wlgame

A gaming-focused Wayland compositor built on wlroots-0.21, usable two ways:

• Per-game wrapper — wlgame [opts] -- %command%, like gamescope -- %command%. Launches one game, forwards the display, and exits with the game's exit code when it quits. Drop it straight into Steam launch options.
• Standalone session — boot into it from a display manager (wlgame.desktop).

It auto-tunes the environment per GPU (NVIDIA NVAPI/DLSS/RTX-SM, AMD RADV/ReBAR), enables the gaming-relevant Wayland protocols (tearing-control, content-type, color-management HDR, explicit DRM sync), and ships FSR1 / NIS / CAS Vulkan post-process upscalers.

Build

meson setup build
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install      # installs binary, shaders, wayland-session

Runtime deps: wlroots>=0.21, wayland, xkbcommon, libdrm, vulkan, glslang (build-time, for shaders), optional xwayland + xcb (X11 games), optional mangohud (for --mangoapp).

Usage

wlgame [options] [-- command [args...]]

Output / display:
  -o, --output WxH[@Hz]      Output mode (DRM) or window size (nested)
  -f, --fullscreen           Request a fullscreen window when nested
      --fps <N>              Cap presentation/frame-callbacks to N Hz
  -t, --tearing              Allow tearing (async page-flips) for games

Scaling:
  -F, --filter <mode>        Upscaler: none|cas|nis|fsr1 (default: auto)
  -s, --scale <mode>         Alias of --filter
      --sharpness <0.0-1.0>  Sharpening intensity (default: 0.8)
      --shader-dir <path>    Override SPIR-V shader directory

Game integration:
  -m, --mangoapp             Auto-spawn the mangoapp performance overlay
      --prefer-wayland       Hint Proton/SDL/Qt to use native Wayland

Multi-GPU:
  -g, --gpu <sel>            Render on this GPU, scan out on the display GPU
                             (reverse-PRIME). sel: nvidia|amd|intel|discrete
                             or a /dev/dri/renderD* path

Misc:
  -d, --debug                Debug logging
  -h, --help                 Help

Examples

# Steam launch options — render at the display's native mode with FSR1 sharpening:
wlgame -o 3840x2160@120 -F fsr1 -m -- %command%

# Nested inside your desktop, 1440p window, native-Wayland Proton:
wlgame -o 2560x1440 --prefer-wayland -- %command%

# Frame-cap a title to 116 fps to stay inside a 120 Hz VRR window:
wlgame --fps 116 -- %command%

# Reverse-PRIME: monitor on the iGPU, render on the discrete GPU:
wlgame --gpu nvidia -o 3840x2160@120 -F fsr1 -- %command%

Multi-GPU (reverse-PRIME)

If your monitor is plugged into the motherboard (iGPU) but you want the discrete card to do the work, --gpu nvidia (or --gpu discrete, or a render-node path) sets WLR_RENDER_DRM_DEVICE so wlroots renders on that GPU and scans out on the GPU that owns the connected display, copying frames across per-output. The normal compositing path uses wlroots' multi-GPU support; the internal-res upscale path (-r) runs the FSR/NIS pass on the render GPU, which is best paired with the display also on that GPU — cross-GPU scanout of the upscaled buffer depends on driver dmabuf compatibility. If wlroots picks the wrong card, override scanout with WLR_DRM_DEVICES=/dev/dri/card1.

When a -- command is given, wlgame launches it once the compositor socket is live, exports WAYLAND_DISPLAY and (if XWayland is built) DISPLAY, and tracks it via SIGCHLD: when the game exits, the compositor shuts down and returns the game's exit code. Super+Q quits; Alt+F4 closes the focused window.

GPU auto-tuning

• NVIDIA — Vulkan renderer, PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI/DXVK_ENABLE_NVAPI (DLSS, RTX, Reflex), NGX updater, DLDSR ×2.25, RTX Smooth Motion, nvidia VA-API.
• AMD — RADV with sam,ngg,nggc,rebar, DXVK async pipelines, Mesa GL 4.6.
• Intel — Vulkan renderer, iHD VA-API.

Status & roadmap

Working: per-game wrapper with exit-code/signal propagation, nested + DRM backends, output-mode selection, fps cap, FSR1/NIS/CAS post-process upscaling, HDR signalling via color-management-v1 (parametric: PQ / BT.2020 / DCI-P3), tearing, VRR auto-enable, layer-shell overlays, XWayland, explicit DRM sync.

Not yet (the remaining gamescope-parity gap): a virtual second output so the game renders at an internal resolution decoupled from the scanout mode (the true "render-low → FSR-upscale → present" path). wlroots' custom-swapchain requires matching the output size, so this needs a dedicated render output — scoped as the next milestone. Today, -o sets the real output mode and the upscalers run as a post-process sharpen/scale on the composited frame.