was really surprised that it isn't supported yet.
There were a few custom drivers around, but not one of them got the controller working for me. Just weird behavior with the controller turning itself on and off constantly when connected via Bluetooth (and nothing at all via USB).
Hopefully, once this kernel is "safe" for Manjaro, this will no longer be a problem.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 10 January 2022 at 2:15 pm UTC
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Odd, because I've used my Pro controller a couple of times via bluetooth in the past without those issues. Played for a couple of hours with friends without disconnects. Worked with both Steam and in Retroarch. I assumed it was already supported in the kernel or, well, that SDL2 handled it.Nintendo Joy-Con and Pro Controller supportBought a Pro Controller a month ago and was really surprised that it isn't supported yet.
There were a few custom drivers around, but not one of them got the controller working for me. Just weird behavior with the controller turning itself on and off constantly when connected via Bluetooth (and nothing at all via USB).
Hopefully, once this kernel is "safe" for Manjaro, this will no longer be a problem.
I doubt that Manjaro does anything radically too different than Arch (though given their devs' track record...
) but maybe you're missing udev rules somehow? The steam package ought to have created /lib/udev/rules.d/70-steam-input.rules and that should have a couple of entries for the pro controller.
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Does users need to do something to enable Futex2 benefits, besides installing Kernel >=5.16 and the latest version of proton?You have manjaro. You alredy have it on your computer :-)
here is for example 5.15 on gitlab with patches which they apply. 0103-futex.patch file its there :-)
https://gitlab.manjaro.org/packages/core/linux515
I searched for it when i runned steam under terminal and it displayed game/proton using it :-)
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according wine devs for now fsync dont be approvedDoesn't stop any of the various Wine builds like Wine-GE, Staging, Tkg and so on using it.
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50281
Staging won't implement it either. TkG and Proton & GE very likely will.
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The steam package ought to have created /lib/udev/rules.d/70-steam-input.rules and that should have a couple of entries for the pro controller.It does, and the entries there even fit the controller from what I could see from the lsusb, etc. It also recognizes the controller - but the controller either doesn't work at all or constantly reconnects.
That was on my 5+ years old laptop, though, might just be something incompatible in there.
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Philadelphus Jan 10, 2022
A small fix for the Steam Deck screenNot even out yet, and already getting fixes in the Linux kernel!
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alejandro-bringas Jan 10, 2022
little by little, GNU / Linux is gaining strength for gaming, waiting for TKG to upload it to its repository.
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I don't think you can take that for granted with the way Manjaro handles kernel installations. That, and not everyone runs updates daily.Does users need to do something to enable Futex2 benefits, besides installing Kernel >=5.16 and the latest version of proton?You have manjaro. You alredy have it on your computer :-)
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