[solved] native games laggy after installing QEMU/Virt manager.

[ARockRaider]

I have had no problems for a few months, then I tried installing QEMU/Virt manager and now my native games are all lagging very badly.
I haven't even tried to use QEMU/Virt manager yet so I'm assuming I have broken something I would prefer to learn what I did wrong and how to fix it over just reinstalling everything.

I used this tutorial because Mental Outlaw's was for Arch and I'm not ready to go to that level.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDC1NVKK94U
I don't know if i followed it correctly, again I'm a noob

so to be clear, I don't know if this software even works yet but stuff that did work fine now doesn't and that's what I'm trying to fix before i dive deeper into this software.
I have looked around a bit to try and find fixes but haven't found anything that sounds like my problem.

inxi -Fxxxrz output

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-100-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.4.0
    Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1 tk: Gtk 3.24.33 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.18.0
    vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria
    base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: P8Z77-V LK v: Rev X.0x
    serial: <superuser required> BIOS: American Megatrends v: 0908
    date: 11/16/2012
CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-3770 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    smt: enabled arch: Ivy Bridge rev: 9 cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB
    L3: 8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1608 high: 1629 min/max: 1600/3900 cores: 1: 1605
    2: 1605 3: 1605 4: 1605 5: 1605 6: 1629 7: 1605 8: 1605 bogomips: 54562
  Flags: avx ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GK106 [GeForce GTX 660] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: nvidia
    v: 470.239.06 pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:11c0 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver:
    X: loaded: nvidia unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa gpu: nvidia
    display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 30 s-size: 3251x914mm (128.0x36.0")
    s-diag: 3377mm (133")
  Monitor-1: DVI-I-1 pos: primary,left res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 30
    size: 1600x900mm (63.0x35.4") diag: 1836mm (72.3")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-0 pos: right res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 30
    size: 1600x900mm (63.0x35.4") diag: 1836mm (72.3")
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660/PCIe/SSE2
    v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 470.239.06 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:1e20
    class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: NVIDIA GK106 HDMI Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:0e0b
    class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-100-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: ASUSTeK P8 series driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 40.56 GiB (4.4%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO 1TB size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 915.32 GiB used: 40.55 GiB (4.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 512 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 28.5 C mobo: 27.0 C gpu: nvidia temp: 37 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 565 fan-1: 0 fan-3: 525 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0
    gpu: nvidia fan: 80%
  Power: 12v: N/A 5v: N/A 3.3v: 3.36 vbat: 3.34
Repos:
  Packages: 2386 apt: 2371 flatpak: 15
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com victoria main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 295 Uptime: 34m wakeups: 0 Memory: 15.57 GiB
  used: 3.09 GiB (19.9%) Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers:
  gcc: 11.4.0 alt: 11/12 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: xfce4-terminal
  inxi: 3.3.13

[1000]

Try Debug

1. Use System monitor to check RAM and CPU

2. Check system logs https://github.com/tele1/LinuxTutorial/ ... in/Menu.md

3. You can use Timeshift if you use.

4. Apt does not save package history. ( Synaptic package manager yes )
But you can create list installed packages
- on installed system
- on live-USB ( even from a system running on virtualbox )
and use the diff tool to compare packages.
and remove the packages and see if there is improvement or not.
By trial and error you will find which package is causing this.

[ARockRaider]

I tried removing each and all of the packages with no luck but i did notice that my my CPU goes up to 90%+ and the GPU says it's not being used hardly at all (less then 10%) when trying to run a game so maybe that's a clue to some setting getting changed in the process?

I don't know what I'm looking for in the system logs to help and i don't know how much more package history could help.

I wish i had setup Timeshift before I tried the installation but i had thought it would be more involved before now.

the only other note i have is i checked my only game not installed through steam and it doesn't have the problem, it's OpenTTD.

[1000]

i did notice that my my CPU goes up to 90%+

System Monitor also shows how much CPU each application uses individually ( for user )
And from root ( from all users probably - I use top command for it )
You can even sort (sorting does not work in process tree mode).

Example tutorial "top"command from internet
https://www.redswitches.com/blog/how-to ... d-options/

[ARockRaider]

yah it's always the game that takes way more resources then it should, the games aren't big games that should take this much processor power and they worked fine before so i don't know what's changed.

I think I'm gonna have to give up on properly fixing this and just reinstall.

thanks for trying anyways, what should i do with this thread?

[strikers489]

Please note: although no Linux Mint expert here, but i have Virt Manager running and heavy steam games running, so i got curious.
Firstly, your hardware, processor 3rd generation intel 3770, 16gb ram and 1tb SATA ssd, although old but is capable. (but only to run 1 light guest vm along side host Mint, i had a 4th gen i7 laptop 2 year ago, and a simple 2nd guest VM would take heavy toll on my system, upto 50% utilization, virtualization can be exhaustive).

But more importantly, i saw the youtube 3:06 min video link you posted, i made notes from it and compared with my install notes, although it looks nice but it has a few steps missing, QEMU on mint requires a few more dependencies (python pip etc), i followed the Chris Titus tech tutorial here:
https://christitus.com/vm-setup-in-linux/

And everything works flawlessly on my system. (i also have a much newer and powerful hardware (13th gen, 32gb ram, nvme storage) and software (kernel 6.5.1)

But i have a suspicion there are some stuck processes waiting for dependencies that are hanging your system.
Btw, i had such problem once when i tried shared memory with one VM to allow host to guest file sharing (anyways, not good idea for security purposes).

