Gaming performance. split_lock_mitigate.
I don't know if this i common knowledge and I'm the only one who missed it. But this setting made a huge difference in performance for me a least, so I have to share it in case it helps anyone else. If it is already covered in some other post you can just delete this.
Some Windows games (when running on Linux via Proton) trigger a special CPU operation called a “split lock.”
By default, the Linux kernel slows the game down by ~10 ms every time this happens — it’s a security feature to stop potential attacks.
Setting it to 0 turns that artificial slowdown off. On a local computer in your home network you might as well turn it off.
I saw this setting mentioned for running the old "The Division 2" game on linux which I was trying to get to run better.
The difference in framerate was huge. And then I started "Cyberpunk 2077" just to see if it made any difference there. Didn't expect much but OMG. It had defaulted to Raytracing ON and just about everything on High or Ultra which I couldn't do before this.
I have an MSI GeForce RTX 5070 running on Linux Mint by the way.
I tested it by just disabling it like this.
>sudo sysctl -w kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0
This is temporary until you turn it On again or reboot.
So I made it permanent like this.
>echo "kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0" | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/50-split-lock.conf
>sudo sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.d/50-split-lock.conf
PS. Tried "Enshrouded" now which also seems to have a very nice performance boost. And I thought this would only effect older games.
NOTE. Just realized that it might depend on what CPU you have. Maybe this is not a problem for all CPU's. I have a "Intel Core i5-13400" and at least for me the difference was crazy.
- Sounds like the Linux gaming-tool you can install called "GameMode" includes this parameter so you wont have to set it manually like I did here. But I wasn't aware of that tool. Will try that out though! Thanks to u/Chromiell