Hello, I cant seem to find any upto date info on this topic and all the old threads seem to suggest that these features do not work well on linux.
I am looking to get a 144hz monitor that is at least 2k in resolution. I have an Nvidia graphics card and KDE Plasma. I want to run two monitors and the 2nd monitors is 60hz and 1080p. Would this cause issues? Is there anything I need to consider when looking for a monitor?
You will most likely have to run wayland to get the most out of your new monitor (in a dual monitor setup), other than that should work just fine.
If they want VRR they’ll have to use X11 since the Nvidia driver doesn’t support gsync on wayland. This also means they’ll likely be stuck with tearing on the lower refresh rate monitor.
If they use X itll be a removed and a half to get the higher refresh monitor to work with the lower refresh properly, I would rather forgo gsync than deal with that (as I have on my setup, running hyprland with my nvidia card with two 1080 asus monitors, one running 144hz).
On my PC at home I’m running KDE Plasma on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with two monitors: 1440p 240 Hz, 4k 60 Hz. Both are connected via displayport to an RTX2080. It works perfectly fine for me.
A while back, I used Linux Mint on the same system and it was a headache, where it would sometimes boot to a blank screen and I would have to restart a random number of times before it would work. I never did figure out the underlying cause, it just went away when I changed distros for other reasons…
Moving from Mint to Tumbleweed probably solved your issues because of the huge leap in kernel/driver/software versions. The default settings could have been different too, but I’m guessing it had more to do with more up to date software.
Are you using wayland? As far as I’m aware X11 can’t handle different refresh rates for different monitors so it defaults to the lower one.
Chiming in to say #Wayland is what resolved this issue for me. I had to switch from Linux Mint Cinnamon to #EndeavourOS + #GNOME and I’m much happier with my setup now.
What’s your GPU?
X11 can use the higher refresh rate when using multiple monitors. It just runs everything at a higher refresh rate which can cause tearing on the lower one.
Ah perfect this is exactly the vouch I was looking for. Thank you
I ran three monitors on an RTX 3060 on Linux before and it worked fine, 1080p 144hz, 1440p 144hz, and a 1080p 165hz. Worked fine on both KDE Plasma and Gnome, didn’t try any other desktop environments.
There is something with X11 where desktop compositing runs at the framerate of the lowest hz monitor that is active, but that doesn’t affect anything when the compositor is disabled like games, and on Wayland it doesn’t have the issue. It’s not particularly a big issue either since it’s just the desktop animations and stuff, and it’s very likely to go unnoticed at all unless you’re watching for it.
I have two monitors (2K, 144hz, DP) and a TV (4K, 60hz, HDMI) and it ran fine on Plasma. I used X11, because my 2060 was causing issues with Wayland.
How did you deal with scaling with 2 different resolutions on X? I never managed to get it working quite properly, the closest I got was running some xrandr scale commands on login.
That’s one aspect I have to use a workaround. Since I mostly watch video on the TV, I seldom need to scale the screen. When I want to use the TV exclusively, I have a small script that shuts off the monitors, changes scaling, panels and audio output.
I am currently using a high refresh rate monitor with Nvidia + Wayland + KDE Plasma and it works out of the box without any setup 👍
Same for me with my two monitors 1440x2560p 144Hz & 2560x1440p 165 Hz.
I got my bootup scrolling text to only display on the main monitor, but can’t get the boot down text to stop displaying on both (sideways on the vertical one). Anyone got any tips for that (besides just turn the monitor off 😂)?
I use Arch btw
My laptop has a 2560x1440, 165Hz monitor built in. I am using opensuse tumbleweed with plasma. When I attach a 1920x1080, 60Hz external monitor through my kwm switch, I have no issues. It has an Nvidia GPU, but I believe plasma is running on the integrated GPU. I don’t know if I have tried gaming or anything that uses the Nvidia GPU while using the external monitor. I mainly use the second monitor for coding.
No. I run 3x 1440p 144Hz monitors with KDE Plasma on an NVIDIA 1060 GTX, no issues at all.
Let me tell you.
I’m running a GTX 1050ti and I’m facing black screen and constant crashes in KDE Plasma when using Wayland.
X11 is working fine.
It might be a driver issue with nVidia on Wayland though.
I have nvidia with default vanilla Gnome on a 4k monitor. Everything in X11 works fine with 200% scaling, electron app have some problem in wayland
Do games work ok at that resolution?
I dont game much, but do not feed the monkey works.
Thanks everyone for the replies. I now feel confident in buying a new monitor. 😌
I don’t know if it can help, but…
I’m running Fedora 38, Stock GNOME and an RX 6600. I had no issues whatsoever with my dual monitor setup.
The main one is 1440p, 165Hz. It worked out of the box, even though, I did have to select the refresh rate manually in settings (like in any other OS).
The secondary monitor is 1080p, 60Hz. Also works fine.
Even though, I did notice that on X11, the cursor seems to move at 165Hz, but the windows and content itself do not. I usually always use Wayland, that works perfectly for me.
I’m running KDE Plasma with a 21:9 1440p display at 144hz via DisplayPort and an RTX 3080. I ran two at 144Hz before without a problem, but I never mixed refresh rates.
That sounds like a beautiful setup
Are you using display port or HDMI? Depending on the monitor HDMI can’t support the higher output.
I can use either or. If display port was required I can use that.
I ran into that with my ASUS monitor. The HDMI protocol won’t support 2k@165hz
I can’t speak for KDE, but I run Linux Mint Cinnamon with a 1440p 144Hz monitor and a 1080p 60 Hz monitor. Everything worked except that the refresh rate for all my monitors was capped at the lowest rate either monitor could handle, which was 60Hz. I just went without the 2nd 1080 monitor so I could get 144Hz all the time.
It shouldn’t cause issues as long as you use Wayland, though expect instability and choppy animations on X11
