• Dave@lemmy.nz
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    18 days ago

    I’ve recently made it to Act 3 in Baldur’s Gate 3, and my integrated graphics on my laptop aren’t keeping up, so now I have installed it on my desktop machine and am using Steam Remote Play (my desktop is plugged into the TV, it’s not a proper desktop setup).

    Often, the Steam connection drops out and the game keeps playing on the desktop but I can’t connect back to it from the laptop.

    Any suggestions on what I could do to either stop losing the connection or let me connect back to it after it drops?

    Set up:

    • Laptop has Nobara Gnome spin
    • Desktop has Mint Cinnamon
    • Bought BG3 on GOG, installed through Heroic Launcher, added to Steam as non-steam game to play it.
    • Toes♀@ani.social
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      18 days ago

      Are you trying to do this over ethernet or WiFi?

      If you’re trying to use wifi that connection needs to be stellar for this to work well. No over-lapping channels with the neighbours and not too many clients.

      If you’re experiencing this on a wired connection, look into if your gear supports jumbo frames and confirm it’s a gigabit link.

      Try using Vulkan mode for BG3.

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
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        18 days ago

        Laptop is on WiFi, desktop is on ethernet.

        Laptop is directly next to an access point that is connected via ethernet, though I know the network is not super stable. I often have to restart the ISP router after it drops out.

        I am confused why Steam doesn’t let me reconnect though. Normally if the game is running you can open Steam and choose to connect to it. But I don’t get this option, it’s like it’s forgotten that it started the game.

        In Steam it’s set to use Proton and I select the bg3.exe or whatever it’s called, not the bg3_dx11.exe. Is this using Vulcan mode?

        • Toes♀@ani.social
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          18 days ago

          Are you able to connect everything involved via ethernet?

          Wi-Fi can be unreliable for many reasons so being near it isn’t going to change the thought much.

          A quick google suggests to me that it’s Vulkan if you are running it that way but I can’t confirm.

          What may be happening is that when the connection is unstable it may not be well designed enough to handle the dropped connection gracefully to let you reconnect.

          • Dave@lemmy.nz
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            18 days ago

            I’m running a Framework laptop and don’t have the LAN expansion card as it wasn’t release at the time I got my laptop. I can order one, but they also don’t sell Frameworks in my country so it’s a long freight forwarding process 🙁.

            I’ve been considering a new gateway (rather than the ISP router) to see if that helps stabilise the network. Maybe that will be helpful until I can get a proper LAN connection.

            • Toes♀@ani.social
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              18 days ago

              If I recall correctly the framework laptops have a bunch of USBC ports?

              If so you could just get a USBC dongle for it.

              In the meantime we can evaluate the quality of your WiFi. If you have an android phone, I find this app works fairly well for visualizing the network.

              https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrem.wifianalyzer

              Additionally, If you have a dual band router I would suggest disabling the 2.4Ghz band unless you have any legacy devices that use it.

              Check that your network isn’t overlapping with any other networks.

              • Dave@lemmy.nz
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                18 days ago

                Yes framework expansion card slots are just a bunch of USBC ports, but seems a waste not to get the proper expansion card that slots nicely into the laptop looking like it was built in instead of a boring regular dongle.

                I checked out the app you suggested, not entirely sure what I’m doing but the app seems happy with my wifi. My network is strong, others from neighbours are all pretty weak.

                Unfortunately I need 2.4Ghz wifi for a bunch of home automation things.

  • Toes♀@ani.social
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    18 days ago

    I noticed a pretty extreme difference in performance in openssh when using x11 forwarding when I touch the cipher suite.

    AES128-ctr vs AES128-gcm on kubuntu 22.04.

    I was wondering if anyone could shed some light into that. I’m mostly curious if it’s not using hardware acceleration when I switch it to GCM.

    • adr1an@programming.devOPM
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      11 days ago

      The week went by and this was left unanswered. Usually I research a bit to treat anything on these threads. This time, I’m on the phone, so I went lazy and directly to chatgpt. Hopefully this is not an AI hallucination and it sheds some light for you.

      The performance difference you’re observing between AES128-CTR and AES128-GCM in OpenSSH with X11 forwarding can be attributed to several factors, including the nature of the ciphers and hardware acceleration support.

      AES128-CTR vs AES128-GCM

      1. Cipher Characteristics:

        • AES128-CTR (Counter Mode): This mode turns a block cipher into a stream cipher. It is generally faster because it can be parallelized and does not require padding.
        • AES128-GCM (Galois/Counter Mode): This mode provides both encryption and authentication (integrity check). The additional authentication step can introduce overhead, making it slower compared to CTR mode.
      2. Hardware Acceleration:

        • AES-NI Support: Modern CPUs support AES-NI (Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions), which accelerates AES operations. Both CTR and GCM modes can benefit from AES-NI, but the extent of the acceleration can vary.
        • GCM Overhead: Even with hardware acceleration, GCM mode has additional computational overhead due to the authentication process. If the hardware acceleration is not fully utilized or if the implementation is suboptimal, this overhead can become more pronounced.

      Checking Hardware Acceleration

      To determine if your system is using hardware acceleration for AES operations, you can check the following:

      1. CPU Support:

        • Verify if your CPU supports AES-NI by checking the CPU flags:
          grep aes /proc/cpuinfo
          
        • If you see aes in the output, your CPU supports AES-NI.
      2. OpenSSL Benchmark:

        • Run an OpenSSL benchmark to see the performance difference between CTR and GCM modes:
          openssl speed -evp aes-128-ctr
          openssl speed -evp aes-128-gcm
          
        • Compare the results to see if there’s a significant difference in performance.
      3. SSH Configuration:

        • Ensure that your OpenSSH configuration is optimized for hardware acceleration. You can specify the ciphers in your SSH configuration file (/etc/ssh/sshd_config for the server and /etc/ssh/ssh_config or ~/.ssh/config for the client):
          Ciphers aes128-ctr,aes128-gcm@openssh.com
          
        • Restart the SSH service after making changes:
          sudo systemctl restart ssh
          

      Conclusion

      The performance difference between AES128-CTR and AES128-GCM is expected due to the additional authentication overhead in GCM mode. Ensuring that your system is utilizing hardware acceleration (AES-NI) can help mitigate some of this overhead, but GCM will generally still be slower than CTR. If performance is critical and you do not need the additional authentication provided by GCM, sticking with CTR mode might be the better option.