So i suggest, you try and install the dependencies and see. (since top command and system monitor are not revealing what is hanging up your system).

KVM/QEMU is really one of the best thing Linux has, much better than Virtual Box (which i used 2 years ago, i left it for QEMU, it is much faster, efficient). Infact, even if you reinstall your Host Mint, out of curiosity, you can make a snapshot first then install KVM as per guide mentioned above and see, as i believe it is an excellent learning tool. I use a Mint Guest VM inside Mint Host VM to experiment with new software, as it is super easy to maintain Snapshots of the guest mint VM. And yes, snapshots, Always, super nice and important to maintain snapshots before Any major change, especially when you are in learning stage (i make snapshots before every software install!). Hope you can get your KVM and games running smoothly. Cheers!

[diyliberty]

I tried that same tutorial six months ago. it did not work for me. Later I found another tutorial on setting up Qemu which did work. I forgot the source but here is the list of commands that I used. It works and I currently have 4 VMs that I use.

Code: Select all

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install qemu-kvm libvirt-daemon-system virtinst libvirt-clients bridge-utils
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
sudo systemctl start libvirtd
sudo systemctl status libvirtd (to ensure it is active and running)
sudo usermod -aG libvirt $USER
sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER
sudo apt install virt-manager
Find Virt-Manager in your Mint menu. Launch.
Set up your new virtual machine and install your .iso!

That does not fix your games. It is strange that installing Qemu would have any effect on your games. If you can Timeshift back to before you installed Qemu. Personally I have Timeshift set to do daily backups and I make it a habit to manually create a backup whenever I do anything significant.

If you can't Timeshift, then try to pinpoint exactly when things started not working right. Then go through your update history and try to figure out what changed.

[ARockRaider]

Ok, so turns out something went wrong with my hardware, don't know what it was as I figured it was time to improve my hardware anyways so now everything but the hard drive is shiny new!

things kept getting worse while i was trying to fix the problem, to the point where I couldn't even launch the driver manager with out the system locking up! I tried an old hard drive with my win7 install and that had very similar problems, that told me it was hardware.

thank you all for your help and I'm sure ill use one of your recommendations on the QEMU/Virt manager setup.
also using Timeshift right off the bat! not making that mistake twice!

[ARockRaider]

back with a 2nd update, turns out it was nvidia's driver or something because the same problem came back while i was getting everything setup how i like it on my new machine, strange that it suddenly changed but i have tried driver 545 and 535 with the same strange CPU usage, though now the computer is strong enough to mostly work through the demand.

the xserver-xorg-viedo-nouveau driver seems to work fine but ill update if i find an nvidia driver that dosn't have the problem.

here is my new inxi -Fxxxrz output for the curious.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-101-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.4.0
    Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1 tk: Gtk 3.24.33 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.18.0
    vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21.2 Victoria
    base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: PRO B760-P WIFI DDR4 (MS-7D98) v: 1.0
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 1.60
    date: 07/13/2023
CPU:
  Info: 12-core (8-mt/4-st) model: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700KF bits: 64
    type: MST AMCP smt: enabled arch: Alder Lake rev: 2 cache: L1: 1024 KiB
    L2: 12 MiB L3: 25 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 high: 801 min/max: 800/4900:5000:3800 cores: 1: 800
    2: 801 3: 800 4: 801 5: 800 6: 801 7: 800 8: 801 9: 800 10: 801 11: 800
    12: 800 13: 800 14: 801 15: 800 16: 801 17: 800 18: 799 19: 800 20: 799
    bogomips: 144383
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP106 [GeForce GTX 1060 6GB] vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: nouveau v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: DVI-D-1,HDMI-A-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2,HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 01:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:1c03 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 compositor: xfwm v: 4.18.0 driver:
    X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: nouveau display-ID: :0.0
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 1016x285mm (40.0x11.2")
    s-diag: 1055mm (41.5")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-1 pos: primary,left model: Toshiba TOSHIBA-TV
    serial: <filter> res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 30
    size: 1600x900mm (63.0x35.4") diag: 1836mm (72.3") modes: max: 1920x1080
    min: 640x480
  Monitor-2: HDMI-1 mapped: HDMI-A-1 pos: right model: Toshiba TOSHIBA-TV
    serial: <filter> res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 30
    size: 1600x900mm (63.0x35.4") diag: 1836mm (72.3") modes: max: 1920x1080
    min: 640x480
  OpenGL: renderer: NV136 v: 4.3 Mesa 23.2.1-1ubuntu3.1~22.04.2
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:7a50 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP106 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10f1 class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-101-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:7a70 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlo1 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 3000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
    chip-ID: 10ec:8125 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp2s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-14:8
    chip-ID: 8087:0033 class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down
    bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes
    address: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 2.73 TiB used: 44.64 GiB (1.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 860 EVO 1TB size: 931.51 GiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 2B6Q scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST2000DM001-1CH164 size: 1.82 TiB
    speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter> rev: CC29 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 915.32 GiB used: 44.63 GiB (4.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 512 MiB used: 6.1 MiB (1.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda2
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
    file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 27.8 C mobo: N/A gpu: nouveau temp: 28.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nouveau fan: 1276
Repos:
  Packages: 2277 apt: 2267 flatpak: 10
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com victoria main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 395 Uptime: 19m wakeups: 0 Memory: 31.18 GiB used: 3 GiB (9.6%)
  Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.4.0 alt: 11/12
  Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.13