Gaming on brand new installation suffering from input stutter (X11) or horrible performance (Wayland)

[LordHDL]

When I press the side buttons of my mouse at the same time as keyboard input, it causes the graphics rendering to stall. It's not just while gaming, it happens no matter what app is running (easy to see with browser scrolling). If I continue pressing them, the screen visually locks up completely until I stop. My mouse is a Razer Naga Trinity, and the keyboard is a Preonic V3. The issue happens regardless of openrazer installation, usb port, or polling rate. This is on X11.

It doesn't happen with Wayland, however Wayland is not giving me proper gaming performance. Games are running at 8-12 fps. All system files and drivers are up-to-date. What is going on here and how can I fix it?

[teamcons]

Hi
Are you using an nvidia card?
Have you tried switching up kernels? (going to a different one in the repos)

[LordHDL]

Yes, I have a 3070 Ti, and have tried both proprietary and open drivers.

I'm new to Linux and don't know what it means to switch a kernel or how to do it. What would that do?

[teamcons]

Yes, I have a 3070 Ti, and have tried both proprietary and open drivers.

I'm new to Linux and don't know what it means to switch a kernel or how to do it. What would that do?

elementary OS is built atop Ubuntu. eOS 8 on the latest Long Term Support one (24.04), eOS 7 on the previous LTS

Im not super sure what the eos team add up for the elementary kernel, but theres a couple ubuntu ones accessible via apt (the HWE "Hardware Enablement Stack" for example)

Hardware detection and handling can be hit or miss, and very weirdly sometimes two linux distributions have different results despite similar kernel.
So my reflex is usually "ok lets try to emulate that by jumping Kernel". I rarely have hardware issues, but ive automagically solved some that way

You can install linux kernels using "Apt", looking at ubuntu 24.04 tutorials
Grub, some black menu at computer start, that can be forced to show up, happily display the kernels installed, and let you choose which one to start your computer with

For anything graphic i cannot answer, nvidia is a pita on linux apparently, and i dont have a nvidia card. But you can file your issues on the Gala repository here, and the devs will check it out and give you instructions to troubleshoot for bugs

[LordHDL]

I followed your suggestions and opened the issues on the Gala repository.

I also tried booting using the previous kernel version in grub. It did not get me to the login screen, but rather a black screen with a flashing line.

Regarding the Wayland performance, this seems to be the problem as far as I can tell:

glxinfo -B
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
Vendor: Mesa (0xffffffff)
Device: llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 256 bits) (0xffffffff)
Version: 25.0.7
Accelerated: no
Video memory: 48072MB
Unified memory: yes
Preferred profile: core (0x1)
Max core profile version: 4.5
Max compat profile version: 4.5
Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
Memory info (GL_ATI_meminfo):
VBO free memory - total: 31 MB, largest block: 31 MB
VBO free aux. memory - total: 45058 MB, largest block: 45058 MB
Texture free memory - total: 31 MB, largest block: 31 MB
Texture free aux. memory - total: 45058 MB, largest block: 45058 MB
Renderbuffer free memory - total: 31 MB, largest block: 31 MB
Renderbuffer free aux. memory - total: 45058 MB, largest block: 45058 MB
Memory info (GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info):
Dedicated video memory: 4293457687 MB
Total available memory: 4293505760 MB
Currently available dedicated video memory: 31 MB
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa
OpenGL renderer string: llvmpipe (LLVM 20.1.2, 256 bits)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL context flags: (none)
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 25.0.7-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

It is using Mesa/llvmpipe instead of my GPU. Furthermore, opening the Nvidia settings window shows significantly fewer options than it does using X11. But the GPU is being detected, just not used:

nvidia-smi
Thu Oct 30 16:12:16 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.95.05 Driver Version: 580.95.05 CUDA Version: 13.0 |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Off | 00000000:09:00.0 On | N/A |
| 0% 40C P5 43W / 290W | 311MiB / 8192MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 6378 G /usr/bin/gnome-shell 89MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 7720 G /app/lib/librewolf/librewolf 177MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

So yeah, if I can get it to actually use the GPU, then at least the Wayland problem should be solved. So far I haven't had any luck figuring it out.

[teamcons]

id check around kernel parameters/boot options. Ive seen a couple fixes with faulty GPUs around that.

[LordHDL]

I don't know how to do that. I've tried a few proposed answers I've found scouring various websites and forums, but none of them have worked. And then one of them completely broke my system. Had I not just made a Timeshift snapshot just beforehand I likely would've just reinstalled the whole OS (and then continue to tear my hair out).