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can't maintain this anymore... thanks everyone.

feel free to continue the project if you wish.

KWin-lowlatency

KWin-lowlatency is (was?) my attempt to reduce latency and stuttering in the popular KWin compositor used in KDE. since Plasma 5.21 the developers merged official patches which rewrite great parts of the compositing code, putting it on par with former KWin-lowlatency.

however, there's one thing that's not there yet: X11 full-screen unredirection....

Unredirection

the main aim of this project is to add additional settings to the compositor and bring back unredirection based on the direct scanout code. see unredirect.md for more details.

KWin-lowlatency is not...

installation

Arch Linux

kwin-lowlatency is available in the AUR.

also available as a package in the CachyOS repository. thanks ptr1337!

Manjaro

Manjaro has updated Plasma to 5.23! follow the Arch Linux instructions.

openSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed

available at home:DarkWav:kwin-lowlatency. Leap is on 5.18 though.

other distributions/manual method

you can compile/install this yourself if your distro isn't listed here, or if you merely want to.

installing dependencies

you may need to install specific dependencies before compiling. here you can find a list.

acquiring the source

you can get the source code by using any of the following 2 methods:

git repo clone

$ git clone https://github.com/tildearrow/kwin-lowlatency.git
$ cd kwin-lowlatency

if you are not using the latest major version of Plasma (you can check by doing kwin_x11 --version), you may want to check out the branch for your version, e.g.:

$ git checkout Plasma/5.23

you may want to check the current stable version out:

$ git checkout v5.23.5

patch format

download stock KWin source and patch file:

$ wget https://download.kde.org/stable/plasma/5.23.5/kwin-5.23.5.tar.xz
$ wget https://tildearrow.org/storage/kwin-lowlatency/kwin-lowlatency-5.23.5.patch

extract:

$ tar -xvf kwin-5.23.5.tar.xz

patch:

$ cd kwin-5.23.5
$ patch -p1 < ../kwin-lowlatency-5.23.5.patch

building

Ubuntu

Ubuntu uses a different library path, which means you'll have to tweak the library dir:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=lib/x86_64-linux-gnu -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBEXECDIR=lib/x86_64-linux-gnu -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF ..
$ make

other distros

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBDIR=lib -DCMAKE_INSTALL_LIBEXECDIR=lib -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF ..
$ make

installing

$ sudo make install

contacting original KWin development team

additional options menu

KWin-lowlatency introduces a few options in System Settings > Display and Monitor > Compositor. these options are documented in this section.

the options are:

misc/FAQ

what's this "Paint cursor" effect in Desktop Effects?

it's an effect I wrote back in 2018 when experimenting with kmsgrab for some private recordings. it basically redraws the cursor. this may seem redundant, but actually is helpful for recording with kmsgrab (since it doesn't draw the hardware sprite).

the following applications may benefit from the usage of this effect:

will this work under Wayland?

it probably will, but there isn't too much difference

do you have any plans to upstream this?

the unredirection part? maybe. I'll think about it.

unredirection is not working.

please see unredirect.md for known issues. you may file a bug report as well.

Support (bugs?)

use the issues section at the top. but wait! before reporting an issue, first test it again on the official KWin to determine whether this is really a KWin-lowlatency-only bug.

if the bug also reproduces in official KWin, please file a bug on their bug tracker instead.

Developing on KWin

the hacking documentation has information on how to build and start KWin.