Gaming input/focus issues on multi-monitor setup

[rykugur]

The bug: sometimes after changing focus away from and back to a game I will encounter mouse and keyboard input issues. These issues are generally: input from mouse is sent to wrong location (if at all), followed by no input from keyboard nor mouse until I unfocus/refocus the game. This only seems to happen when I cross a monitor boundary.

Additional context:

I run multiple monitors, stacked on top of each other:

1x 35" ultrawide @ 175hz (bottom/primary - all games run here)
1x 35" ultrawide @ 144hz (top/secondary)

When gaming, I can switch between workspaces on the same monitor back and forth without issue. However, frequently when I switch between monitors, when I go back to re-focus my game, some very strange input issues happen.

This doesn't affect all games, but the two I'm playing right now it definitely does:

In Cyberpunk 2077, the cursor will not be visible except for at the very top/bottom of the screen. Sometimes I can click and the input will be somewhere else, but in general no input is accepted via mouse nor keyboard.
In EVE Online, my ship camera will spin wildly fast and I'll generally end up "under" my ship looking up. Sometimes I can click and the input will be somewhere else, but in general no input is accepted via mouse nor keyboard.

Other games I've noticed similar issues in: DOTA2, ARC Raiders.

The workaround I've found to get out of the "game is not accepting input" state is to press super+tab (which I have bound to overview), and then click the game window. Sometimes I have to do this twice, but once is usually enough.

I have found that I can reliably reproduce this bug if I:

• Playing game
• Move mouse to top monitor (depending on the game I might need to press esc to let my mouse escape the window, or press cmd+tab to select top monitor workspace)
• Switch to a different workspace on top monitor, do something
• Switch back to previous workspace on top monitor
• Bring mouse down to bottom monitor

I'm unsure if it's related to VRR or not. I've tried with VRR on (also tried on-demand), and honestly don't notice a difference either way in performance nor this bug. I have noticed however that some games will suffer from performance drops after I re-focus them, and I'll need to do my overview trick above a couple times and the FPS will generally correct itself.

I've tried tailing journalctl while reproducing this and have not seen anything, but perhaps there's a verbose setting I'm unaware of.

