Graphics latency XPS 7590

Question

Using the XPS 7590 with i7 9750H and GTX 1650 GPU. For the most part it's alright and thankfully runs Linux very well (most of my work is primarily Linux based so that is a must in a laptop). The recently uncovered issue I found is when playing games there seems to be a latency issue that I cannot identify. Part of me is wanting to try on Windows and see if the issue persists but gaming is more of a hobby and this appears a little like an issue I found in my old ASUS laptop. There is a slight input lag when gaming but the OS appears fine. The issue is not found on either of my desktops but appears similar to the one I had on my old ASUS k501ux with its hybrid graphics. Anyone notice a slight input lag when running in 'ondemand' mode and launching an app with Nvidia GPU? It almost seems like the issue is due to the Nvidia GPU copying its framebuffer over the Intel iGPU which might incur a latency penalty. That is likely the issue with my now scrapped ASUS laptop and they appear to have the same slight delay. The frame rates are unplayably low on Intel iGPU (predictably) so I could not test if the iGPU has lower latency but maybe there is a way to perhaps fix or mitigate the issue by using the HDMI or the USB C port for video... maybe there is an issue with Nvidia drivers that could reduce the issue that I am not aware of. Is anyone on Windows using this for gaming on the side and seeing the same issue (playable frame rate, slight latency)? Does anyone have any ideas for me to try? Also does this laptop have a MUX chip to multiplex the Nvidia GPU and Intel GPU? I hear MUXless laptops have more of this kind of issue than ones with a MUX chip. While I will install Windows to fix the issue switching to Windows is not an option since I do lots of serverside code and having similar Linux on server and work machine makes my life easier since I can run most of my tests locally and only have to do one final test on the server. That and dual-booting is not ideal since I have limited SSD space. I can use Windows to troubleshoot and flash Linux back afterwards but I cannot permanently switch this machine over (that is what I saved my old desktop for).

AdrianG001 · Answer

May I know if you have updated the driver and firmware to the latest ones available? How about the system power plans have you made any changes to it? You could try this and let us know if you notice any changes:

Go to power options from the control panel.
Click on show additional plans, click on change plan settings for high performance.
Click on change advanced power settings.
Go to processor power management, select maximum processor state.
Change both battery and plugged in to 99%.
Set the thermal profile to cool in Dell power manager.
Update the chipset drivers to the latest version.
Save changes and restart the system.

DELL-Cares · Answer

Hi,   I hope you're doing well.   We haven't heard back from you yet. Feel free to reach out to us at your convenience, we are here to help.   -Prajesh

Dalton H · Answer

I am running the latest stable drivers from Nvidia but even after each update this behaviour does not change. Unfortunately since I am not running Windows these options do not have any effect on my system. However, my system info utilities show the maximum frequency for the CPU is being used occasionally (expected behaviour for tubo-boost, only boosts for a few seconds) and the system has the CPU manually set to the performance governor when on AC power and the GPU config program from Nvidia has the GPU set to performance mode when on AC power as well.

I will try to update chipset drivers and BIOS and see if that helps.

However, upon further research I found these are most likely MUX-less laptops and so this latency may be in hardware thanks to the Optimus has to copy the framebuffer over the Intel frame buffer thing so maybe a faster RAM kit might help a little but there really does not seem like there is a way to stop this issue completely but only to reduce it by reducing other areas of latency that are in the chain (like the CPU system RAM that the Nvidia card needs to copy over to work properly).

If I can find the image I made of the initial state the machine was in when shipped I will flash it back and then run the updates so it will be like-new and then retest to see how much of an issue it is with the default OS... though reinstalling Windows my not help if DELL ships with some modifications for their system hence why I am hunting for my initial image I made before installing Linux.

XPS

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