How long before I can play 3D games WHILE running compiz!?

[humphreybc]

Haha I never said it didn't work, and is it beta?? I wouldn't have known!! Seems to work really well and i'm impressed beyond words. I'm too addicted to the wobbly windows to go back to windows now... it's just so... mesmerizing. The best thing is to get a sweet song playing and then grab a window and make it dance to the beat. Ahhh good times.

[bridgman]

Here's the current status as I understand it :

With fglrx, video through Xv should redirect properly and be flicker-free in a window under Compiz, while 3d apps (or video through OpenGL) will flicker unless you run the app fullscreen and have Compiz set to "Unredirect Fullscreen Windows". I can't comment on future plans for fglrx in this area.

There were a couple of reports of crashing when unredirecting a window with the current fglrx drivers, ie going fullscreen with that Compiz setting, don't know if we have been able to repro that in house yet.

With the open drivers, the situation is similar. Video through Xv redirects properly and is flicker-free even in a window. There is code for tear-free Xv playback but that assumes running *without* a compositor. 3D still draws directly to the screen, so you will get flicker with 3D apps or video through GL unless you run fullscreen and tell Compiz to "Unredirect fullscreen windows".

If you run the work-in-process next generation open code (KMS+GEM/TTM+DRI2+radeon-rewrite) then 3D redirects properly so you can get flicker-free 3D under Compiz (and your 3D apps spin on the Compiz cube).

Lordmozilla's point that running 3D apps under Compiz does put some load on the GPU and affec your performance, so users with anything but a high end card may still end up either running games with Compiz off or using the "unredirect fullscreen windows" option to bypass compositing for fullscreen apps (and running their games fullscreen).

[Melcar]

Fglrx already allows flickerless games with Compiz, as long as they're in fullscreen. This has been the case since the 8.11 drivers if I remember right. Windowed games will still flicker like mad unfortunately. Flickerless video playback ha started with the 9.2s; it's still not stable in that it often kills X, but I'm sure further testing and fixes should alliviate that.
Open source drivers have flickerless video playback already. What I find amusing is that they don't have flickerless games. Only some (Nexuiz) are able to function with no problem, while many others (Alien Arena, Warsow) suffer from flickering even if you have the game in fullscreen.

[Zhick]

What I find amusing is that [the foss drivers] don't have flickerless games. Only some (Nexuiz) are able to function with no problem, while many others (Alien Arena, Warsow) suffer from flickering even if you have the game in fullscreen.

That doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the drivers. It's propably your window-manager. compiz? I know back when I tried compiz the unredirect-fullscreen-windows-option seemed sort of broken. but I was also using fglrx back then.
Or maybe the games are not really running as fullscreen but as maximized borderless window.
I don't experience any flickering when using fullscreen 3d-apps (including war$ow) and with KWin's compositing and radeon.

[humphreybc]

If you run the work-in-process next generation open code (KMS+GEM/TTM+DRI2+radeon-rewrite) then 3D redirects properly so you can get flicker-free 3D under Compiz (and your 3D apps spin on the Compiz cube).

Where do I get this, and is it easy to install and reliable?

[bridgman]

If you have an app which doesn't work properly in fullscreen the easiest workaround for now seems to be wrapping the app with a script to turn off compiz, run the app, then re-enable compiz after the app finishes. I haven't played with it much but here's a link :

http://shiben.blogspot.com/2007/06/f...nvidia_20.html

This approach is useful even if you don't have a flicker problem, since running a compositor does eat some GPU cycles. If you have a big screen and a small GPU (either a 4-pipe GPU or a narrow / slow memory bus) the overhead from compositing can be pretty significant.