nvidia and compositing

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shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:53 am

ok if i have an nvidia 8600m with the nvidia closed driver installed, and no composite extension in my xorg.conf, how is xfce's built in compositor working?

atrus123 · Post by **atrus123** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:31 am

IIRC the NVidia binary provides its own composite.

dleverton · Post by **dleverton** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:05 am

The composite extension has been turned on by default for a while ago now, see commit (I'm not sure which release that corresponds to, but I'd guess 1.4).

shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:20 pm

if composite is on by default, does one need to explicitly turn it off for nvidia + compiz? maybe that is why my compiz performance sucks?

dleverton · Post by **dleverton** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:27 pm

shrndegruv wrote:if composite is on by default, does one need to explicitly turn it off for nvidia + compiz?

I rather doubt that compiz would work with compositing disabled....

shrndegruv wrote:maybe that is why my compiz performance sucks?

Highly unlikely. I'm afraid I can't help with your problem any more than that.

Post by **asturm** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:40 pm

It's because of Nvidias 8xxx drivers, 2D acceleration sucks big time.

energyman76b · Post by **energyman76b** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:36 pm

yeah, it is so bad, that I am thinking about selling by 8600Gt and buying a 3650 or 3850. I am pretty pissed of ATM. Performance is not existent.

shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:51 pm

dleverton wrote:
shrndegruv wrote:if composite is on by default, does one need to explicitly turn it off for nvidia + compiz?
I rather doubt that compiz would work with compositing disabled....

shrndegruv wrote:maybe that is why my compiz performance sucks?
Highly unlikely. I'm afraid I can't help with your problem any more than that.

I meant turn off xorg's composite so nvidia's is the only one available.

I thought nvidia was supposed to be good for compositing. I have a 2.5 ghz penryn processor and an nvidia 8600m card. I shouldnt see 7-30% power consumption from things like playing poker on wine and using firefox right?

Post by **asturm** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:59 pm

...not anymore, the KDE team even mentioned it in their release announcement of 4.1_rc1:

Users of NVidia cards with the binary driver provided by NVidia might suffer from performance problems in window switching and resizing. We've made the NVidia engineers aware of those problems, no fixed NVidia driver has been released yet, however. You can find information how to improve graphics performance on Techbase, although we ultimately have to rely on NVidia to fix their driver.

widremann · Post by **widremann** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 8:57 pm

You have to have the composite extension enabled to do anything with compositing managers (including, but not limited to compiz). While nVidia may have their own driver acceleration architecture for compositing and render and dri, all of that still requires that the server knows what it's doing. If the server doesn't know that it should redirect window contents to pixmaps, then it doesn't matter what the driver can or cannot do...you still won't be able to run a compositing manager.

shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 9:43 pm

hmm. Ok so its not a setup thing. I've actually got my permformance hiccups down to firefox when a site with flash is displayed. so i think it is a flash player issue not a compiz issue.

Alcap · Post by **Alcap** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 12:37 am

Flash makes my computer usage spike to 90% until I close the tab. I really don't know why, though. I'm not using a compositing window manager.

freelight · Post by **freelight** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:31 am

tmafcerqueira wrote:Flash makes my computer usage spike to 90% until I close the tab. I really don't know why, though. I'm not using a compositing window manager.

Try using swfdec instead of netscape-flash. That helped me some. It also has the added benefit of not running any embedded Flash animation until you click on it.

bunder · Post by **bunder** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:34 am

Moved from Off the Wall to Desktop Environments.

SeaTiger · Post by **SeaTiger** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:39 am

Nvidia 7 and 8 series actually work better with compiz-fusion then without. If you are using a single LCD monitor, without xinerama or twinview, then you can try my xorg.conf :

Code: Select all

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder57)  Wed Apr  2 00:14:06 PST 2008

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"X.org Configured"
	Screen	0	"Screen0" 0 0
	InputDevice	"Mouse0" "CorePointer"
	InputDevice	"Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "Files"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/misc/"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/TTF/"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/Type1/"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/"
	FontPath	"/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/"
EndSection

Section "Module"
	Load	"bitmap"
	Load	"wfb"
	Load	"xtrap"
	Load	"vbe"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Keyboard0"
	Driver		"kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Mouse0"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"Protocol" "auto"
	Option		"Device" "/dev/input/mice"
	Option		"ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier     "Monitor0"
	VendorName     "Monitor Vendor"
	ModelName      "Monitor Model"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier     "Card0"
	Driver         "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Screen0"
	Device		"Card0"
	Monitor		"Monitor0"
	DefaultDepth	24
	Option		"AllowGLXWithComposite"		"true"
	Option		"BackingStore"			"true"
	Option		"TripleBuffer"			"true"
	Option		"AddARGBGLXVisuals"		"true"
	Option		"RenderAccel"			"true"
	Option		"OnDemandVBlankInterrupts"	"true"
	Option		"DamageEvents"			"True"
	Option		"UseEvents"			"true"
	Option		"XvmcUsesTextures"		"true"
	Option		"PixmapCacheSize"		"524288"
	Option		"DPI"				"96 x 96"
	SubSection     "Display"
		Viewport    0 0
		Depth       24
	EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option		"Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Inside ccsm --> General Options --> Display Setting:
--> Detect Refresh Rate (uncheck)
--> Refresh Rate (120 if you are using LCD)
--> Sync To VBlank (uncheck)

