https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=525028
Bug ID: 525028
Summary: Bring back manual Latency / Render scheduling control
options in Compositor settings for Plasma 6
Classification: Plasma
Product: kwin
Version First 5.27.6
Reported In:
Platform: Debian stable
OS: Linux
Status: REPORTED
Severity: wishlist
Priority: NOR
Component: compositing
Assignee: [email protected]
Reporter: [email protected]
Target Milestone: ---
FEATURE REQUEST: Option to manually override Compositor Latency / Render
scheduling policy
DESCRIPTION
In Plasma 5, under System Settings > Display and Monitor > Compositor, users
had fine-grained control over Latency (from "Force lowest latency" to "Force
smoothest animations").
With Plasma 6, this setting was removed in favor of automatic frame-scheduling.
However, on legacy hardware (such as older GPUs like AMD TeraScale / Radeon HD
series) or specific workloads, the automatic latency algorithm causes severe
frame dropping.
The main benefit of the "Force smoothest animations" policy in Plasma 5 was
giving the GPU a larger frame deadline to prevent frame drops. In Plasma 6,
containerized environments that share the desktop compositor (such as Waydroid
or Linux containers) suffer heavily from frame drops because the automated
compositor heuristics do not allocate enough render time for the GPU to finish
rendering the frame.
Having a manual override option allows users on older hardware or those running
heavy containerized GUI workloads to explicitly prefer frame delivery
consistency and smoothness over input latency, ensuring a fluid experience that
automatic scheduling cannot always guarantee.
Please consider re-introducing these Compositor latency options or providing a
configuration key / environment variable to manually set the latency behavior
in KWin 6.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
Open System Settings.
Navigate to Display & Monitor -> Compositor.
Observe the absence of manual latency / frame-pacing policy options that were
available in Plasma 5.
OBSERVED RESULT
Compositor latency is strictly managed automatically without any manual control
options, leading to frame dropping in demanding scenarios like containerized
environments (e.g., Waydroid).
EXPECTED RESULT
An option or dropdown menu to select latency behavior (e.g., Prefer smoothness
/ Force smoothest animations / Force lowest latency), allowing the compositor
to grant more frame render time to the GPU.
SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (Targeting Debian 13 / Plasma 6)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.103.0
Qt Version: 5.15.8
Kernel Version: 6.1.0-52-amd64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland / X11
Processors: 4 × Intel® Core™ i5-2520M CPU @ 2.50GHz
Memory: 3.8 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD CAICOS (Radeon HD 6470M)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
This feature is crucial for maintaining frame pacing consistency and preventing
frame drops on legacy hardware and shared-compositor container environments
(like Waydroid) where automated compositor heuristics do not always yield
optimal results.
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