System Slowdown when playing game

Framework Laptop 16 Linux
1

Which Linux distro are you using?
Bazzite

Which release version?
(if rolling release without a release version, skip this question)
Stable 41.20250216.1

Which kernel are you using?
6.12.12-207.bazzite

Which BIOS version are you using?
3.0.5

Which Framework Laptop 16 model are you using? (AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series)
7940HS with 7700dGPU

Occasionally (sometimes every 5 min, sometimes it takes 2 hours to show up), when playing Albion Online and so far only Albion Online, the entire system will slow to a crawl. There are so many symptoms, I’ll just list them all here instead of giving you a paragraph.

  • Game FPS drops
  • actual frame rate is much lower than what’s reported. The game and mangohud both think it’s running at 120, but it’s really at 4-5fps
  • cursor disappears
  • discord audio gets crackley
  • keyboard shortcuts get inconsistent
  • mouse moves choppy, if it’s visible at all
  • moving windows becomes sketchy at best
  • CPU usage is fine, thermals are fine
  • GPU usage is fine, thermals are fine
  • RAM usage is fine
  • Disk i/o is fine
  • battery levels are fine
  • balanced and performance mode both make this occur
  • I have never observed this behavior in power saver mode, in fact, it seems to occasionally resolve the issue while it’s happening

This did not happen before the BIOS update, but Albion also had an update at the same time.

I have tried running the native Linux build as well as the Windows one running in Proton, and both of them do this.

I have tried both in and out of the Lutris environment.

I have tried older images of Bazzite, and they do this too (ruling out a Bazzite update being the culprit, since this is a somewhat recent issue)

I have tried both encrypted and unencrypted disks

I have tried turning off the battery saver option in BIOS

If anyone can even reproduce this behavior, I’d love to hear about it, as figuring out what’s even going on has been difficult, since the “normal” symptoms of what looks like throttling are not there.

Things that would be helpful:

  • can this be reproduced on Bazzite
  • can it be done on Ubuntu
  • can it even be reproduced on Windows (if it’s the bios, this might not even be specific to Linux)
2

I have reproduced this on Fedora 41 on a Live USB, ruling out Bazzite and the SSDs as being the issue.
Also, Albion Support has stated they won’t help unless I can reproduce the issue on Ubuntu 20.04 or SteamOS, since those are the only distros they officially support.

3

This might be related to a recent steam issue: lag spikes after 25-40 minutes of playing on linux · Issue #11446 · ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux · GitHub. The symptoms seem pretty different, but it’s worth a try.
The workaround is to prepend LD_PRELOAD="" %command% to your steam launch options (you should omit adding the %command% if it’s already in the options, but the LD_PRELOAD="" does need to be at the start). Note that this will disable the steam overlay and steam game recording.

4

Honestly, it’s 100% worth a try! Even tho it’s not a steam game, but I’ll try it hopefully tonight and get back to ya :slight_smile: thanks for the suggestion!