Why does my i5-1135G7 perform better in Linux than Windows 11? (especially for gaming)

[Renton577]

So this is a bit of an odd one, I have been using Manjaro for a while and its a nice OS. I recently tried out Windows 11 again recently and was shocked by just how badly it uses my CPU and GPU. In windows when playing overwatch I watched my CPU throttle itself down to 1.5Ghz at times while playing and the GPU down to 700Mhz when the temps were at 60ish C. Now on Manjaro playing the same game the CPU stays at base clocks at around 2.4Ghz and the GPU usually stays at 1000 to 1100Mhz when the max boost is 1300. I just cant wrap my head around why it handles it so differently and honestly I really can't go back to windows without figuring out whats wrong here.

[Shimejii]

Windows Has become a Parasite for gaming. Im still waiting for a Proper OS that comes out that Basically is just a Gaming OS.... Oh wait 4 have been attempted and failed every time   

 

Windows is just all around way too bloated, so its not surprising linux in a few games can beat it. 

[Renton577]

5 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

Windows Has become a Parasite for gaming. Im still waiting for a Proper OS that comes out that Basically is just a Gaming OS.... Oh wait 4 have been attempted and failed every time   

 

Windows is just all around way too bloated, so its not surprising linux in a few games can beat it. 

Its all games on my computer linux beats it. And yeah windows is really bloated, RAM usage is high and one thing I found out recently is Windows 11's windows defenders uses a lot of CPU cycles while gaming, switching to avast helped but even then linux is still faster.

[CWALD]

Game selection could just be luck of the draw that they are all better on Linux as lots of games are now.

 

You could check your resource usage from the desktop to see if linux just isn't lowering your clock speed when its not needed, if this is the case then You could check frame rates to determine performance instead of resource usage. Also might want to fix your linux image if this is the case.

[Renton577]

2 minutes ago, CWALD said:

Game selection could just be luck of the draw that they are all better on Linux as lots of games are now.

 

You could check your resource usage from the desktop to see if linux just isn't lowering your clock speed when its not needed, if this is the case then You could check frame rates to determine performance instead of resource usage. Also might want to fix your linux image if this is the case.

The thing is, its just how windows utilized my hardware. the same games running with an unlocked framerate perform way better on linux. And linux is adjusting clocks like it should. when GPU is not being used it boosts up and can get to 4ish Ghz. When there is a game running it doesnt usually go above base clocks at 2.4Ghz but can from time to time. In stark contrast windows 11 throttles the clocks below 2Ghz almost always when a game is being played and the GPU clocks are way lower as well.

[Zando_]

56 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

I just cant wrap my head around why it handles it so differently and honestly I really can't go back to windows without figuring out whats wrong here.

AFAIK W11 has been better for some hardware, worse for other hardware, it's got some teething issues with scheduling for some CPUs and then the general "new windows version" weird issues. Also, power plans differ in windows, especially for laptops when they're plugged in vs on battery. I don't know what power management options Manjaro has (most I've done is got it running on a 2012 MBP then moved back to macOS when Manjaro could open some JPEGs but not others), it could just not have any and run the hardware at max whenever an application requests it. 

13 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

Windows 11's windows defenders uses a lot of CPU cycles while gaming

You should be able to disable real-time scanning or blacklist your game directory from being scanned at all. 

 

What are you using to monitor your clocks and such btw? I haven't been able to find a decent monitoring tool on Linux without needing to use a bunch of separate utilities. On Windows I just use HWiNFO64. 

[CWALD]

5 minutes ago, Renton577 said:

The thing is, its just how windows utilized my hardware. the same games running with an unlocked framerate perform way better on linux. And linux is adjusting clocks like it should. when GPU is not being used it boosts up and can get to 4ish Ghz. When there is a game running it doesnt usually go above base clocks at 2.4Ghz but can from time to time. In stark contrast windows 11 throttles the clocks below 2Ghz almost always when a game is being played and the GPU clocks are way lower as well.

