If you have a lagging Firefox scrollbar, if you go to resize a widget, or when you select menu tabs, it seems to hesitate before showing you the next menu, then this post will probably solve that. It is easy to do with a few clicks but it seems many people who are trying Kubuntu Intrepid or KDE 4 in Hardy for the first time don't know where certain settings are or even what they are so I wrote this up based on nothing more than my personal experience. OpenGL is used by default, and I do believe that is a mistake. If your card isn't capable, your screen will go black. With Xrender, this does not seem to happen.
There is really little out there that compares the two for anyone to really make a good choice, so experimentation seems to be how I found this out.
I think it has something to do about its manner of processing the effects and "repainting" the page but I know nothing about writing code or such things and Google'd it and found stuff that was over my head.
OpenGL for some reason with my Intel video just killed speed of everything, including opening menus, transferring files, reading disks (i.e. Amarok would take forever and a day to update but with Xrender selected, it was a matter of seconds). Firefox would lag and scrolling a page was incredibly annoying. OpenGL looked slightly better but it is hardly worth it.
The boxed area is highly suggested before doing this unless you are okay with recreating all of your customized desktop settings in the event of a minor "failure." Going back to or enabling the settings with OpenGL if your card can't handle it seems to be the issue so this might be unnecessary, but it takes a mere few seconds and so might be worth that outside chance of being annoyed later. I think Xrender works on most machines. My laptop as a crappy SIS integrated card with no "real" 3D code built into it, and XRender works fine. Mind you, OpenGL is the default on that machine and I find that to be an issue for regular people... who would know? The choice is embedded in some obscure "advanced" setting.
So you are ready.
System Settings --> Desktop --> Then check "Enable All Effects."
DO NOT APPLY OR OK YET!
"Advanced" button --> Popup lets you select OpenGL or Xrender. (I know, this seems anti climatic)
Select Xrender rather than OpenGL.
Then confirm what you need to. You'll get a pop up to confirm settings. If it doesn't work, your screen will go black and after the allotted time is should revert back to your original setting, but it never does for me. In this case, revert to my boxed area if you did the back up. If not, try to log back in. Nada? You'll have to rename your .kde or .kde4 directory, log back in, let kde recreate those for you and salvage what you can from the old one.
P.S.
In the "effects" tab, I shut off "translucency." I like the effect but it slows things down.
There is really little out there that compares the two for anyone to really make a good choice, so experimentation seems to be how I found this out.
I think it has something to do about its manner of processing the effects and "repainting" the page but I know nothing about writing code or such things and Google'd it and found stuff that was over my head.
OpenGL for some reason with my Intel video just killed speed of everything, including opening menus, transferring files, reading disks (i.e. Amarok would take forever and a day to update but with Xrender selected, it was a matter of seconds). Firefox would lag and scrolling a page was incredibly annoying. OpenGL looked slightly better but it is hardly worth it.
The boxed area is highly suggested before doing this unless you are okay with recreating all of your customized desktop settings in the event of a minor "failure." Going back to or enabling the settings with OpenGL if your card can't handle it seems to be the issue so this might be unnecessary, but it takes a mere few seconds and so might be worth that outside chance of being annoyed later. I think Xrender works on most machines. My laptop as a crappy SIS integrated card with no "real" 3D code built into it, and XRender works fine. Mind you, OpenGL is the default on that machine and I find that to be an issue for regular people... who would know? The choice is embedded in some obscure "advanced" setting.
If you are using KDE 4 with Hardy, copy your /home/"username"/.kde4 folder to some other place. In the event this causes you to get a black screen, frequently it doesn't seem to "undo" and you can't log into your desktop without deleting the directory and starting over and you will lose all of your settings.
If you are using Kubuntu Intrepid, at very minimum you should copy your /home/"username"/.kde/share/config directory somewhere.
In the event you do have in issue, do a ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the xserver, then choose the login of "failsafe" it will pull up a terminal and you can launch a file manager there (konqueror, dolphin, my favorite is krusader... it just seems fast, powerful, intuitive and you can "sudo apt-get install krusader" If you are running Hardy, don't run a kde 4 file manager of as soon as you delete the "badly configured" directory, it will be recreated. At any rate, you can just rename the "badly configured" .kde4 directory and recopy your backed up directory. In Intrepid, when you launch an app, it will recreate the directory as soon as you delete it so that you'll never get there, but you can delete the files in the /.kde/share/config directory, recopy those and then login normally. Most of your settings will be restored... I think.
If you are using Kubuntu Intrepid, at very minimum you should copy your /home/"username"/.kde/share/config directory somewhere.
In the event you do have in issue, do a ctrl-alt-backspace to restart the xserver, then choose the login of "failsafe" it will pull up a terminal and you can launch a file manager there (konqueror, dolphin, my favorite is krusader... it just seems fast, powerful, intuitive and you can "sudo apt-get install krusader" If you are running Hardy, don't run a kde 4 file manager of as soon as you delete the "badly configured" directory, it will be recreated. At any rate, you can just rename the "badly configured" .kde4 directory and recopy your backed up directory. In Intrepid, when you launch an app, it will recreate the directory as soon as you delete it so that you'll never get there, but you can delete the files in the /.kde/share/config directory, recopy those and then login normally. Most of your settings will be restored... I think.
System Settings --> Desktop --> Then check "Enable All Effects."
DO NOT APPLY OR OK YET!
"Advanced" button --> Popup lets you select OpenGL or Xrender. (I know, this seems anti climatic)
Select Xrender rather than OpenGL.
Then confirm what you need to. You'll get a pop up to confirm settings. If it doesn't work, your screen will go black and after the allotted time is should revert back to your original setting, but it never does for me. In this case, revert to my boxed area if you did the back up. If not, try to log back in. Nada? You'll have to rename your .kde or .kde4 directory, log back in, let kde recreate those for you and salvage what you can from the old one.
P.S.
In the "effects" tab, I shut off "translucency." I like the effect but it slows things down.
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