Config

input {
    keyboard {
        xkb {
            layout "us"
            model ""
            rules ""
            variant ""
            options "fkeys:basic_13-24"
        }
        repeat-delay 200
        repeat-rate 60
        track-layout "global"
        numlock
    }
    touchpad {
        tap
        natural-scroll
    }
}
output "DP-1" {
    focus-at-startup
    transform "normal"
    position x=0 y=1440
    mode "3440x1440@174.963000"
    variable-refresh-rate on-demand=true
}
output "DP-2" {
    transform "normal"
    position x=0 y=0
    mode "3440x1440@144.000000"
}
screenshot-path "~/Pictures/Screenshots/Screenshot from %Y-%m-%d %H-%M-%S.png"
layout {
    gaps 16
    struts {
        left 0
        right 0
        top 0
        bottom 0
    }
    focus-ring { off; }
    border {
        width 4
        active-color "#89b4fa"
        inactive-color "#45475a"
    }
    default-column-width { proportion 0.666667; }
    preset-column-widths {
        proportion 0.250000
        proportion 0.333333
        proportion 0.500000
        proportion 0.666667
        proportion 0.750000
        proportion 1.000000
    }
    center-focused-column "never"
}
cursor {
    xcursor-theme "phinger-cursors-dark"
    xcursor-size 32
}
environment {
    "DMS_SCREENSHOT_EDITOR" "swappy"
    "QT_QPA_PLATFORM" "wayland"
    "XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP" "Niri"
    "XDG_SESSION_DESKTOP" "Niri"
    "XDG_SESSION_TYPE" "wayland"
}
binds {
    Mod+0 { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "notepad" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Print repeat=false { spawn "dms" "screenshot" "--no-file"; }
    Mod+Return repeat=false { spawn "ghostty" "--gtk-single-instance=true"; }
    Mod+Shift+e { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "powermenu" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Shift+h { move-column-left-or-to-monitor-left; }
    Mod+Shift+j { move-window-down-or-to-workspace-down; }
    Mod+Shift+k { move-window-up-or-to-workspace-up; }
    Mod+Shift+l { move-column-right-or-to-monitor-right; }
    Mod+Shift+p { switch-preset-column-width-back; }
    Mod+Shift+v { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "clipboard" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Space { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "spotlight" "toggle"; }
    Mod+Tab cooldown-ms=250 { toggle-overview; }
    Mod+WheelScrollDown { focus-column-right; }
    Mod+WheelScrollUp { focus-column-left; }
    Mod+e repeat=false { spawn "nautilus" "--new-window"; }
    Mod+f repeat=false { spawn "/home/dusty/.nix-profile/bin/conditional-fullscreen.nu"; }
    Mod+g repeat=false { spawn "/home/dusty/.nix-profile/bin/eve-toggle.nu"; }
    Mod+h { focus-column-left-or-last; }
    Mod+j { focus-window-or-workspace-down; }
    Mod+k { focus-window-or-workspace-up; }
    Mod+l { focus-column-right-or-first; }
    Mod+o { show-hotkey-overlay; }
    Mod+p { switch-preset-column-width; }
    Mod+q repeat=false { spawn "/home/dusty/.nix-profile/bin/conditional-kill.nu"; }
    Mod+r { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "spotlight" "toggle"; }
    Mod+v repeat=false { toggle-window-floating; }
    Mod+w repeat=false { toggle-column-tabbed-display; }
    XF86AudioLowerVolume { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "audio" "decrement" "5"; }
    XF86AudioMute { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "audio" "mute"; }
    XF86AudioNext { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "mpris" "next"; }
    XF86AudioPause { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "mpris" "playPause"; }
    XF86AudioPlay { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "mpris" "playPause"; }
    XF86AudioPrev { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "mpris" "previous"; }
    XF86AudioRaiseVolume { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "audio" "increment" "5"; }
    XF86MonBrightnessDown { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "brightness" "decrement" "5"; }
    XF86MonBrightnessUp { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "brightness" "increment" "5"; }
    XF86Tools { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "audio" "micmute"; }
}
spawn-at-startup "dms" "run"
spawn-at-startup "1password"
spawn-at-startup "discord"
spawn-at-startup "steam"
spawn-at-startup "playerctld" "daemon"
spawn-at-startup "wl-paste" "--watch" "cliphist" "store"
spawn-at-startup "corectrl" "--minimize-systray"
spawn-sh-at-startup "ghostty --gtk-single-instance=true --quit-after-last-window-closed=false --initial-window=false"
window-rule {
    match app-id="1password"
    open-floating true
    block-out-from "screen-capture"
}
window-rule {
    draw-border-with-background false
    geometry-corner-radius 8.000000 8.000000 8.000000 8.000000
    clip-to-geometry true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="com.mitchellh.ghostty"
    default-column-width { proportion 0.333333; }
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="discord"
    default-column-width { proportion 0.500000; }
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="steam" title="Friends List"
    default-column-width { proportion 0.333333; }
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="steam_app_8500" title="EVE Launcher"
    default-column-width { proportion 0.333333; }
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="steam_app_1903340" title="Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"
    open-fullscreen true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="galculator"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="neovide"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="nemo"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="obsidian"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="opentrack"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="org.gnome.Nautilus"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="nemo"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="thunar"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="org.pulseaudio.pavucontrol"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="pavucontrol"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="ristretto"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="vlc"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="yad"
    open-floating true
}
window-rule {
    match app-id="zenity"
    open-floating true
}

xwayland-satellite is indeed installed and appears to be working:

~/.config/niri
✦ ❯ readlink /proc/(niri msg --json pick-window | jq .pid)/exe
/nix/store/vgzirc90qxi1hk1lpv4a2lm4c48d7zrk-xwayland-satellite-0.8/bin/.xwayland-satellite-wrapped

System Information

• niri version: niri stable v25.08 (commit 01be0e6)

• Distro: nixOS

• GPU: AMD 9070 xt (Powercolor Reaper)

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x

[Sempyos]

For the apps, please use xorg-xeyes and see if the eyes follow onto them, I'm decently sure this is an xwayland issue

[rykugur]

For the apps, please use xorg-xeyes and see if the eyes follow onto them, I'm decently sure this is an xwayland issue

There are definitely some oddities going on here. I'll split it into two scenarios: 1. same monitor/workspace, 2. separate monitor.

Same monitor/workspace

With a wayland rendered app, the eyes work fine. Tested with ghostty.
With an xwayland rendered app, the eyes go crosseyed. Tested with both discord and EVE online.

