Performance Optimizations

Graphics Check

glxinfo | grep "Max core profile version"

It needs to show a number 4.1 or greater otherwise graphically demanding games such as Zero-K won't run correctly. If it doesn't you need to do the following.

Do a backup before preceding. These instructions written for Debian 9 but will likely work on other distributions with little modification.

Backport libdrm from sid

apt-get build-dep libdrm
apt-get source libdrm -t sid
debuild -b -uc -us libdrm
dpkg install libdrm

Build New Mesa3d

apt-get build-dep mesa
ln -sf /usr/bin/llvm-config-3.9 /usr/bin/llvm-config
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/mesa/mesa
cd mesa
./configure --prefix=/opt/mesa --enable-texture-float --with-gallium-drivers=radeonsi,swrast --with-platforms=drm,x11 --enable-glx-tls --enable-shared-glapi --enable-glx --enable-driglx-direct --enable-gles1 --enable-gles2 --enable-gbm --enable-openmax --enable-xa --enable-osmesa --with-radeonsi-llvm-compiler --enable-sysfs --enable-vdpau --enable-xvmc --enable-openmax --enable-nine 
make -j 4
checkinstall

You will have to configure via the checkinstall menu to build and install a valid package.

This package will be built according to these values:

0 -  Maintainer: [ your@email ]
1 -  Summary: [ open source 3D computer graphics library ]
2 -  Name:    [ mesa ]
3 -  Version: [ version number from git ]
4 -  Release: [ 1 ]
5 -  License: [ MIT ]
6 -  Group:   [ checkinstall ]
7 -  Architecture: [ amd64 ]
8 -  Source location: [ mesa ]
9 -  Alternate source location: [  ]
10 - Requires: [  ]
11 - Provides: [ mesa ]
12 - Conflicts: [  ]
13 - Replaces: [  ]

Configure Xorg

Xorg -configure
cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Next restart your display manager.

systemctl restart lightdm.service