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The Cost Of Running Compiz

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  • #21
    I only play one game and that is UT2004. I have always needed to turn of Compiz when playing as I am a bit finicky when it comes to smooth gaming. Manually disable Compiz is not very convenient, so I used a script for that.

    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    
    kwin --replace &
    ut2004 ;
    killall -s USR2 compiz.real
    compiz --replace & 
    exit 0
    This will stop Compiz when you start UT2004 and start it again when you quit UT2004 automatically.

    This script is for KDE so you would need to change "kwin" to "metacity" (and "UT2004" for a different game) if you use Gnome. It has been a long time since I used this script (used it when I used KDE3) so it might not work any longer.



    Now I use KDE4 and I made this script:
    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    
    kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key Enabled false
    kwin --replace &
    ut2004 $@ ;
    kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key Enabled true 
    kwin --replace
    exit 0
    This script will probably only work for KDE4. Perhaps it would help somebody.

    Comment


    • #22
      Originally posted by mum1989 View Post
      Good test but...
      I don't understand why you don't turn off Compiz when you play games
      Because not everyone still has a computer from the stoneage...

      I'd rather have a moderate graphics setting and a repsonsiveness and hassle free desktop environment. I am also not going to turn of 3G on my phone whenever I make a call to preserve battery life. How's a desktop computer any different?

      PS: ow wait sarcasm

      Comment


      • #23
        The behavior of fglrx is very interesting here. I see two possibilities for it:
        - it's very much optimized for composited environments, texture_from_pixmap and all that
        - it does equally bad under both, because there's about equivalent unnecessary operation in the direct case comparable to compositing overhead

        First wouldn't make sense, as no enterprise distro runs compositing.
        Second would be just plain bad.

        Bridgman, can you shed some light?

        Comment


        • #24
          Originally posted by kraftman View Post
          Nice catch. So it looks not only compiz is slowing Ubuntu down in games. Btw. treating Ubuntu as a 'primary' Linux OS is starting to be a shame imho. Not only they released with serious issues (which still aren't fixed), but it has also slower graphic. Personally, I can't wait for Fedora 13 final release which is looking to be the best Fedora release ever - beta is rock stable and very fast (KDE version)
          The combination Ubuntu and NVidia sucks. It has been proved before. That's why I asked the crossplatform benchmarks to include and another Linux distro besides Ubuntu.

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          • #25
            Does it even make sense to include DRI1-based open source drivers in the benchmark? I think it doesn't!
            DRI1 doesn't support compositing and simply draws directly to the screen, no matter what.

            Comment


            • #26
              The "tests" are useless since they only look at stupid pointless games and other worthlessness.

              I suspect that it won't have ANY measurable effect on any measurements of anything that is actually ***USEFUL***. By USEFUL, I mean things that REAL PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO, like WEB BROWSING and WORD PROCESSING.

              Comment


              • #27
                Originally posted by Eazy View Post
                Code:
                #!/bin/bash
                
                kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key Enabled false
                kwin --replace &
                ut2004 $@ ;
                kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Compositing --key Enabled true 
                kwin --replace
                exit 0
                This script will probably only work for KDE4. Perhaps it would help somebody.
                Uhm how about Shift+Alt+F12?

                Comment


                • #28
                  Originally posted by brent View Post
                  Does it even make sense to include DRI1-based open source drivers in the benchmark? I think it doesn't!
                  DRI1 doesn't support compositing and simply draws directly to the screen, no matter what.
                  Yes it does because according to benchmark compositing is faster in DRI1 than DRI2.

                  Comment


                  • #29
                    Compiz makes my system a hell of a lot faster and more responsive but then, I don't do much gaming. It's downright annoying when I have to turn compositing off, or have to use unaccelerated compositing ala Xfwm4.

                    Comment


                    • #30
                      Originally posted by etnlWings View Post
                      Compiz makes my system a hell of a lot faster and more responsive but then, I don't do much gaming. It's downright annoying when I have to turn compositing off, or have to use unaccelerated compositing ala Xfwm4.
                      Yeah. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was completely unexpected test results regarding compositing with DRI2 vs DRI1 and the fact that Compiz actually increased speed in some cases. (check the benchmark yourself: Compiz has worse impact on the places where direct rendering on redirected surfaces actually works)
                      Is it possibly that since Compiz gets to use direct rendering with DRI2 that it simply will not shut down at all?

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