Inside Nvidia X Server Setting --> X Screen 0 --> OpenGL Settings:
--> Sync to VBlank (check)
--> Allow Flipping (check)

My X and Nvidia driver info:

Code: Select all

[I] x11-base/xorg-server
     Installed versions:  1.4.2(05:49:08 AM 07/22/2008)(dmx dri hal input_devices_evdev input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse ipv6 sdl video_cards_nvidia xorg -3dfx -debug -input_devices_acecad -input_devices_aiptek -input_devices_calcomp -input_devices_citron -input_devices_digitaledge -input_devices_dmc -input_devices_dynapro -input_devices_elo2300 -input_devices_elographics -input_devices_fpit -input_devices_hyperpen -input_devices_jamstudio -input_devices_joystick -input_devices_magellan -input_devices_microtouch -input_devices_mutouch -input_devices_palmax -input_devices_penmount -input_devices_spaceorb -input_devices_summa -input_devices_synaptics -input_devices_tek4957 -input_devices_ur98 -input_devices_vmmouse -input_devices_void -input_devices_wacom -kdrive -minimal -nptl -video_cards_apm -video_cards_ark -video_cards_chips -video_cards_cirrus -video_cards_cyrix -video_cards_dummy -video_cards_epson -video_cards_fbdev -video_cards_fglrx -video_cards_geode -video_cards_glint -video_cards_i128 -video_cards_i740 -video_cards_i810 -video_cards_impact -video_cards_imstt -video_cards_mach64 -video_cards_mga -video_cards_neomagic -video_cards_newport -video_cards_nsc -video_cards_nv -video_cards_r128 -video_cards_radeon -video_cards_rendition -video_cards_s3 -video_cards_s3virge -video_cards_savage -video_cards_siliconmotion -video_cards_sis -video_cards_sisusb -video_cards_sunbw2 -video_cards_suncg14 -video_cards_suncg3 -video_cards_suncg6 -video_cards_sunffb -video_cards_sunleo -video_cards_suntcx -video_cards_tdfx -video_cards_tga -video_cards_trident -video_cards_tseng -video_cards_v4l -video_cards_vermilion -video_cards_vesa -video_cards_vga -video_cards_via -video_cards_vmware -video_cards_voodoo -video_cards_xgi -xprint)

[I] media-gfx/nvidia-cg-toolkit
     Installed versions:  2.0.0015(10:32:36 PM 07/24/2008)

[I] media-video/nvidia-settings
     Installed versions:  173.14.09(10:00:35 PM 07/21/2008)

[I] x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers
     Installed versions:  177.13(10:32:46 PM 07/24/2008)(acpi custom-cflags gtk kernel_linux multilib)

Regarding FF3 flash, other than netscape-flash, there are 2 packages that provide flash in the browser:

Code: Select all

* net-www/gnash
     Available versions:  (~)0.8.1-r1 (~)0.8.3 **9999 {agg cairo dbus fbcon ffmpeg gstreamer gtk kde mad nsplugin opengl qt3 sdl test video_cards_i810}
     Homepage:            http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash
     Description:         Gnash is a GNU Flash movie player that supports many SWF v7 features

* net-www/swfdec-mozilla
     Available versions:  (~)0.6.0 {xulrunner}
     Homepage:            http://swfdec.freedesktop.org/
     Description:         Swfdec-mozilla is a decoder/renderer netscape style plugin for Macromedia Flash animations.

I tried both and they actually perform much worse than netscape-flash. Display is slow, incomplete and use way more cpu power then netscape-flash. I am runnign 64-bit and the netscape-flash plugin has to run through a 32-bit wrapper, but still perform much better than the above 2 packages. Maybe they peform better in 32-bit, but I haven't try.

shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:04 pm

Thanx for the xorg.conf. Xubuntu gives a working setup but it definitely isn't optimized. Ill try these things out when I get home to see if they increase performance...

energyman76b · Post by **energyman76b** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:25 pm

I like mine better:

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
RgbPath "/usr/lib64/X11/rgb"
EndSection

Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "evdev"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "evdev"
# Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
# Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
# Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
# Option "Buttons" "14"
# Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
# Option "Emulate3Buttons" "true"
# Option "Resolution" "800"

Option "Name" "Logitech, Inc. MX610 Laser Cordless Mouse"
Option "evBits" "+1-2"
Option "keyBits" "~272-287"
Option "relBits" "~0-2 ~6 ~8"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "evdev"
Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "evdev"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event2"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
# HorizSync 30.0 - 110.0
# VertRefresh 50.0 - 150.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
Option "PixmapCacheSize" "200000"
Option "Backing Store" "on"
Option "DamageEvents" "True"
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

shrndegruv · Post by **shrndegruv** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 7:16 pm

i tried all the options from both configs and still see a wierd stall for fade effects when i minimize and maximize windows.