1.2.0 Released

Changes

• Add support for changing the minimum and maximum CPU frequency
  • Always within the safe values of the CPU.
  • Example: a CPU that goes from 1.6 GHz to 3.7 GHz only allows ranges like 2.5–3.6 GHz, but not lower than 1.6 or higher than 3.7.
• Handle cases where CPU frequency files are not available.
• Fix the CPU apply button size.
• Remove redundant "CPU" in CPU settings names.
• Better default values, following opt-in instead of opt-out.
  • Originally some options were enabled by default as they worked well on Cinnamon and KDE Plasma (The DEs me and my friends use), but since volt-gui is getting more popular, defaults were adjusted for better compatibility with other DEs such as for example GNOME (no systray by default).
  • Default to no systray
  • Default to no transparency.
• Fix duplicated systray icon.
• Remove unnecessary prints and improve tooltips.
• Small refactor to the Welcome Window code.
• Add more info about kernel settings in the Welcome Window.
• Standardize the way the option code its used.
• Add new kernel options, update recommended values and descriptions.
  • If you find any error on the recommended values or descriptions, or you want any additional option, please let me know.
  • New options added:
    • /proc/sys/vm/watermark_scale_factor
    • /proc/sys/vm/extfrag_threshold
    • /proc/sys/vm/compact_unevictable_allowed
    • /proc/sys/vm/defrag_mode
    • /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory
    • /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio
    • /proc/sys/vm/admin_reserve_kbytes
    • /proc/sys/vm/user_reserve_kbytes
    • /proc/sys/vm/mmap_min_addr
    • /proc/sys/vm/page-cluster
    • /proc/sys/vm/percpu_pagelist_high_fraction
    • /proc/sys/vm/min_unmapped_ratio
    • /proc/sys/vm/min_slab_ratio
    • /proc/sys/vm/numa_stat
    • /proc/sys/vm/oom_kill_allocating_task
    • /proc/sys/vm/oom_dump_tasks
    • /proc/sys/vm/panic_on_oom
    • /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes
    • /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes
    • /proc/sys/vm/dirtytime_expire_seconds
    • /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages
    • /proc/sys/vm/nr_overcommit_hugepages
    • /proc/sys/vm/hugetlb_optimize_vmemmap
    • /proc/sys/vm/stat_interval
    • /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/max_user_freq
    • /proc/sys/kernel/numa_balancing
    • /proc/sys/kernel/randomize_va_space
    • /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid
    • /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_runtime_us
    • /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_period_us
    • /proc/sys/kernel/sched_schedstats
    • /proc/sys/kernel/timer_migration
    • /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs
    • /proc/sys/kernel/pid_max
    • /proc/sys/fs/file-max
    • /proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
    • /proc/sys/net/core/wmem_max
    • /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_fastopen
    • /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_window_scaling
    • /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_timestamps
• Reorganize kernel settings.
• Add missing imports and remove unneeded ones.
• Bump reported version to 1.2.0.

Focus for the next updates

For the next releases I would like to work on the following features requested by users and friends:

• Support for lsfg-vk
  While the project has its own GUI, some users and some of my friends want it integrated so volt-gui can provide all gaming related options in one place.
  It will work similarly to how volt-gui manages MangoHud settings. Their GUI will remain more complete, but the settings added to volt-gui should be good enough :).

• Restore options to original values when volt-gui its closed
  Example: you start volt-gui with the powersave CPU governor, no scx scheduler, and certain kernel values. You apply optimizations to play, and when finished, volt-gui will allow restoring everything back to the initial values when you close it.
  This will be opt-in, meaning the user must enable it in the options and ideally the user must use it with the systray.

• Additional build formats
  Flatpak and/or AppImage support. Take in consideration that for the close future its improbable that volt-gui makes its way to FlatHub, so a possible flatpak would need to be downloaded from this repo and then installed.

• Additionally i will be reading more documentation to see what other features could be added and how.

• Those changes might come on any order.

How to use volt-gui:

Simply launch volt-gui from your application menu or run volt-gui from the terminal.

Additional requirements for some Options:

If this software is not provided, its options will be locked.

• scx in the case you want to make use of the CPU Pluggable Schedulers
• mangohud in the case you want to make use of the Render Pipeline Settings. Both the native or the Flatpak version satisfy the dependency.
• glxinfo its required to use the OpenGL Render Selector.
• vulkaninfo and the vulkan mesa layer are required to use the Vulkan Render Selector.

Builds:

• The builds are build against Debian 12, meaning anything newer than that should work without issues, and anything older will not work.
• There are 2 builds provided, both for x86_64 only:
  • A build created using Nuitka, it translates Python code to C code and then compile it into an executable.
  • A build created using pyinstaller, it bundles the Python application and all its dependencies into a single package
• Select and download one build, uncompressed it, open a terminal inside the folder with the files and run the install script with sudo, this will also upgrade any volt-gui version you have installed. And for removing it its the same thing but using the remove script.
• After this you should be able to run volt-gui from your terminal or from your start menu.
• For more info please read the Readme or the Welcome Window/Message that the program shows.
• Contributions are very welcome :)

Extras:

If you’d like to support my work in the FOSS community, you can do so by contributing to any of my projects or by donating.
Every contribution no matter the amount is greatly appreciated and helps keep these tools alive, maintained, and evolving.

That’s all for now, thank you for using my projects! If you can, please consider donating, and as always, GLHF!

Release: