Please write about NVidia's 2D performance problems

[unimatrix]

Now that's more like it... however, it is still not clear to what extent your problems are identical to what you quoted. After looking through the linked threads, it seems you ran browser benchmarks that show difference under Linux (which is to be expected) yet the actual "feel" of the system as a whole was not unuseably slow, just "not right".

I understand that "speed" of an interface is a very subjective matter, but what this thread was discussing was dead-slow behaviour of applications -- like a window that is impossible to scroll because of the speed, or an app taking many seconds to maximize or minimize. Your experience on the other hand seems more about things being slower than in windows, taking longer to show up or load or having slower benchmark numbers; while that is indeed a real problem with Linux atm., it affects all video configurations to some extent (see the recent "Intel graphics regressions" articles on this very site) not just nVidia and as such deserves a sepparate discussion.

The 185/190 driver revisions have solved most issues that people were experiencing, so if you still have extremely slow behaviour then it certainly is a bug, perhaps related to a certain board/bios/etc. configuration, and the thread on NV forums should help fix that. By the way, did you try the same tests with the nv driver (or nouveau) to get a direct comparison?

As to the general slowness of a Linux Desktop vs. the same system running *win, basically you can blame the X System -- however, keep in mind that for all it's weaknesses, you can use X in ways that are simply impossible with other OS'es: try running Firefox on your server with the window displaying on a thin client for example... It's all about tradeoffs.

First of all I have to say I'm so glad to get a reply from someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

I will be replying to your last paragraph because that is the case here. That is basically the whole problem - The same system is being slower and less responsive on Xorg than on *win. I suspected Xorg was to blame. I have tried it with nv too, and it wasn't any better. Possibly even worse. (but seriously, nv is a piece of s**t, even vesa has better 2d rendering performance)
So my question is, is there anything that can be done about it?
If not, then I'm afraid Linux will never be a successful desktop OS. It is just too frustrating to have all these tiny delays when minimizing/maximizind, opening/closing windows and especially the scrolling lag. I'm seriously thinking of switching back to Windows, because this is really getting on my nerves. (Not a threat, just being honest here. I love linux, but I simply cannot live with this.)

[mgc8]

Now that's more like it... however, it is still not clear to what extent your problems are identical to what you quoted. After looking through the linked threads, it seems you ran browser benchmarks that show difference under Linux (which is to be expected) yet the actual "feel" of the system as a whole was not unuseably slow, just "not right".

I understand that "speed" of an interface is a very subjective matter, but what this thread was discussing was dead-slow behaviour of applications -- like a window that is impossible to scroll because of the speed, or an app taking many seconds to maximize or minimize. Your experience on the other hand seems more about things being slower than in windows, taking longer to show up or load or having slower benchmark numbers; while that is indeed a real problem with Linux atm., it affects all video configurations to some extent (see the recent "Intel graphics regressions" articles on this very site) not just nVidia and as such deserves a sepparate discussion.

The 185/190 driver revisions have solved most issues that people were experiencing, so if you still have extremely slow behaviour then it certainly is a bug, perhaps related to a certain board/bios/etc. configuration, and the thread on NV forums should help fix that. By the way, did you try the same tests with the nv driver (or nouveau) to get a direct comparison?

As to the general slowness of a Linux Desktop vs. the same system running *win, basically you can blame the X System -- however, keep in mind that for all it's weaknesses, you can use X in ways that are simply impossible with other OS'es: try running Firefox on your server with the window displaying on a thin client for example... It's all about tradeoffs.

[unimatrix]

You revive an year-old thread to post what accounts to a "mee too"?! Why? You could at least specify which configuration gives you the trouble, otherwise that was a pretty useless post.

If you are still using Ubuntu 8.04 as in that thread, understand that it's almost two years old and both X.Org and the nVidia drivers have progressed immensely since. I don't have any problems with any of my 4 nVidia-based computers, all running up-to-date versions of software (KDE 4.2) and drivers. If you do have these problems with recent versions, posting in the nVidia forums would certainly be better since you'd've found a possibly rare bug.

I have had these problems with EVERY ubuntu version and with every nvidia driver version.
I have posted to nvnews: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=135027 ( even videos showing the problem ) and ubuntuforums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1257784 and http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1196716
Most of those are firefox-oriented, because the problem is most visible there, but obviously it's system-wide.

And I have tried absolutely everything. Phoronix is my last hope, that is why I am now posting here.

[mgc8]

You revive an year-old thread to post what accounts to a "mee too"?! Why? You could at least specify which configuration gives you the trouble, otherwise that was a pretty useless post.

