KDE Plasma 6.8 is still a few months away, with the release currently scheduled for mid-October, but the next major version of the desktop environment is already beginning to take shape.
In the latest batch of updates, the most notable item is that KWin now enables triple buffering by default for NVIDIA GPUs in Plasma 6.8. KDE developer Xaver Hugl confirms that previous bugs have been resolved, making this feature available by default.
The primary benefit for users from this will be smoother rendering. Triple buffering reduces visible stutter when the compositor struggles to align frame delivery with the display, noticeably improving daily desktop performance, especially on NVIDIA systems.
Moreover, Plasma 6.8 will provide an enhancement to wallpaper slideshows. Users can now create slideshows that do not change automatically and instead switch wallpapers manually, either through the desktop context menu or a global keyboard shortcut.
Another small addition is that Plasma’s virtual keyboard now includes an Esperanto layout. Plus, Plasma 6.8 will feature a redesigned Menu Editor app with fewer visual frames, resulting in a cleaner interface.
On the bugfixes side, KDE has addressed a Plasma 6.8 bug that caused crashes after ejecting an audio CD from Dolphin or Audex.
For additional details, refer to the “This Week in Plasma” post series on the KDE Blogs. Currently, the Plasma team is focused on resolving issues identified after the Plasma 6.7 release. Plasma 6.7.1, containing initial fixes, was released earlier this week, with Plasma 6.7.2 planned for early next week.
They keep making it worse for gaming. Performance is already 20% worse than x11 when running anything on dx11 and mouse input is a mess. Triple buffering vrr vsync. All things that will keep people from staying on Linux. Unless a wayland DE matches x11 in competitive titles, kids will go back to windows after the hype dies off and we all know adults would never switch anyway
Triple buffering isn’t used during gaming. Zero impact.
Wayland is routinely within 1-2% of X11, and in many modern titles, Wayland actually wins.
Wayland compositors support the tearing-control-v1 protocol. If you turn off VSync in a game, Wayland allows tearing just like X11 or Windows. You get raw, unbuffered frames and the absolute lowest possible input latency for competitive titles.
This is false. Performance is significantly worse depending on your gpu, and you can blame the green guys all day but only nerds like us will tweak things and stay. The only way for plasma and linux to win is to focus on game performance. They are the only demographic that will switch and stay.
You may get raw unbuffered frames with tearing on, but the performance is definitely worse e.g. boot up overwatch on bspwm or xfce and compare it to gamescope,xwayland or wayland native overwatch + plasma. There is a big gap. Mouse input also does not feel the same, even today. You can even plot this with mousetester. There is a lot of work to and personally i still do not see why i need a compositor at all.
The best desktop for gaming (and more…).
It just needs an option to have workspaces like Mango wm 😉 Because I am tired of the “Window OS Legacy’ workflow.
Btw, I run Nyxos and Kde 😉