Laggy Mouse Movement / Slow Graphics

[stingray601]

Currently having an issue on a new install with very laggy mouse/graphics, which I have tried to solve using various solutions to similar problems:

1. Mouse cursor movement is choppy and unresponsive when CPU is under mild load · Issue #7893 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub
2. Adjusted BIOS battery performance to “High Performance” as suggested in another related issue
3. Intel Integrated Graphics Troubleshooting
   Intel Integrated Graphics Troubleshooting

None of which have worked. Mouse/graphics were also laggy during install. After clicking a button, it requires an additional mouse movement or key press for the screen to refresh.

Errors from journalctl:

dom0 kernel: ahci 0000:00:0e.0: probe with driver ahci failed with error -22
dom0 kernel: pci 10000:e0:06.0: Failed to add - passthrough or MSI/MSI-X might fail!
dom0 kernel: pci 10000:e1:06.0: Failed to add - passthrough or MSI/MSI-X might fail!

dom0 libvirtd: internal error: unable to reset PCI device 0000:00:0d.2: internal error... no FLR, PM reset or bus...

dom0 kernel: [Firmware Bug]: CPU 1: APIC ID mismatch. CPUID 0x0001 APIC 0x0008

dom0 kernel: int3472-discrete INT3472:01 INT3472 seems to have no dependents

dom0 kernel: sysfb: VRAM smaller than advertised

qubes: R4.2.3
xen: 4.17.5
kernel: 6.12.9-1

Intel i7-1265U
Intel Corp Alder Lake UP3 GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]
32gb RAM
1TB SSD
VT-d - enabled
Hyper threading - disabled

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Vael_S]

I have mentioned this before in other posts…

System Settings → Window Manager Tweaks > Compositor

uncheck “Enable display compositing”
then
check “Enable display compositing”

This si often a reason for things being very laggy.

I have to do this after new installs to make things work smoothly because that crappy thing makes it so dang laggy.

It just resets it and reinitialises it.

After doing it once, you should be fine for that until you have to reinstall.

[stingray601]

I appreciate the response. Just tried it and unfortunately did not work in this case though.

[Vael_S]

In GRUB config, what are the settings you have assigned to Domain-0?
What GPU are you using?

What Qubes Configuration are you using?

Are you using PS/2 KDB/Mouse?

[Vael_S]

How much VRAM is assigned to the IG?

Total Cores 10
.# of Performance-cores 2
.# of Efficient-cores 8
Total Threads 12
Max Turbo Frequency 4.80 GHz
Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency 4.80 GHz
Efficient-core Max Turbo Frequency 3.60 GHz
Cache 12 MB Intel® Smart Cache
Processor Base Power 15 W
Maximum Turbo Power 55 W
Minimum Assured Power 12 W

That CPU… The “Efficient cores” I think there was something about that being an issue from someone else, will have to find details.

[stingray601]

@Vael_S

How much VRAM is assigned to the IG?

9MB based on this:

qvm-features dom0 gui-videoram-min $(($WIDTH * $HEIGHT * 4 / 1024))
qvm-features dom0 gui-videoram-overhead 0

GUI configuration

@Vael_S

In GRUB config, what are the settings you have assigned to Domain-0?

I have not changed anything in the GRUB config (don’t see anything assigned to Domain-0 unless I’m missing something).

@Vael_S

What GPU are you using?

Just the integrated GPU.
Intel Corp Alder Lake UP3 GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]

@Vael_S

What Qubes Configuration are you using?

Default config (Fedora as default template). Did not make any changes on the installation page for Template/Main/Advanced config.

@Vael_S

Are you using PS/2 KDB/Mouse?

No, using built in keyboard / touchpad on laptop.

[Vael_S]

[quote=“stingray601, post:6, topic:32046, full:true”]

@Vael_S

How much VRAM is assigned to the IG?

@stingray601

9MB based on this:

qvm-features dom0 gui-videoram-min $(($WIDTH * $HEIGHT * 4 / 1024))
qvm-features dom0 gui-videoram-overhead 0

GUI configuration | Qubes OS

Stick it to 64 MB for Dom0. Shouldn’t need that much, but it does need more than you would think.
I don’t have Dom0 set with any specific VRAM.
qvm-features dom0 gui-videoram-min 64000

I can’t even figure out how to use qvm-features to target Domain-0.

