Quoting: Jeremy

Quoting: GuppyAnd if you play a native game this doesn't happen?

I have found out that it actually does happen with native games as well

First test;

• start a game where the problem manifests


• unplug every USB device, except your keyboard


• Wait ~30s


• test if the problem still occurs

If it doesn't occur, the you need to re-arrange your USB devices on different ports - you have too many on the same HUB on the mother board and it's eating up the bandwidth.

if it *does* still occur you will have to look elsewhere - properly start by testing if your cpu is getting maxed out.
For example; I have had some very strange jerky performance "randomly" occur in games - turns out it is timeshift that starts ~5 minutes after boot and eats cpu cycles. Good thing there is no way to pause that crap once running 🤬

Quoting: Xpandercan you install evtest
then run it in terminal, select your keyboard from the device list it gives and press keys
put the output log here, so we can compare if something weird happens.

Ok, here is the pastebin link: https://pastebin.com/V6LbHMa6

Quoting: GuppyFirst test;

start a game where the problem manifests

unplug every USB device, except your keyboard

Wait ~30s

test if the problem still occurs

I did this test in more than one game and the problem persisted.

Quoting: Guppyif it *does* still occur you will have to look elsewhere - properly start by testing if your cpu is getting maxed out.

i ran Htop and it showed the CPU going up to 102% and regularly staying around 100% with only Steam and Firefox open, when i close Steam the CPU stays at around 0-10%. When running a native non-Steam game with Steam closed the CPU percentage goes up to around 150% and stays at around 120%.

I have a Intel® Core™ i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz × 4 processor, this shouldn't be happening , what may be causing this?

checked your log. i don't see value 2 coming up at all?
value 2 should be when you hold down the button
value 0 is when you press it, value 1 is when you release it

for example my log: https://pastebin.com/EfXqmZBM
i start by holding down W and then i just press it few times at the end

Quoting: Xpanderchecked your log. i don't see value 2 coming up at all?
value 2 should be when you hold down the button
value 0 is when you press it, value 1 is when you release it

for example my log: https://pastebin.com/EfXqmZBM
i start by holding down W and then i just press it few times at the end

That's weird, i definitely held down W and some other keys as well.

I tested evtest again but with Htop running at the same time while only pressing and holding W and it only showed value 0 and 1, but what is weirder is that the CPU was maxed out when i held W as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/wsC8V0M

Last edited by Jeremy on 2 December 2020 at 11:45 pm UTC

This has to be some sort hardware "issue" (incompatibility) if it occurs with multiple distros.
very weird..can you paste all of your dmesg log, maybe we can spot something weird there

Quoting: XpanderThis has to be some sort hardware "issue" (incompatibility) if it occurs with multiple distros.
very weird..can you paste all of your dmesg log, maybe we can spot something weird there

Sure thing! Here you go: https://pastebin.com/dHpRUiHT

Quoting: TheReaperUKTry turning off shader cache in steam settings, shut steam down and reload and see if that helps,

I turned off shader cache in Steam settings and the problem persisted, also the problem occurs even outside Steam so i don't think the issue is anything within Steam.

Quoting: TheReaperUKAlso 150% CPU??, I've never seen my I7 6700 go over 100% and that's rare, are you over-clocking your CPU?

If i am i am not doing it intentionally and don't know how to stop it.

Last edited by Jeremy on 3 December 2020 at 4:52 pm UTC

im not sure if related, but from that log i can see your USB2.0 Camera keeps spawning new input events.

have you tried with all other USB devices removed?

i see few usb related segfaults also there. Also your keyboard seems to spawn 3 input events. Does your keyboard also have some sort of touchpad functionality or something like sdcard reader slots? i cant understand why it spawns 3 input events.

Last edited by Xpander on 3 December 2020 at 5:23 pm UTC

Quoting: Jeremy

Quoting: Xpanderchecked your log. i don't see value 2 coming up at all?
value 2 should be when you hold down the button
value 0 is when you press it, value 1 is when you release it

for example my log: https://pastebin.com/EfXqmZBM
i start by holding down W and then i just press it few times at the end

That's weird, i definitely held down W and some other keys as well.

I tested evtest again but with Htop running at the same time while only pressing and holding W and it only showed value 0 and 1, but what is weirder is that the CPU was maxed out when i held W as shown here: https://imgur.com/a/wsC8V0M

It's just core 4 getting maxed, it's being overworked by 'alacritty' which wierdly seems to be a terminal bragging about offloading to the GPU.
https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty



literally notting else in your system is eating cpu cycles.

So that is out.

Going through you log reveals a stunning number of usb devices - you seem to even have your phone hooked up to your computer 😲

did you really do the test of disconnecting *all* USB devices except your keyboard?

if you did, my last ditch test would be to replace the keyboard with a different one and repeat that test.

After that all I can think of is testing a live image of your distro to see if an vanilla* version has the same issues

*) as in unburdened by the packages and drivers you may have installed

the letter before the cpu% in top is the program state R=running, S=Sleeping .

Your load averages are also very low so I suspect most of that "load" htop is showing is IO wait, which is anoying doesn't show, unlike regular top;

Quoting: Xpanderim not sure if related, but from that log i can see your USB2.0 Camera keeps spawning new input events.

Quoting: GuppyGoing through you log reveals a stunning number of usb devices - you seem to even have your phone hooked up to your computer 😲

Weird, i am pretty sure those things where not connected when i ran the test, but maybe i just had to reboot so i ran dmesg again after rebooting:
https://pastebin.com/cw8SRVVd

Quoting: XpanderDoes your keyboard also have some sort of touchpad functionality or something like sdcard reader slots? i cant understand why it spawns 3 input events.

I also don't understand, it is a simple chinese RGB semi-mechanical keyboard, doesn't do anything other than normal keyboard stuff (and the RGB isn't programmable, it's just colourful LEDs). The name is "Leadership Gamer" i guess, i just bought it because it was cheap .

Quoting: GuppyIt's just core 4 getting maxed, it's being overworked by 'alacritty' which wierdly seems to be a terminal bragging about offloading to the GPU.

Woah, i admit that i just downloaded because i thought it was prettier .

So now that i uninstalled alacritty when i put top and evtest at the same time the CPU isn't overclocked as shown here:
https://imgur.com/a/A9bCOFd

When i run Steam it still shows around 100% CPU. Not from steam, but from fossilize_repla:
https://imgur.com/a/AO2hfAq
That is pretty strange, but when i look it up it appears that it is part of Vulkan.
Also when booting up Steam Xorg flashed at 200% CPU:
https://imgur.com/a/Ub9Nzwy

When i run a simple Unity game like RE:RUN the CPU again went over board reaching around 116%: https://imgur.com/a/yfFhYyX

Quoting: Guppydid you really do the test of disconnecting *all* USB devices except your keyboard?

if you did, my last ditch test would be to replace the keyboard with a different one and repeat that test.

I did, luckily i got hold of my father's old even cheaper keyboard and now the in-game movement is fine, and when i run evtest it shows the correct value when holding down keys:
https://pastebin.com/UBv1p2AJ
I also ran dmesg again in case it is helpful:
https://pastebin.com/CEk0NBdh

I guess this solves the problem, but the CPU thing still bothers me and i still have to give this keyboard back to my father eventually...

Anyways we are closer to solving this, and i want to thank everyone that helped along the way!

Last edited by Jeremy on 3 December 2020 at 10:08 pm UTC