CachyOS Post-Install & Gaming Tuning Guide: Official Wiki Optimizations

CachyOS is an Arch-based distribution engineered for low-latency desktop performance and gaming throughput. It ships packages compiled with aggressive optimizations (-O3, LTO, x86-64-v3/v4), custom kernels with schedulers like BORE and sched-ext (scx), and an extensive gaming ecosystem.

Drawing directly from the official CachyOS Gaming Wiki, this guide walks through the essential post-install steps and performance configurations to get the most out of your hardware.

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1. Rank CachyOS Mirrors and Update System

CachyOS hosts its own optimized repositories in addition to upstream Arch mirrors. Always benchmark and rank your mirrors immediately after installation:

sudo cachyos-rate-mirrors
sudo pacman -Syu

Reboot if a new kernel or system library was updated:

sudo reboot

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2. Select the Right CachyOS Kernel

CachyOS provides several kernels fine-tuned for different scheduling behavior:

# Graphical kernel selector and manager
cachyos-kernel-manager

Via CLI:

• linux-cachyos (Default): Uses the BORE (Burst-Oriented Response Enhancer) scheduler. Best for general desktop responsiveness and gaming.
• linux-cachyos-sched-ext: Includes support for BPF-based scx schedulers (like scx_lavd, scx_rusty, or scx_bpfland), dynamically swappable in userspace.
• linux-cachyos-eevdf: Standard upstream Linux scheduler with CachyOS compiler and memory patches.

To install a kernel and its matching headers:

sudo pacman -S linux-cachyos linux-cachyos-headers

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3. Install the Official Gaming Meta-Packages

CachyOS splits gaming software into two focused packages: libraries/backends and user applications:

Step 1: Core Gaming Stack (cachyos-gaming-meta)

Installs Wine dependencies, 32-bit graphics libraries, Vulkan loaders, Gamemode, and Proton dependencies:

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-meta

Step 2: Gaming Applications (cachyos-gaming-applications)

Installs launchers and diagnostic tools (Steam, Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher, MangoHud, Gamescope, and GOverlay):

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-applications

(Alternatively, open CachyOS Hello > Apps/Tweaks and click Install Gaming packages to install both).

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4. Choose the Right Proton Flavor and Fix Anti-Cheat

CachyOS maintains custom Proton builds featuring bleeding-edge Wine-staging patches, Wine Fullscreen FSR, cutscene video/audio decoders, and default NTSync support.

Proton Packages

• proton-cachyos-slr (Recommended): Built against the Steam Linux Runtime. Use this version for games using Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) or BattlEye (BE) to prevent server kicks and authentication drops.
• proton-cachyos-native: Built directly against host system libraries.

sudo pacman -S proton-cachyos-slr

Steam Configuration Best Practices

The CachyOS team strongly recommends keeping Valve’s official Proton (or Proton Experimental) as your global default in Steam, and enabling custom Proton versions on a per-game basis:

1. In Steam, open Settings > Compatibility.
2. Keep the default tool set to Proton Experimental or the latest stable Valve release.
3. For games needing custom hotfixes or extra performance, right-click the specific game in your Library > Properties > Compatibility, check Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool, and choose Proton-CachyOS-SLR.

[!TIP] If a game stutters or has synchronization bugs with NTSync, disable it for that title by adding PROTON_NO_NTSYNC=1 %command% to the game’s Launch Options.

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5. Master Steam Launch Options Syntax

When configuring wrappers and environment variables in Steam, adhere to the standard launch option format:

[env variables] [wrappers] %command% [application arguments]

Practical Examples:

• Run with performance wrapper and MangoHud:

  mangohud game-performance %command%
  

• Force DirectX 11 backend:

  game-performance %command% -dx11
  

• Run inside Gamescope with FSR upscaling:

  gamescope -W 1920 -H 1080 -w 1280 -h 720 -S fit -F fsr --mangoapp -- %command%
  

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6. Use game-performance Wrapper (On-Demand Performance Profile)

CachyOS includes a custom wrapper script called game-performance. It uses power-profiles-daemon to dynamically:

• Switch the system power profile and CPU governor to performance.
• Switch any active scx scheduler to its gaming profile.
• Automatically revert back to your previous balanced/powersave profile when the game closes.

How to use it:

• Steam: Add game-performance %command% to the game’s Launch Options.
• Heroic Games Launcher: Go to Settings > Game Defaults > Advanced > Wrapper command and enter game-performance.
• Lutris: Open Preferences > Global options > Command prefix and enter game-performance.

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7. Performance Warning: Do NOT Combine Gamemode and Ananicy-CPP

CachyOS enables ananicy-cpp (auto-nice daemon) by default to balance CPU priorities dynamically.

[!WARNING] Do not run both gamemode and ananicy-cpp simultaneously. Both utilities attempt to adjust process niceness and CPU affinity at the same time, leading to scheduling race conditions and frame stutters.

• If you rely on ananicy-cpp (default on CachyOS), do not add gamemoderun to your game launch commands.
• If you specifically need gamemode for custom launch scripts, stop ananicy-cpp first:

  sudo systemctl stop ananicy-cpp
  

To ensure ananicy-cpp rules are up to date:

sudo systemctl enable --now ananicy-cpp
sudo ananicy-cpp-community-rules-sync

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8. Expand Global Shader Cache Size to Eliminate Stutter

By default, graphics drivers set conservative limits on disk shader caches. When large modern games exceed this limit, older shaders are deleted, forcing real-time compilation and severe micro-stuttering on subsequent launches.

Increase the global shader cache cap to 12GB:

1. Create the environment configuration directory:

   mkdir -p ~/.config/environment.d
   

2. Create or edit ~/.config/environment.d/gaming.conf:

   micro ~/.config/environment.d/gaming.conf
   

3. Add the appropriate variable for your GPU:

For AMD (Mesa):

MESA_SHADER_CACHE_MAX_SIZE=12G

For NVIDIA:

__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SIZE=12000000000

1. Save the file and restart your user session.

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9. Setting Up Wine-CachyOS for Lutris & Heroic

For running non-Steam games inside Lutris, Bottles, or Heroic, CachyOS provides standalone Wine builds.

CachyOS offers two packages:

• wine-cachyos: Replaces the system Wine binary.
• wine-cachyos-opt (Recommended): Installs to /opt/wine-cachyos, allowing gaming patches to co-exist with standard wine or wine-staging without breaking desktop applications.

sudo pacman -S wine-cachyos-opt

In Lutris:

1. Open Preferences > Runners > Wine.
2. Point the Wine binary path to /opt/wine-cachyos/bin/wine.
3. In Runner Options, enable DXVK and set Disable Lutris Runtime to enabled (preferring optimized system libraries).

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10. Enable Wayland VRR and HDR

KDE Plasma 6:

1. Open System Settings > Display Configuration.
2. Set Adaptive Sync to Always or Automatic.
3. Toggle High Dynamic Range (HDR) if supported by your panel.

Hyprland:

Add to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf:

misc {
    vrr = 1
}

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11. System Maintenance Checklist

Keep package caches clean and prune orphan libraries:

# Prune pacman cache to the last 2 versions
sudo paccache -r

# Remove unneeded orphaned dependencies
sudo pacman -Qtdq | sudo pacman -Rns -