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**Arran** · Jan 04, 2013, 09:12 AM

Why not just use a simple normal no fancy desktop switch? Do you really find it so cool if a cube falls a few times over their edges?

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 09:34 AM

Originally posted by Arran View Post

Why not just use a simple normal no fancy desktop switch? Do you really find it so cool if a cube falls a few times over their edges?

Absolutely, good question, I thought of that before posting, yes. I did try other effects and it's the same. The only one working smooth is "no effects", which then defeats the purpose of building and using any effects at all. And it's not just for desktop switching, as I explained. Most of the situations where an effect can be applied I have jerkiness.

So I said to myself, in such a case the question would in fact be "Why not have KDE/Kwin remove all of the effects and not allow running any?", rather than me not using the features provided to improve user experience and sometimes ergonomics cuz something's wrong in my installation.

I'm sure it's not part of the plans for Kwin to drop the effects, so since the effects are part of Kwin, my intention is not to revert to a lower user experience just to workaround something that does not work. I'd rather stay with my current release and file bugs to track down what's going on. Which is what I said I would do if I need to.

I reckon in some situations it is possible to cut down in features, I did that when I stopped using COMPIZ cuz I couldn't get it to work in 11.10. I dumped a few effects Kwin does not provide over Compiz (I did ask Kwin to develop them but they explained they would not). But dropping all the effects just because it's slow and jerky is not a viable mid-long term solution, as it defeats completely the purpose of using Kwin.

There clearly is something wrong in my installation and I want to find out what it is and if others have the same problem. Yes there are a few "effects adjustments" I can do, but it's still too jerky to be interesting to use.

**oshunluvr** · Jan 04, 2013, 10:33 AM

In order I would try:

1. Turn off the "Blur" effect.
2. Create and/or fine tune xorg.conf with options for your specific card.
3. xorg-edgers ppa

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 10:37 AM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

In order I would try:

1. Turn off the "Blur" effect.
2. Create and/or fine tune xorg.conf with options for your specific card.
3. xorg-edgers ppa

I was about to try edgers, I'll back off a little and try the first 2 first.

I do not have a xorg.conf when it comes from the PPA nvidia drivers or Nouveau drivers. Only the nvidia compiled have a xorg.conf. Then should I still manually create one if it's not there? I think Nouveau does not use xorg.conf anyway, so with Nouveau driver I would do step 1 and then step 3.

I'll dig internet on how and what to tweak in xorg.conf to improve performance.

**oshunluvr** · Jan 04, 2013, 10:40 AM

The Nouveau driver will never perform very well. Install the nvidia driver from the repos to start and edit the default xorg.conf file.

Search through my posts (I'm not at my linux machine right now) and look for nVidia topics to see what options I use. I have 8800GT cards and I think they're very similar to yours.

To test performance, install and use gtkperf . You should get 6-8 seconds with a full test run if you're set up correctly.

**oshunluvr** · Jan 04, 2013, 10:44 AM

Here's the main options I use. Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and try these additions in your Device section:

Code:

  Option     "Coolbits" "1A"
  Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
#        + Enables triple buffering. "Decreases the time an application stalls while waiting for vblank events, but increases latency slightly" ([COLOR=#417394]NVIDIA[/COLOR] Readme) 
  Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
#        + Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one. 
  Option "BackingStore" "True"
#        + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later 
  Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
#        + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed

Then restart X and run gtkperf again and see if those helped at all.

I would make a backup copy of xorg.conf before editing in case one of the options prevents the restart.

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 11:02 AM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

Here's the main options I use. Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and try these additions in your Device section:

Code:

  Option     "Coolbits" "1A"
  Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
#        + Enables triple buffering. "Decreases the time an application stalls while waiting for vblank events, but increases latency slightly" ([COLOR=#417394]NVIDIA[/COLOR] Readme) 
  Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
#        + Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one. 
  Option "BackingStore" "True"
#        + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later 
  Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
#        + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed

Then restart X and run gtkperf again and see if those helped at all.

I would make a backup copy of xorg.conf before editing in case one of the options prevents the restart.

Hey great tnx for pointing out options.

I'll try to find out some of your other posts for more info if need be.

No worries on backups, I backup changes, I use multiple test hard drives and I use dd to image my drives and partitions. I wouldn't live without these features!

tnx

**andystmartin** · Jan 04, 2013, 01:51 PM

The more I see of these problems, the more I am believing that Linus Torvalds was correct about NVidia: the company is not the greatest partner with Linux.

We seem to see far, far fewer issues with people who have other graphics cards installed: Intel and AMD. By virtue of the fact that we see fewer issues with the other graphics adapters, I will think twice before buying another NVidia-based graphics adapter.

Just thinking...

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 01:57 PM

Originally posted by andystmartin View Post

The more I see of these problems, the more I am believing that Linus Torvalds was correct about NVidia: the company is not the greatest partner with Linux.

