Question about High Refresh Rate Monitors and High Res Monitors on linux
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?
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....
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.
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.
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.
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 😂)?
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.
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.
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.