Xfce Forum

brazilinux

Member

Registered: 2023-10-22

Posts: 1

Exploring XFCE Gaming Performance: Uncovering the Magic

I'm Brazilian, and this text has been translated from Portuguese to English.
Two years ago, I became a Linux user, starting with Arch Linux, without any external encouragement. The lack of acquaintances with Linux experience was a hurdle, but I continue trying to learn more.

Gaming performance. What makes it so good?

I would like to share my discoveries, explaining how I arrived at these conclusions, and I would also like to verify with you if these statements are accurate. I tested XFCE, and it demonstrated excellent performance in terms of RAM memory consumption. It was so efficient that the idea of opening a game directly in an exclusive X11 session seemed unnecessary. Taking advantage of all the available features in XFCE is undoubtedly the most advantageous option.

I used TTY2 to display the output of the free -h command and check the RAM memory consumption.

In the absence of XFCE:

• Only the running Arch Linux consumes 320 MB of RAM.

• With Arch Linux and Steam open, the consumption increases to 1.2 GB.

• When we add the game to the mix, the consumption reaches 3.7 GB.

With XFCE:

• Only Arch Linux and XFCE running use 856 MB of RAM.

• Adding Steam, the consumption rises to 1.6 GB.

• And finally, upon opening the game, we reach 3.9 GB of RAM consumption.

It's the small difference between X11 and Xfce that intrigued me.
3.7 GB vs. 3.9 GB
It's practically the same performance.

Until yesterday, I had never considered the possibility of testing a game without XFCE. I ended up on this forum due to other issues; I was looking for: How to add scripts to startup. But during this research, I came across this forum that simply amazed me; all I could think was that it was pure magic.

If this helps anyone, in the end, I figured out how to start a script along with XFCE.

exo-desktop-item-edit --create-new $HOME/.config/autostart/

Going back to my discovery, in the topic I read, https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=53682#p53682 I learned to do the following:

nano ~/.xinitrc

steam-runtime
#!/bin/sh

if [ -d /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d ]; then
  for f in /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc.d/*; do
    [ -x "$f" ] && . "$f"
  done
  unset f
fi

mv ~/.xsession-errors ~/.xsession-errors.old
exec startxfce4 > ~/.xsession-errors 2>&1

From what I understood, by editing the .xinitrc file in this way, we are importing the necessary environment variable files to enable graphical applications to communicate with the X server, D-Bus, and GTK3 modules. This allows graphical applications like LightDM to be run directly in an X session. However, I have no idea where to begin researching and learning more about the subject.

I was quite impressed by this discovery. I tested opening my favorite game directly through the Steam launcher on the X server (I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology or if it's safe), and surprisingly, it worked perfectly. Now, I'm determined to deepen my understanding and uncover how this feat is possible, moving away from the idea that it's all pure magic.

There's no need to hesitate in sharing your opinion. Any response, whether brief or detailed, will significantly contribute to my learning about XFCE.