5d ago

i finally got around to setting up a linux dualboot (mint) and it seems cool. however, 144hz seems extremely choppy. is this a driver issue (i installed the latest one available)?

i'm halfway capable with this kind of thing, but not an expert. not really sure why it would be having this issue. thanks in advance for anyone that can give me some help <3

8 comments

I did this as a total linux noob and had issues with getting the nvidia driver to work. I had to disable secure boot to get it to work.
No idea if this has any relevance to you but just putting this info out here.
Okay annoying IT guy moment but are you SURE 144hz is selected in your monitor settings? Sometimes I've found a new OS (both windows and linux) can default to 60hz.
Secondly, this will depend on your Distro, but you will want to make sure youre using the official Nvidia drivers, rather than open source drivers (called "Nouveau" usually) that some may default to. The open source drivers are OK but for newer cards are inferior and prone to weird bugs (such as stuttering, potentially!).
I can't really help you figure out what drivers you're using or how to switch them as I have an all-AMD system and dont know your Distro. However, this is a very common task when setting up a Linux system so you can literally search "official nvidia drivers
<distro>
install" and you'll be able to find relevant (and developer-recommended) info.
Of course, the usual warnings of don't copy paste random commands you don't understand apple, because thats how you end up breaking things and reinstalling everything. I have enjoyed this many times, lol.
Finally, this is a tangent since you mentioned dual booting: be careful!
- Dualbooting setups are usually fickle thanks to Windows and Linux using two different programs (called bootloaders) to start themselves. If one updates and becomes incompatible the other, you may not be able to (easily) boot into one of your operating systems.
  This has gotten much better since the large-scale introduction of UEFI (required by Microsoft for device certification since Windows 8). With UEFI, the boot loaders are installed in parallel, and generally don't mess with each other except for possibly changing which one is the default (and when this happens, the vast majority of UEFI firmwares allow you to choose from any of the installed bootloaders by holding a key at startup). It is a great improvement over the BIOS days, when you got one 512 byte master boot record per drive, and OSes would just clobber it.
  On UEFI systems, you typically want to have only one EFI System Partition (where all the bootloaders live), even if the operating systems themselves live on separate disks.
  Now, if only Windows would stop setting the hardware clock to local time...
- thanks - I'll triple-check all the settings. The weird thing is that it's definitely doing 144hz at the desktop but when I'm using applications it's clearly slower. I'll have a look at drivers too - I went for the ones that it prompted me to install, but maybe those aren't the best!
  Re: dualboot (thanks again for all the advice) - I had a moment of worry when I tried to boot into Windows after installing Linux and it bluescreened immediately, but after rebooting a couple of times and letting it fix itself, both seem to be working fine. I'm intending to eventually get rid of Windows altogether though, as I don't want to have my 1tb NVME split between two different OSes. I may get a cheap second-hand SSD and stick it in my PC to use as a Windows backup drive just in case I ever need to use it.
for further clarity i have a 1660 super
- Are you using the proprietary Nvidia drivers? Also are you using X11 or Wayland?
  Nvidia cards work best in X11 using the proprietary drivers. Nvidia is working on making Wayland support better, but it's not great as of right now.
  
  Just realised they said Mint in the title, so they're likely using X11 still as the Wayland session is experimental
  
  proprietary yes, idk about x11 vs wayland

8 comments