You need to check your BIOS for that value.
You may only have 128MB assigned to it.
It should be enough, but you may need more.
I would say having 512MB should be plenty to allow for everything with the more recent additions to the GUIs that don’t really need to be there.

@stingray601

@Vael_S

In GRUB config, what are the settings you have assigned to Domain-0?

I have not changed anything in the GRUB config (don’t see anything assigned to Domain-0 unless I’m missing something).

Okay, perhaps check it for me to see, make sure that it has 4GB RAM assigned to it. That could be causing issues. Personally, after everything is set up I decrease the value to 1 GB RAM, it’s not doing much after all. And I assign it only 2 threads. Makes life easier and gives me more threads for the other guests.

For you, I would say you assign Dom0 with the first few low end threads, and save the performance threads for specific guests.

I set up the CPU Pools on my machine as well as setting them up in the 2 different schedulers at high/low priority.

Unfortunately this isn’t persistant, so it has to be done each time during boot up of the system.

@stingray601

@Vael_S

What GPU are you using?

Just the integrated GPU.
Intel Corp Alder Lake UP3 GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]

Okay, so no discrete GPU to cause issues.

What is the Laptop model then please?
Might be handy to know to provide further details.

@stingray601

@Vael_S

What Qubes Configuration are you using?

Default config (Fedora as default template). Did not make any changes on the installation page for Template/Main/Advanced config.

Okay, so you have a sys-usb and all that stuff too.

@stingray601

@Vael_S

Are you using PS/2 KDB/Mouse?

No, using built in keyboard / touchpad on laptop.

Is it USB or PS/2 ?
Laptop model and details will tell me all that.

Did you upload the HCL to Qubes?

[stingray601]

@Vael_S

What is the Laptop model then please?
Might be handy to know to provide further details.

Dell Latitude 9430
Based on what I saw I don’t believe you can adjust VRAM in the bios (but correct me if I’m wrong, obviously you didn’t have this info before).

@Vael_S

For you, I would say you assign Dom0 with the first few low end threads, and save the performance threads for specific guests.

I set up the CPU Pools on my machine as well as setting them up in the 2 different schedulers at high/low priority.

I will attempt this and report back.

Thanks again.

[stingray601]

@Vael_S

Okay, perhaps check it for me to see, make sure that it has 4GB RAM assigned to it. That could be causing issues. Personally, after everything is set up I decrease the value to 1 GB RAM, it’s not doing much after all. And I assign it only 2 threads. Makes life easier and gives me more threads for the other guests.

Confirmed 4GB assigned.
dom0_mem=max:4096M in GRUB config

@Vael_S

For you, I would say you assign Dom0 with the first few low end threads, and save the performance threads for specific guests.

I set up the CPU Pools on my machine as well as setting them up in the 2 different schedulers at high/low priority.

Did this as well. Currently have dom0 with 3 of the E cores based on instructions from this post:

CPU Pinning Alder Lake

If you have an Alder Lake or newer Intel CPU, you probably want the option to load a qube on the P or E cores, and this might help someone who is new to xen. https://dev.qubes-os.org/projects/core-admin/en/latest/libvirt.html https://libvirt.org/formatdomain.html#cpu-allocation Dom0 First, you need to add the following to GRUB dom0_max_vcpus=4 dom0_vcpus_pin If you want to use SMT read the notes at the end. The CPU I’m using is the 12900K, which has 16 physical cores and 24 threads with SM…

Not seeing an improvement just yet.

[stingray601]

Found a solution that seems to be working. It looks like others had similar issues with Intel Iris XE graphics.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=268244

Screen flickering in Qubes 4.1 on Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen6

Thank you @enmus and @51lieal for the help. Here are the outputs requested: $ modinfo i915 | grep ‘^parm:’ parm: modeset:Use kernel modesetting [KMS] (0=disable, 1=on, -1=force vga console preference [default]) (int) parm: enable_dc:Enable power-saving display C-states. (-1=auto [default]; 0=disable; 1=up to DC5; 2=up to DC6; 3=up to DC5 with DC3CO; 4=up to DC6 with DC3CO) (int) parm: enable_fbc:Enable frame buffer compression for power savings (default: -1 (use p…

Solution was to add i915.enable_psr=0 to the kernel parameters.

As shown here:

How to add custom kernel options in v4.1?

You have to edit the file /etc/default/grub, you should be editing GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line. After editing: Rebuild grub config sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg then Rebuild initrd sudo dracut -f

Thank you to @Vael_S for the help.