We seem to see far, far fewer issues with people who have other graphics cards installed: Intel and AMD. By virtue of the fact that we see fewer issues with the other graphics adapters, I will think twice before buying another NVidia-based graphics adapter.

Just thinking...

I thought about it too. My next card I will try to see if everything is well supported, as my worst nightmare is when I fight against an unsupported or badly supported hardware/device. It's funny cuz nvidia has a lot of drivers for Linux, Solaris, BSD and whatnot. But that doesn't mean it's well supported.

I bought that card in 2007. Things have certainly changed since.

**oshunluvr** · Jan 04, 2013, 02:42 PM

Funny because from what I've read and experienced, there seems to be far more problems with ATI chips than nVidia and the Intel video is totally unsuitable for high performance applications like games and in some cases even video playback. I can only think of one instance where a problem with a particular nVidia model turned out to be a kernel-level bug. All other issues I've dealt with or heard of were distro or user caused and solvable at that level. The last ATI card I had was years ago because the driver was so buggy, the card was unusable. I upgraded to an nVidia card, which worked extremely well and have not purchased any other brands since then. My solo experience with an Intel was very similar to the ATI card so I again gave up on it and put an nVidia card in. Admittedly, the newest Intel video chips are better, but I only have them in laptops where performance isn't as much of an issue.

My understanding of Linus' issues had more to do with nVidia's reluctance to release driver specifications to open source, not their lack of "support." I.e. providing linux drivers - they do. But, I could be mistaken.

**Spadge** · Jan 04, 2013, 03:52 PM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

The last ATI card I had was years ago because the driver was so buggy, the card was unusable. I upgraded to an nVidia card, which worked extremely well and have not purchased any other brands since then.

Me too. Back when I used to run a windows desktop and a mythbuntu box.

I won't buy S3 either for the same reason, or anything made by Creative Labs.

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 05:57 PM

Originally posted by oshunluvr View Post

Here's the main options I use. Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and try these additions in your Device section:

Code:

  Option     "Coolbits" "1A"
  Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
#        + Enables triple buffering. "Decreases the time an application stalls while waiting for vblank events, but increases latency slightly" ([COLOR=#417394]NVIDIA[/COLOR] Readme) 
  Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
#        + Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one. 
  Option "BackingStore" "True"
#        + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later 
  Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
#        + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed

Then restart X and run gtkperf again and see if those helped at all.

I would make a backup copy of xorg.conf before editing in case one of the options prevents the restart.

WOW!!!!! That did make a difference! Impressive!

It's not as low cpu consumption as it is in 11.10, but it did lower the cpu usage and now it's 90% smooth, compared to 100% in 11.10. It still hesitates a little sometimes, but it's liveable.

Here are my gtkpref numbers (all under 12.10, should haved tried 11.10 too):

- Before any change I had 5.46sec;
- After using my xorg.conf from 11.10 (I had none in 12.10) it was 5.41sec;
- After trying all of your xorg options at once, down to 5.30sec. Not much of a difference but it did the trick in terms of smoothing out effects.

Any other tweaks you may have in your hat to lower cpu usage even more?

I don't understand why it's needed to have these options now and it was not in 11.10, but it works, so.

So now I have to fix my webcam issue (missing /dev/video0) and I can then upgrade to 12.10. loll By that time 13.04 will be released. lolll
But I will keep these options and apply them next time if I see it's sluggish/jerky. It's not slow per se, I think it takes the amount of time it's set at, it's just it seems to skip frames or stop then catch up, stop, catch up, etc.

Nice tweaks though.

tnx!

**FrankKubuntu** · Jan 04, 2013, 06:39 PM

Ok so now I tried upgrading libdrm from xedgers. Did not change anything. Then I upgraded to the newly packaged 313 drivers. Did not change anything as well.

Overall what I have seen as a behaviour is if I have no window opened everything is 100% smooth. Xorg cpu usage is 3 to 8%.
When I have one window opened or more and I switch out of that desktop to another one, or come back to the desktop with windows in, that's where it gets the less smooth. But with your options, Xorg now uses 3 to 13% of cpu instead of 9 or so to 20%.

Blur effect on or off changes nothing.
I have also tried upgrading xserver-xorg-core and common and no changes as well. Maybe it's outside the packages and I need some kind of parm or option to be turned on, like yours. I have tried so many packages and they all have the exact same result.

**oshunluvr** · Jan 04, 2013, 08:08 PM

Could be some effect or another or could be actually unrelated to xorg. Look at a hidden file in your home called .xsession-errors and see if anything jumps out at you. Look for errors that are repeated over and over. Also a file size larger than a few 100k is a sign something is wrong.

The gtk numbers you're getting are very good so that's not the issue. Mine are around 6 sec. mark but I'm driving dual monitors at 2560x1024.

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NVIDIA and Nouveau drivers jerky graphics and slow Xorg in 12.10

NVIDIA and Nouveau drivers jerky graphics and slow Xorg in 12.10

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