3DXChat & Playonlinux - Performance issues

[xMichax]

 

Hello,

 

I’ve got a technical issue I can’t wrap my head around:

 

3DXChat is one of the last pieces of software I use Windows for. Although I knew there are solutions out there (wine/playonlinux) I never really tried it…until I read this thread:

 

http://3dxforum.com/index.php?/topic/6466-linuxplayonlinux-setup/

 

This kind of…brought the topic back on my radar. So I just gave it a try and installed playonlinux on my system.

 

Specs:

Core I5 4670K

Nvidia Geforce GTX 1060

8 GB Ram

Swappable main hard drive (for switching between windows and linux as long as necessary, usefull for comparison of course)

Current version of playonlinux with wine 3.20 (also tried: 3.2 staging, 3.1 staging and 3.0.1 staging...whatever the hell „staging“ means btw)

 

I was able to successfully install 3DXChat. At first it was REALLY laggy, but after switching to the most recent graphics driver (415) it got a lot better.

 

But….the issue:

 

The performance on linux is WAY worse than on windows.

With windows I can change every graphics preset to „extremely high“ and the game runs smooth af.

With linux….not so much. I’d estimate I get around half the performance (same cpu load as on windows). The weird thing: Allthough graphics seem to be part of the issue…the main problem is room population. Me alone in my room…a little laggy but playable. But when I go to a room with, let’s say, 20-30 people in it, the game becomes nearly unplayable.

 

I was hoping this „csmt“-thing could be the problem…but none of my wine versions installed have that checkbox in wine settings…also installed „staging“ versions of wine (see above) but no version seems to have this „csmt“ checkbox. Did this become an integrated feature or am I doing something wrong?

 

Since I have a decent machine…the newest drivers and software….I don’t really know what the issue could be. Plus: I don’t understand how „EmmaHNY“ (Link above) was able to play without major issues several months ago, because…just switching back to one driver version before the current one (415) causes major stuttering and lags on my system.

 

Now that I know for sure that it works on linux in general, I really want to get rid of windows…so….any ideas? Does anyone here use playonlinux/wine in a similar setup? Or can anyone give me tips on how to improve performance?

 

Thanks in advance and sorry for the occasional hiccup with my English…not a native speaker ;-)

[EmmaHny]

Hi,

 

I'll try to have a look tonight. I can at least help you on a few things.

 

Yes, Enable CSMT is the key : it enables the 3D rendering to be asynchronous. Hence a huge perf boost.

 

On my side, I still have an issue : when playing the game may lag, but neither the 3D card nor the CPU are under high load.

[EmmaHny]

I have Wine 3.20 running 3DXChat, and in the application's wine configuration, you should have a tab named "Staging". In which the "Enable CSMT" radiobutton should appear.