Different monitor

With a wayland rendered app, the eyes stop tracking when I cross the monitor boundary.
With an xwayland rendered app, the eyes also stop tracking when I cross the monitor boundary.

Other

I also tested with and without dms (DankMaterialShell), no difference.

[Sempyos]

Out of curiosity, does this sound similar to what you experience
#1959

[rykugur]

Out of curiosity, does this sound similar to what you experience #1959

Hmm, I want to say my symptoms are similar. The games don't freeze when in this state - animations still play, I can hear and see things going on normally (although often with reduced FPS).

For example in Cyberpunk 2077, sometimes after re-focusing the game will not take any input, but other times it will take input but I will have a significant reduction in FPS; usually toggling the overview as I outlined above and my FPS returns to normal.

I hope this answers your question, and thank you for taking the time.

[acshettle]

I'm having a similar issue right now although not identical. I just reinstalled cachy os because i damaged my polkit and other important utils, and now games that used to work fine with niri and noctalia refuse to properly focus. If I open a game (specifically deadlock) the mouse won't stay put in my main monitor, and moving my camera towards the left ends up sending my mouse to my second monitor. This makes games unplayable. I've tried tinkering with the launch options and using different compatibility layers, but the issue remains: I basically can't turn my head left. Any help getting my cursor to properly stay in my game window would be greatly appreciated, I'm getting real sick of endlessly troubleshooting.

[Sempyos]

Out of curiosity, does this sound similar to what you experience #1959

Hmm, I want to say my symptoms are similar. The games don't freeze when in this state - animations still play, I can hear and see things going on normally (although often with reduced FPS).

For example in Cyberpunk 2077, sometimes after re-focusing the game will not take any input, but other times it will take input but I will have a significant reduction in FPS; usually toggling the overview as I outlined above and my FPS returns to normal.

I hope this answers your question, and thank you for taking the time.

Applogies for the late response

With the xorg-xeyes test I mentioned above, can you verify if the games that show the issue have the eyes continue to follow around while the mouse is on the game. I can provide a video if this is hard to understand

[CanadaBry]

I also experience this bug with regard to mouse input.

I also noticed some games do not open in full screen, and instead open as a window in 50%.

My workaround previous was to always toggle the game in and out of full screen (Mod+Shift+F x2). This seemed to usually grab the cursor.

When the game was not reading inputs it did feel like it was treating it like it was in the 50% window state, even though it was full screen.

I have since done a fresh install of CachyOS and using their dot files the input focus seems to be working correctly.

The CachyOS dot files uses the focus-follows-mouse setting which I thought was the "fix", but after commenting it out, the window focus still behaved properly. However, it still has the issue of some games opening at 50% windowed when it should be full screen.

My previous dot files were the ones bundled with Niri. I made some minor changes, but no heavy customization.

[rykugur]

Out of curiosity, does this sound similar to what you experience #1959

Hmm, I want to say my symptoms are similar. The games don't freeze when in this state - animations still play, I can hear and see things going on normally (although often with reduced FPS).
For example in Cyberpunk 2077, sometimes after re-focusing the game will not take any input, but other times it will take input but I will have a significant reduction in FPS; usually toggling the overview as I outlined above and my FPS returns to normal.
I hope this answers your question, and thank you for taking the time.

Applogies for the late response

With the xorg-xeyes test I mentioned above, can you verify if the games that show the issue have the eyes continue to follow around while the mouse is on the game. I can provide a video if this is hard to understand

Hi there. I grabbed a video with my phone - it shows the eyes and the behavior I'm talking about somewhat. You'll notice when I click onto the game window (bottom monitor) sometimes the camera spins - it shouldn't do that, and that often coincides with low framerate, stops registering input, and need to focus/unfocus to fix.

https://youtube.com/shorts/oOONElwbK3Y

EDIT: it doesn't show it overly clearly on the video but the eyes do continue to follow the mouse around when the game has focus and I move the mouse. If I click and drag in game to pan the camera, the eyes stop moving (perhaps expected behavior?).

[Sempyos]

Thanky for the video !
I think this is an xwayland issue, as verified by xeyes being responseive, so probably not a niri issue, and instead you can go make an issue or discussion post with xwayland-satellite and close this

Sorry for late response

[rykugur]

Looks like somebody beat me to it four days ago 😆. I'll add a comment there. Thank you for your time!