Does Ubuntu optimize the Kernel in some way for gaming

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I have been testing out Ubuntu at https://youtube.com/@xtremelinux for a couple of months now and i noticed a couple of days back the following. While using the app GravityMark at: https://gravitymark.tellusim.com/leaderboard/?mode=one

I was able to get to 74K points on the 5.19 (Default with 22.10). But the moment I update to the 6.0 and 6.1 from https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/?C=M;O=D the score went to 64K (A 10K drop or around 15% drop in performance) between the 6.1 and 5.19. I used the same nvidia driver between both for testing, but am just curious to know if the ubuntu kernel when launched, gets some optimizations afterwards compared to the kernels found in kernel.ubuntu.com

I can confirm that if I go back to the 5.19 (even though it does not have all the support for the Z790 or 13900k CPU) it works better for benchmarks than the 6.1 which has better stability. So just curious right now.

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Does lscpu list more mitigations for the newer kernels than in 5.19?

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Oh hi Van, well I think less but on both cases I have mitigations off if that helps in grub.

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We’re all just guessing until the cause of the change has been bisected. I suggest you try the mainline 5.19 kernel (and older) from the same URL. Once you find an older kernel that is fast you will be able to eventually find a version number where it stopped being fast and became slow.

After a specific version of where the change occurred is known you are more likely to get input from engineers about what changed in that version.

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I’m not a software engineer – just a lowly CompTIA, but I know that mainline kernels are never recommended on a regular machine – always wait for the distribution kernel :slight_smile: Even then, I remember when 5.13 snowballed my AMD and I had to Grub back to 5.11. So, really any non-LTS kernel is playing the lottery.

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Thank you Van, well this took a very long time to test. I even tested multiple 5.19 versions. At the end, it was a setting on the BIOS that got changed when updating the BIOS. Thank you for the help buddy.