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So I've been having this issue for as long as I've been using Ubuntu. Especially on this laptop. When playing any "intensive" game, I get SEVERE FPS drops that go from 90-120 FPS to a depressing 5-15 FPS, not to mention that input lag that follows before it starts running back at the normal FPS.

This happens on Half-life (not 2, which I find ubsurd), Half-life 2, counter-strike source, Unvanquished, and Garry's Mod. All of which are 3D games. Unturned, a 2D game has no issues what so ever and uses more resources than half-life. On windows, I don't get the same level of performance getting around 70FPS with some lag and stuttering, but no FPS drops that are this bad.

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T430 with Intel HD 3000 integrated GPU, 8GB ram, and a quad core I5 CPU. I Understand that Valve games do run in OpenGL mode, could this be what is affecting my system?? If so why does it still happens regardless in other games?

I doubt that this might be a thermal issue as when I check my CPU during gameplay I lock at around 84C, though I might be wrong.

Is there any way I can fix this?

Thunder_Ruler
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  • Most likely, they are your specs. Does ut do this on Windows, as well? Anyone who has tried to play games on integrated GPUs all know the pain... – Erik Sep 13 '17 at 02:25
  • @Erik it's is half life 2 were talking about. It can run on a $60 compute stick. All of the games besides unvanquished should run at the same FPS (excluding the first half life) since they are very optimized. It always runs around 90fps then for a few seconds it drops to under 15 then shoots right back up for maybe a minute or two before repeating – Thunder_Ruler Sep 13 '17 at 02:29
  • Sure sounds thermal to me. – Doug Smythies Sep 13 '17 at 15:33
  • @DougSmythies but why would this be happening regardless of how intensive the game is? – Thunder_Ruler Sep 13 '17 at 15:34
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    Well, you can do a couple of experiments: First, assuming you are using the intel_pstate CPU frequency driver (check via: cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_driver), turn down the max frequency some, echo "70" | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/intel_pstate/max_perf_pct, which will drop your max FPS, but does it eliminate your low FPS?; Second, try the performance frequency scaling governor. While rare, there have been cases where the game thinks there isn't enough CPU power, so drops the FPS, but meanwhile the processor thinks there is not enough load so doesn't boost freq – Doug Smythies Sep 13 '17 at 18:29
  • see also here. – Doug Smythies Sep 13 '17 at 18:34
  • Okay, so after some testing. I've used Windows and Ubuntu after changing the refresh rate of the screen from 50hz to 60hz it seems like the frame drops don't occur anymore. In fact, comparing HL2 on windows to Ubuntu I get a slight FPS boots from ~49 to around ~58 in a location that I use for testing. Watching temperatures over 20 minutes, FPS never dipped compared to before but I will keep looking to make sure. Anyways, don't believe it was never a thermal issue as the CPU always hovers below 90C where the CPU is rated to started start throttling. – Thunder_Ruler Oct 01 '17 at 18:42

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