KDE 4 performance deteriorates over time.

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

Hello,
I'm a long time GNOME user, but recently decided to give KDE 4 a shot - and generaly I am impressed and positivley suprised.
Currently I'm using KDE 4.9.1 (latest in ~x86).
After logging in everything works excelent, fast and resposive, but after some time (hr or so) drawing get slower and slower. Changing tabs in editors or web browser takes quite some time and You can notice how element being rendered one by one.
After relog everything gets back to normal for same amount of time. I've tried to disable effects completely but it has no effect.
CPU usage is OK, and I don't have any errors in my logs when this problem occurs.

Basic informations:
linux-3.5.3
nvidia-drivers-304.37
Oxygen style for QT and GTK.

Qt settings:
Compositing type: XRender
Qt graphics system: Native
eselect qtgraphicssystem: native

Any ideas?

franzf · Advocate Joined: 29 Mar 2005 Posts: 4565

Take OpenGL for compositing type.

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

Sorry i didnt mentioned it before, but I tried every combination.

platojones · Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:41 pm Post subject:

I've noticed this too. I've yet to find the cause or pin it to any one thing. I just upgraded nvidia drivers to the latest version today. I'll see how that goes.

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

I switched both qt and gtk to QtCurve style and its OK for few hrs now.

We'll see how it goes.

DaggyStyle · Watchman Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5909

desktop indexing is on?
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^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

It is, but as I said, computer is basically idle, other operations are as fast as usual, just drawing stuff is completely wrecked.

DaggyStyle · Watchman Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5909

lyallp · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:37 am Post subject:

Out of curiosity, does an xterm with 'top' running give any clues?
Some memory leak causing swap to fill up?
Some process with high cpu?
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^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

lyallp · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 11:01 am Post subject:

Actually, you didn't answer about the swap and memory usage.

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^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

Herring42 · Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2012 2:00 pm Post subject:

I leave my system on for weeks at a time, and have not noticed any slowdown in KDE.

I'm currently running KDE 4.9.1 and QT 4.8.2

Its very quick and responsive!
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asturm · Developer Joined: 05 Apr 2007 Posts: 8935

Could be nvidia trouble. On my >3yr aged ThinkPad with intel driver there's no such thing as slowdowns even after >1d uptime.

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

I am getting that on one of the machines as well, after series of recent upgrades to 3.4.9, xorg-1.12, nvidia, and kde-4.8.3

What I see is that X windows is continously running at ~6% and so is konsole at ~6%, even if nothing is done (I am away from office and looking through ssh). X windows managed to use up over a day of CPU being last launched on September 5th.
Close and reopenning fireforx cures a feel of lag for sometime, but then it returns.

And, now to think, it is accompanied by bad gtk perfomance (say menus in acroread and firefox you sometimes have to hover the mouse to redraw),
so perhaps it is gtk engine after all. This started to happen somewhere in the beginning of summer

X (but seems not konsole, and I do not feel any lag) is also happening on my old home nvidia desktop, but not indeed on my intel laptop (with same kde/kernel)

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

Hmm, It seems only nvidia users reporting this problem so far.
I'll try nouveau later - for lack of better ideas.

BTW. any of You using infinality font patches?

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

All right, I picked up new trail

But it's yet to be confirmed.
I'm using Eclipse for like 90% of time, so I might not notice it at first, but when I restart it , all going back to normal - for some time. Then this stuff happens again.
So, when I'm in a situation when switching tabs in eclipse editor takes up to 5-7 seconds, I noticed X process CPU usage spikes to 100% and holing until another tab loads.

Any of You with similar problems are using eclipse or other java app?

orionbelt · Apprentice Joined: 05 Apr 2006 Posts: 178

I am experiencing this with firefox, as dmpogo reports above. Closing and reopening firefox takes care of it for a while. However, for me the problem gets worse over the course of days rather than just an hour, so it is less of an issue (perhaps a question of hardware?). I also found that closing tabs from certain web sites helps (javascript issues?) even without restarting firefox.

I run eclipse occasionally without any slowdowns but perhaps i do not run it for long enough to see any.

But i am not sure this addresses ^marcs's problem because he should be having the same issues under Gnome, shouldn't he, and he says he doesn't...

dmpogo · Advocate Joined: 02 Sep 2004 Posts: 3267 Location: Canada

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

OK guis, I'm 90% sure it is media-libs/freetype with "infinality" USE problem , mainly manifesting itself in java stuff. I turned it off and going without problems for 3 days now.
As for firefox problems I can't confirm anything - I'm using Chromium.

bammbamm808 · Guru Joined: 08 Dec 2002 Posts: 548 Location: Hawaii

Yes, It's been quite a few years of this now, innit?
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^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

Ok, it's not infinality patches. This still happens.
I think I'll just wait.

^marcs · Apprentice Joined: 09 Mar 2005 Posts: 169

I've changed GTK style from Oxygen into default, build-in, raw, win95 like, "my phone have better widgets" - Raleigh style.
Running OK for week now.

Maybe anyone else want to test it too.