gamemode
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FeralInteractive
Support "tuned" as a possible backend
tuned - Daemon for monitoring and adaptive tuning of system devices. It supports multiple different profiles and does more than just changing the CPU frequency scaling governor. Links:
- https://github.com/redhat-performance/tuned
- https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7-beta/html/power_management_guide/tuned
When I read about GameMode I was also surprised and interested in an answer about this. Tuned seems to be able to handle all the things that GameMode is suppose to do. Tuned just needs a custom profile (or profiles?). Perhaps some patches are required for tuned to do the automatic profile switch, but that seems all I suppose. Why do the double effort?
The simple answer would just be that Tuned didn't show up in searches or discussion back when GameMode was being thought about. These days I believe they both have their uses and advantages for specific things. GameMode can focus on gaming, which makes for a more streamlined tool.
@mdiluz will they also coexist peacefully on a system? Tuned has dynamic tuning capabilities, having two dynamic system tuners could cause problems. It would be a shame to remove tuned in order to benefit from GameMode, since tuned has a broader use case, not just for gaming. I mainly use it for power saving on my laptop.
@AquaL1te - sorry, very late reply, but I'd imagine they can coexist. I haven't tested things out exactly, and certain aspects may need tweaking. GameMode does try it's best to just bail if any other program has changed the settings it's trying to adjust, at least.
I'm interested to know if it is planned to merge the features of GameMode into tuned.
For example machine learning is enjoying an unstoppable increase in popularity, which often runs on dedicated GPUs. I understand that GameMode can squeeze out more performance from a GPU? It would be awesome to integrate those features into tuned, or improve existing tuned GPU features. Splitting this up seems inefficient and makes its application narrow. Combining resources with Red Hat (sponsor of tuned), would also benefit GameMode's development and integration with GNOME (Red Hat is also one of the largest contributors there, just like the Linux kernel itself).
As said in the third comment, GameMode is suppose to focus on gaming. But in generic terms it's still system tuning, so it doesn't make gaming any more special than e.g. machine learning in a datacenter. Or protein folding for medical research. These improvements can have a more broader social impact then just delivering headshots with a higher refresh rate.
I'm still surprised how this GameMode project started without knowing about tuned, it's quite known in e.g. the HPC world and other tuning purposes. Was there really no broad communication with these communities specialized in high performance tuning?
Please don't take this comment in a negative context. I appreciate all the hard work and intent.