Closing the gaming performance gap with performance-focused distros like CachyOS

Lounge
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Hi everyone,

I’ve been running Ubuntu alongside CachyOS on the same hardware, and I keep noticing a real performance gap in gaming, especially with AAA titles. I wanted to share some thoughts on what’s driving that gap and where I think Ubuntu could realistically catch up, without sacrificing the stability that makes it the go-to distro for most people.

From what I can tell, CachyOS pulls ahead mainly because of three things:

1. Kernel scheduler tuning. CachyOS ships the BORE scheduler by default, which noticeably reduces input latency and improves frame pacing in games. Ubuntu’s stock kernel is tuned more for general-purpose and server workloads.

2. CPU-level optimization. CachyOS builds its packages with x86-64-v3 (and in some cases v4) instructions enabled, which gives a measurable uplift on modern CPUs. Ubuntu still targets a much more conservative baseline for compatibility reasons, which makes sense for the LTS releases, but it does leave performance on the table for users with newer hardware.

3. Faster driver/Mesa cadence.Getting the latest Mesa and GPU driver stack on Ubuntu usually still means going through a PPA or manually backporting, which isn’t something a lot of users are comfortable doing.

None of this is a knock on Ubuntu’s priorities, stability and broad hardware support are the right defaults for most users. But I think there’s room for an opt-in path for people who want more performance:

- A performance-tuned kernel variant (similar to `linux-xanmod` or `liquorix`) offered directly through the Ubuntu Software Center or `apt`, instead of requiring third-party repos

- A rolling or more frequently updated Mesa/graphics stack, available as an official opt-in channel for gaming users

- GameMode enabled and pre-configured by default when Steam or other game launchers are installed

- Possibly a “Gaming” seed/flavor, similar to what Pop!_OS or Nobara have done, without changing the core Ubuntu experience for everyone else

Ubuntu already has the reach and the trust to bring a lot of Linux-curious gamers over from Windows. I think even a modest opt-in performance layer would help close the gap with distros that are already optimized for this out of the box.

Curious to hear what others think, and whether this has already been discussed somewhere I’ve missed.

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Moved to the Lounge which is more for general discussions.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this matter.

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I doubt you will see Ubuntu default to the bore scheduler soon, but it is trivial enough to switch from a grub cmdline option

See Introducing architecture variants: amd64v3 now available in Ubuntu 25.10 it exists since a while already

The mesa-Xx.Yy snap is pretty much rolling already and has tracks for the most famous upstreams too (i.e. kisak) so as long as you snap your game you should be covered for that case too…

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Thank You For Understanding We Wanna out of Box Experince , Take out Every Single FPS experince From The hardware please Improve it now!

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Ubuntu is a general-purpose distro focused on mainstream stability and doesn’t include the aggressive, gaming-specific kernel tweaks found in distros like CachyOS.

If you want to advocate for these tweaks to become standard in future Ubuntu releases, the best place to submit these feature requests and discuss them directly with the engineering teams is probably on Launchpad.

Thanks

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