In that case I would say just enjoy gaming on Linux. I switched in 2018 and deleted my Win10 partition in 2019. If you really want to get windows up to par, I would try a debloating tool. Jayz2Cents did a video on one for win10 a while back and CraftComputing did one for win11 recently.

[Renton577]

7 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

AFAIK W11 has been better for some hardware, worse for other hardware, it's got some teething issues with scheduling for some CPUs and then the general "new windows version" weird issues. Also, power plans differ in windows, especially for laptops when they're plugged in vs on battery. I don't know what power management options Manjaro has (most I've done is got it running on a 2012 MBP then moved back to macOS when Manjaro could open some JPEGs but not others), it could just not have any and run the hardware at max whenever an application requests it. 

You should be able to disable real-time scanning or blacklist your game directory from being scanned at all. 

 

What are you using to monitor your clocks and such btw? I haven't been able to find a decent monitoring tool on Linux without needing to use a bunch of separate utilities. On Windows I just use HWiNFO64. 

I've just always had bad luck with windows especially 11 and Manjaro is doing really good for me. I use Intel_GPU_Tools for my GPU and use s-tui for CPU monitoring.

 

5 minutes ago, CWALD said:

In that case I would say just enjoy gaming on Linux. I switched in 2018 and deleted my Win10 partition in 2019. If you really want to get windows up to par, I would try a debloating tool. Jayz2Cents did a video on one for win10 a while back and CraftComputing did one for win11 recently.

I actually watched that and heavily debloated windows 11 and it still didn't work as well as linux on this laptop. I will stay on linux I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.

[wseaton]

Lots of myths here.

 

With modern multi core systems background tasks should have plenty of spare CPUs doing nothing so windows can execute do nothing loops. Occasionally windows update gets in the way.

 

An OS can't make a game run faster.OS level accelerators ended with Apple and Altivec as I recall.

 

What I have found with windows is a victim of its own success and buddy relationship with Intel. Laptops in particular are notorious for having aggressive power mgmt functions enabled by default it requires an astronaut to sort through. Ironically they work out of the box, often too aggressively combined with windows power management. Linux distros on the other hand tend to be conservative with Intels over lord power saving modes.

 

Example: I have a 4 core 19" Dell laptop than ran like a drunk pig on batteries even if the bats were fully charged. After months of beating my head against the wall I found it was a problem with power mgmt in the BIOS combined with windows default power setting. Regardless of power settings all 4 cpus throttled down 60% on batteries mo matter what. The only combination that worked is enabling all the Intel power mgnt features in the BIOS and disabling two cores in windows but running the remainder at 100% at all times. Laptop now runs twice is fast and batteries run 25% longer. A Linux distribution would likely not have the problem by default by virtue of it not being fully supported. I guarantee you I'm among a small number of mortals in this universe who figured this out. 

 

Windows devs need to have a meeting with AMD and Intel on this issue. Its a big problem, and I dont trust E cores to do anything but make things worse. Right now they can't figure out power mgmt with symmetrical cores.

[Renton577]

11 minutes ago, wseaton said:

Lots of myths here.

 

With modern multi core systems background tasks should have plenty of spare CPUs doing nothing so windows can execute do nothing loops. Occasionally windows update gets in the way.

 

An OS can't make a game run faster.OS level accelerators ended with Apple and Altivec as I recall.

 

What I have found with windows is a victim of its own success and buddy relationship with Intel. Laptops in particular are notorious for having aggressive power mgmt functions enabled by default it requires an astronaut to sort through. Ironically they work out of the box, often too aggressively combined with windows power management. Linux distros on the other hand tend to be conservative with Intels over lord power saving modes.

