Specs are: i5-6200u, 8GB RAM, 1600x1200 external display, also tested on 1920x1080 eDP display.There are a list of compositors shown in MATE Tweak:Marco, No compositorMarco, Software CompositorMarco, Compton GPU CompositorCompizWhich of the following gives the best performance in games, if at all?
What is a compositor (in general), and which gives the best performance (Ubuntu Mate 16.04)?
window compositor
When using a compositing window manager, each application window hasan off-screen buffer that the application draws into. It is the taskof the window manager to create a composition of windows on screen,with each window reflecting the contents of the buffer the applicationhas written into. The window manager does of course not compose thescreen out of its free will; the windows are placed by the user usingthe mouse or keyboard commands.With this arrangement an application can draw to its window as if itwas the only graphical program running, and it is the task of thecompositor to make several programs coexist on the same screen, byplacing the windows and clipping them if they overlap.Before the introduction of compositing window managers, stackingwindow managers were typically used. With a stacking window manager,when a window belonging to an application needed to be redrawn, theapplication itself had to be send a message informing that (part of)the window had been exposed. When this happened, the application wasexpected to do the redrawing. If the application failed to do so, thearea would typically retain its old, now garbled contents.I'm not much into games, but it is my understanding that theytypically use the display in full-screen mode. In this case thecompositor is not very relevant, and the compositor may even bedisabled altogether.