Tips for making SM5 run smoother in Linux?

So after wrestling with Linux getting everything to work right I fire up SM5 to test it and play a couple of rounds. It runs..... barely... after shutting off backgrounds and reducing all settings to minimum I got an okay framerate of like 30 - 45 fps with frameskipping going on. its playable but ugly. so are there any tips out there on making SM5 run better on Linux?

heres some specs to help out

PC: Andamiro MK9
CPU: 1.6ghz celeron?
RAM:2gb 667mhz
GPU: nVIDIA 8400GS

I had an nVIDIA 7200GS with 128mb of onboard ram before and I thought that was the bottleneck so I upgraded it to the 8400gs that the PIU Fiesta 2 PCs have but It gave me no improvment whatsoever

Any helpful tips would be appreciated! :)

if you are using sm5 try an theme like ultralight, barebone or consensual ya can get them here http://sm.ajworld.net/themes/
also I did some testing on old hardware myself and my quad noteskin does work a bit smoother, try it out http://zettbou.co.uk/Unlimited_Stepman_Works/_Noteskin/SM5/QuadV3.rar

I run myself barebone with my quadskin on my ancient hardware at work for testing and it does give me a bit more fps

Try turning fast note rendering on in options. Default should run fine on an MK9 (I run it on an MK7!)

hmmmm.....I have fast note rendering turned on and ive tried ultralight and the default theme and im still getting jittery framskippy goodness, its even worse when two players are playing. I just dont get it, could it be the distro im running or the driver? Im running Lubuntu 15.4 64bit because its lightweight and the official nVIDIA driver for the graphics card, not the xorg opensource one. One thing I did notice is that the CPU is constantly at 100% whenever stepmania is running.

Im open to starting over from scratch with a different distro or something

Lol I wish this was an ITG dedicab :P

Try again with the latest commit if you're using PIUIO, it should be a bit lighter on the CPU now, which might help.

So I upgraded my MK6 CPU from a celeron 2.53 to a pentium 4 3.0 (prescott with hyperthreading) to see if that helps (chip+zalman cooler+arctic silver = $30). After the piuio patch now most things are running smoothly with a 1.11 load on the system.

It only has trouble on some songs with video backgrounds but not all of them.

So quick questions.

1. Does anyone know what video format is least intensive on systems with weak video cards/processors? I'd like to try converting mine and see if that clears up the last of the step stuttering I'm seeing.

2. on the bgfit options which one is optimal for processors?

For anyone using a GX mk6 machine here are the settings I've found that work best for me.

1. use the latest piuio and sm builds to minimizing studdering with lights.
2. if you have any background videos convert them to mpeg1 at 640x480. ("avconv -i <input> -s vga -c:v mpeg1video -q:v2 <outputfile>" is what I used)
3. I vsync off, fast note rendering on, BGBrightness 70

I'm getting mostly higher than 60fps with the default theme at this point.

grab a spare harddrive and give this a go: https://github.com/sherl0k/InstallTheGroove/