 

Example: I have a 4 core 19" Dell laptop than ran like a drunk pig on batteries even if the bats were fully charged. After months of beating my head against the wall I found it was a problem with power mgmt in the BIOS combined with windows default power setting. Regardless of power settings all 4 cpus throttled down 60% on batteries mo matter what. The only combination that worked is enabling all the Intel power mgnt features in the BIOS and disabling two cores in windows but running the remainder at 100% at all times. Laptop now runs twice is fast and batteries run 25% longer. A Linux distribution would likely not have the problem by default by virtue of it not being fully supported. I guarantee you I'm among a small number of mortals in this universe who figured this out. 

 

Windows devs need to have a meeting with AMD and Intel on this issue. Its a big problem, and I dont trust E cores to do anything but make things worse. Right now they can't figure out power mgmt with symmetrical cores.

This kind of makes sense, I think in my case it may be thermal and power management, on Linux running a long stress test in a game keeps the CPU around 75C and the clocks at a stable 2.2 to 2.4Ghz where on windows it's around 60C with cores dropping down to 1.5Ghz regularly and same with the GPU side of things. On windows you can literally watch the performance drop over time where as Linux stays stable.

[GoodBytes]

On 6/7/2022 at 11:48 PM, Renton577 said:

So this is a bit of an odd one, I have been using Manjaro for a while and its a nice OS. I recently tried out Windows 11 again recently and was shocked by just how badly it uses my CPU and GPU. In windows when playing overwatch I watched my CPU throttle itself down to 1.5Ghz at times while playing and the GPU down to 700Mhz when the temps were at 60ish C. Now on Manjaro playing the same game the CPU stays at base clocks at around 2.4Ghz and the GPU usually stays at 1000 to 1100Mhz when the max boost is 1300. I just cant wrap my head around why it handles it so differently and honestly I really can't go back to windows without figuring out whats wrong here.

They are many variables. And doesn't mean that the CPU/GPU clock going down that it is a bad thing. It might actually be good (save power, reduce heat and noise). What is important is HOW well the game runs. Also, monitoring software could simply be wrong.

 

Linus distro tend to have broken or none existing power saving features, due to poor driver support (not the OS itself, of course), and rely solely on the hardware itself to power manage. So things tend to be more power consuming, or unable to get full performance out of the hardware (depends on hardware and manufacturers)

 

Aside from this, check:

• Drivers
• Windows Power options (ideally should be set to Balance, to save power while delivering full performance out of the system. Cooler the CPU, the more it can turbo boost and for longer)
• BIOS update
• Background programs (affecting system performance. Don't assume that a driver or control panel is of high quality or highly optimized. Often, they are not)

[Renton577]

On 6/12/2022 at 11:06 AM, GoodBytes said:

They are many variables. And doesn't mean that the CPU/GPU clock going down that it is a bad thing. It might actually be good (save power, reduce heat and noise). What is important is HOW well the game runs. Also, monitoring software could simply be wrong.

 

Linus distro tend to have broken or none existing power saving features, due to poor driver support (not the OS itself, of course), and rely solely on the hardware itself to power manage. So things tend to be more power consuming, or unable to get full performance out of the hardware (depends on hardware and manufacturers)

 

Aside from this, check:

• Drivers
• Windows Power options (ideally should be set to Balance, to save power while delivering full performance out of the system. Cooler the CPU, the more it can turbo boost and for longer)
• BIOS update
• Background programs (affecting system performance. Don't assume that a driver or control panel is of high quality or highly optimized. Often, they are not)

The only way I was able to get windows to perform even close to linux at this point was downloading Trottlestop, upping the TDP and enabling speed shift and disabling BC_prochot.

[pixxel-latte]

Windows has a bad habit of running millions of background processes and startup apps that KILL performance, I can't even run windows on my laptop because that thing crawls. Right now I use EndeavourOS with i3 and it has been going strong.

 

My experience with windows has been so hit or miss, but I use it on my pc to play games. If I didn't game I would switch to linux in a heartbeat.

 

The way linux manages power compared to windows is also drastically different. Like nay others here have said, Windows takes a very aggressive approach to the power management of a device. Especially if it has a battery. Linux is more conservative and keeps a lot of that control in the users hands.