The open-source project wlroots, a foundational library for building Wayland compositors, has finally integrated a significant update by merging the explicit-sync-ng branch into the master, thus bringing the much-needed explicit sync support to wlroots.
I know it’s a term that has been getting much attention in the Linux community lately, especially after some major updates.
First, Wayland adopted it, then KDE Plasma 6.1 began supporting it, and finally, at the end of June, NVIDIA video drivers added explicit sync support. As a result, the Linux desktop experience went to a qualitatively new level.
Adding explicit sync in wlroots will primarily benefit any Wayland compositor using this library. These include popular ones such as Sway in the first place, of course, and others such as Wayfire and River, all of which stand to gain from improved rendering performance, resulting in a better, smoother user experience and decreased input lag.
And to make things even more exciting, we’d just like to add that this merge request promises to bring some other goodies besides explicit sync support very soon, like:
- Enhanced Multi-GPU Support: Future follow-ups are expected to address multi-GPU setups more effectively, ensuring smoother performance across different graphics units.
- Advanced Renderer Support: Plans are also in place to enhance support for Vulkan renderers, aligning wlroots with modern graphical applications and games that rely on this technology.
Lastly, just to clarify quickly, if you’re unsure what explicit sync is or why it’s considered so important.
In simple words, in Linux systems using Wayland (almost all major distros), explicit sync helps ensure that the GPU and display server are precisely synchronized. This means that each frame is fully rendered and ready before it’s displayed, leading to smoother visuals and a more stable and pleasant user experience.
For more information and technical details about the explicit sync implementation itself in wlroots, visit the merge request.