If you are still using Ubuntu 8.04 as in that thread, understand that it's almost two years old and both X.Org and the nVidia drivers have progressed immensely since. I don't have any problems with any of my 4 nVidia-based computers, all running up-to-date versions of software (KDE 4.2) and drivers. If you do have these problems with recent versions, posting in the nVidia forums would certainly be better since you'd've found a possibly rare bug.

[unimatrix]

Yes, I have 8600M GS in my laptop and have an extremely bad performance with Ubuntu 8.04. First of all it's slow, especially text scrolling in gnome-terminal. When using Midnight Commander, trying to view/edit files is very painful. nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 (-a GlyphCache=1 doesn't work for some reason, there's no such setting in my case) helps with that, but somehow it manages to totally screw all the rest of my system, especially when I switch between windows. It's as if active window has cached fonts and everything is fast, but as soon as I switch to another window all the caches are dropped and nvidia starts rendering it cold. Note that all of this happens even without compiz. Compiz makes it worse. Compiz+Emerald make it unbearable, the delays are two and more seconds, and what's the most funny part, become noticeable without InitialPixmapPlacement=2.

The latest 173.14 and 177.13 drivers added another bug to the mix: in gnome-terminal (and in Midnight Commander) when you edit a file and move your cursor it often leaves "trails" in its old positions and not always draws itself in its new position. Editing files is even more pain, you don't even know where you have your cursor at the moment! Press Ctrl+L and suddenly you could notice it's in the wrong line/column. Enabling TripleBuffering helps, but not always. It's still happening sometimes.

Plus I've got an impression that 173.14/177.13 drivers have even more performance problems than 169.12 that is shipped with Ubuntu 8.04.

Additionally, for quite some time I was attributing the slowness to Firefox 3.0 and Ubuntu 8.04 (I had performance problems on windows with early firefox alphas) and have been thinking anything from "why the hell firefox on windows works so much faster than on windows" to "what the hell did they break in Ubuntu 8.04 this time to make Linux so unbearably slow". That was until I switched to nv driver, which had absolutely no performance problems as far as I've seen. Of couse it doesn't have 3d acceleration (and some dithering problems) though, which is a showstopper for me and forces me to get back to Vista.

Even worse is that a lot of people who scream "nvidia drivers work perfectly for me" might not even now they have the problem. They might think this is how it is supposed to work. You can spot performance problems only in the extremes on when comparing it with something else. And if they had neither it looks as if it's ok.

All this means that it might force me and some of my friends (who don't even care for Linux but might want to try it some time in the future) to avoid NVIDIA like a fire next time. Some already did and decided to wait for the next ATI for their next upgrade. Their reputation of good Linux support turned out to be fake and I hope that more and more people will realise that.

Plus what they don't realise is that their bad reputation on Linux causes their Windows users to reconsider buying from them next time. Just because they might want to try Linux. I can't imagine their marketing doesn't care about that.

Exactly the same in my case. I'm SOOO glad somebody pointed this out.

I'm reviving this thread, because this urgently needs to get resolved. It's driving me mad, and giving me dark thoughts... like moving back to Windows...

[kraftman]

Did you ever try something else besides from Ubuntu? I can not see problems with Kanotix where X is still Xorg 7.1.1 and Firefox - there called Iceweasel is 2.0.x by default.

Of course. I tried many distros and 2D performance was always awfull with nvidia binary blobs (GF 6800XT AGP). I don't have big experience with other cards but on Intel card that I had in laptop 2D performance was perfect (including flash animations!!). If someone thinks that his nvidia card is not affected probably CPU does dirty work which should be done by GPU. There are some improvements with the latest drivers, but mainly in Firefox performance. KDE4 is still dog slow for me. 2D is faster in some situations when I use vesa!

EDIT:

There are performance problems with 5xxx series cards on win xp too. Scrolling in firefox is sometimes horrible.

[Linuxhippy]

The last two driver releases added excellent RENDER support, even more complete than many open-source drivers.

The last driver without proper RENDER accaleration remains fglrx for now :-/

[gummybearx]

just wanted to sound off... I have a 7900gt in opensuse 11 64bit and 173.14.12 drivers, and experience no problems with 2d or 3d. im using c-f as well, no memory leaks :-)

[adamj]

I think Firefox under Vista is silky smooth for on an 8800 GTX. It doesn't have an embarassing 4 second pause when rescaling images or zooming in Google maps, either.

[oyvind]

I've got an 8600GT (purchased just recently), and even with all tweaks (initial pixmap placement, glyphcache and 177.X beta drivers), I'm definitely not happy with 2D. So I really hope nvidia means business when they say they're working on improving it.