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    Saucy slower than Raring with Intel graphics

    I'm not too happy here as I've always been able to use the development version of Kubuntu since 11.04 as my main installation but for me Kubuntu 13.10 is not running very well.

    The PC that I'm using has Intel graphics which I've upgraded from Raring and installed afresh twice using different hard drives but I'm seeing screen updating to be very much slower compared to Raring. The difference is very noticeable when switching workspaces and resizing applications. For now I've abandoned Saucy and reverted to Raring. There have been some updates in -proposed that have specifically referred to the slow updating of the display in Ubuntu/Unity but installing those hasn't helped.

    Yesterday I installed Fedora 18, the KDE version and then I upgraded it to Fedora 19 which is currently at the beta stage of development. Apart from one application which wouldn't start due to a dependency problem that will no doubt be fixed shortly I found Fedora 19 to be rock solid with the screen updating just as it should.

    Any comments? I've spent too long using Ubuntu and its various flavours to simply jump ship. I really do want to find a fix or flag a fixable bug otherwise I'll have no alternative to moving elsewhere which I really do not want to do. :mad:
    Last edited by Guest; Jun 15, 2013, 05:16 AM.

    #2
    Not a real fix but you could change compositing from OpenGL to Xrender. That helped me to get rid of some weird artefacts in Kubuntu 12.10 (luckily things were fine ootb in 13.04). Go to System Settings > Desktop Effects > Advanced tab and change the "Compositing type".

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      #3
      Originally posted by Euroman View Post
      Not a real fix but you could change compositing from OpenGL to Xrender.
      I tried that. Making the change didn't have any affect on the problem that I'm seeing here.

      Both 12.10 and 13.04 run fine on this PC. Changes have been made that affect 13.10 which was fine for the first couple of weeks.

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        #4
        Did you check to see if the Blur effect was active? Blur and Intel Graphics don't work well together.
        Windows no longer obstructs my view.
        Using Kubuntu Linux since March 23, 2007.
        "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." - Sherlock Holmes

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          #5
          Originally posted by Snowhog View Post
          Did you check to see if the Blur effect was active? Blur and Intel Graphics don't work well together.
          All rather academic now as the PC that I was using has gone to a new owner and I'm considering its replacement right now.

          Blur was effective but it doesn't cause a problem on this laptop that has a similar specification*. It has been in constant use for over a week now although I do have 13.04 installed. One further problem on that other PC was that the screen would freeze once or twice a day with only the mouse pointer working then after about five seconds that too would lock up. Even my "rock solid" Fedora installation froze from time to time if I left it running for long enough.

          I have retained the errant installations on spare hard drives so it will be interesting to see what happens when or if I install those in my new PC.

          Thanks for your reply anyway.

          * By similar specification I am referring to graphics card, RAM and installed applications.

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            #6
            Exactly what Intel graphics do you have? i915? I am running 13.04 and am tempted to update to 13.10, but if you say graphics performance is worse then I probably shouldn't do that. Or would it help you if I could confirm the issue?

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              #7
              Originally posted by dode View Post
              Exactly what Intel graphics do you have? i915? I am running 13.04 and am tempted to update to 13.10, but if you say graphics performance is worse then I probably shouldn't do that. Or would it help you if I could confirm the issue?
              As I said in my previous post, I no longer have the PC in question so I can't be 100% sure of the graphics chip used but I believe it was i915.

              Since my last post I have started to see a similar problem on this Dell laptop, also with i915 graphics but running Kubuntu 13.04. The problem happens rarely but when it does I see a total freeze that lasts for a second or two. When I regain control of the laptop I see very laggy screen updates and logging out and restarting lightdm is the easiest and quickest way to restore normal functionality.

              My initial post in this thread was in June and no-one else has confirmed a similar problem either here or on the Ubuntu forums. But since I have had problems on two items of very different hardware with two Kubuntu releases and the latest Fedora (KDE) release surely there must be a bug somewhere that needs to be found. For what it's worth, on the PC which I no longer have I also ran Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Xubuntu 13.10 without any freezing or slow-downs.

              A KDE problem or an video update that is common to all flavours of Ubuntu but only affecting Kubuntu?

              Searching for i915 in Launchpad gives 356 bug reports, some very long and detailed. I haven't found anything that I can "me too" yet though.
              Last edited by Guest; Sep 07, 2013, 10:26 AM. Reason: Added info re Launchpad search

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                #8
                So, I just made a clean new installation of 13.10 on a ThinkPad L420 with i915 graphics, the graphical performance seems to be normal, I don't notice any difference to 13.04.

                On 13.04 however I remember having a severe degradation of graphical performance, like very slow window animations and scrolling, a couple of times. It suddenly started and could only be resolved by restarting the system.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by dode View Post
                  On 13.04 however I remember having a severe degradation of graphical performance, like very slow window animations and scrolling, a couple of times. It suddenly started and could only be resolved by restarting the system.
                  Thanks for letting me know. I must take a closer look at those existing bug reports some time. If I find anything relevant I'll post the bug report number(s) in this thread.

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                    #10
                    Just updating my last post to say that I've found several bug reports that indicate others may be experiencing either the same or similar problems with Intel graphics but I haven't found anything definite . One report indicated that the problem with pre-Raring releases had been fixed but that Saucy was also similarly affected.

                    Anyway, I've now installed Kubuntu 13.10 beta 2 on a Samsung R720 laptop with an ATI graphics card and all is well - as I expected.

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                      #11
                      Try using x-org edgers ppa

                      Graphics on my Haswell 4770T have been working fine under Saucy, although I haven't tested much yet. On Raring, I had to get the latest graphics driver stack elements from https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa to get the best performance and resolve an OpenGL "tearing" issue that I was having under a Steam game (Portals). I suggest you try the x-org edgers ppa. Upgrading your graphics software/driver stack to the latest versions can fix a lot of known problems.

                      Intel does a fantastic job pushing the development of graphics drivers on Linux. Check out their progress on the Intel Open Source Technology Center web page for Intel Graphics: https://01.org/linuxgraphics/

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