Please write about NVidia's 2D performance problems

[Kano]

As user:

mkdir -p ~/.kde/Autostart
echo nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1 > ~/.kde/Autostart/nvidia.sh
chmod +x ~/.kde/Autostart/nvidia.sh

You could discuss if you really want SyncToVBlank=0, because scaled youtube videos look much better with vsync on with latest flash. That only works with 177.x . Also the vsync option is stored in .nvidia-settings-rc, so you could start

nvidia-settings -l

too in order to load all settings from the configfile (the first two options are not stored there as they are not accessable via the gui).

[Xanikseo]

The easiest way is to add a session to the sessions applet in the preferences sub-menu, and use that line as a command. It would run that command as soon as you log in.

[etymxris]

nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1 -a SyncToVBlank=0

Just that by itself helps me a lot, haven't restarted X to try the other settings yet. Is there an easy way to get the settings applied every time I start X?

[energyman]

were - amd x2 6000+ 4gb ram, 8600gt.

[Xanikseo]

Really? Have you tried those exact options? If so, that's annoying, perfect here. Then again, I didn't have windows taking seconds to maximise before.. oh well.


What are your specs?

[energyman]

been there, done that, no real improvement.

[Xanikseo]

I think I may have found the magical solution to the 2D performance problems. Look what I got with gtkperf with 1000 iterations on my 8600gts:

gtkperf -c 1000
GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Sat Aug 9 20:30:55 2008

GtkEntry - time: 0.11
GtkComboBox - time: 8.94
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 7.30
GtkSpinButton - time: 1.08
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.81
GtkToggleButton - time: 5.00
GtkCheckButton - time: 3.70
GtkRadioButton - time: 3.99
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 23.73
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 3.37
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 1.96
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 2.20
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 2.12
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 4.03
---
Total time: 68.34

These options are taken from loads of different places (mainly different posts on NVnews), and suddenly I struck gold with a special combination. This may look a little overkill, but I'm not sure which options are useless, and I don't think I will try to find out; if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Here they are:

Enter this into the terminal:

nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1 -a SyncToVBlank=0

And I KNOW some of you will complain about bad performance with that, I got some problems too until I added this to my xorg.conf:

Option "PixmapCacheSize" "2500000"
Option "UseEvents" "on"
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "on"
Option "backingstore" "true"

I hope it works for you! Everything happens instantly, all problems have gone, I didn't realise how fast my computer could be!

[energyman]

this was with a 8600GT on gentoo. CPU AMD X2 6000+, 4gb ram. nf520 board.

with kde 4.1 beta/rc/final:
Resizing windows: very slow
scrolling: jerky and slow.
after a right click on the desktop it could take up seconds until the menu appeared - and then it wasn't even usable - that was a second later.
kmenu appearing slowly
when closing a window a grey, half transparent shadow of it remained on the desktop (only after some hours of usage).
when scrolling through pictures in gwenview and one was manually set to 100% there was a big chance the next picture would show garbage at first.

with AMD HD3870:
resizing windows still slow
scrolling, faster but a lot of times not perfect.
desktop menu pops up instantly - and is usable from the first moment
kmenu pops up instantly and is usable from the first moment
no shadows when a window is closed
picture viewing in gwenview without any problems.
watching videos not as good as with nvidia.

I tried: xrender, opengl+texture from pixmap, sharedmen, KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1, nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1, different xorg.conf settings.

And nothing really helped. If there were improvements somewhere - like scrolling, resizing or menus became worse.

[mpcd]

I've been following this thread and it seems to offer some interesting things to try, notably the new GTX200 series beta drivers and the PixmapCacheSize switch.

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916

[mgc8]

I have two current nVidia machines (bought specifically after the horrible experience from Ati):

1. Core2Duo laptop w/ 8600M GT
- Debian Sid, with all the updates, including nvidia-drivers 173.14.09.
- KDE 3.5.9, Firefox 3.0
- compiz
=> things run ok, although some actions like maximizing a window are painfully slow, scrolling on the other hand could be better but is quite decent. The latest drivers seem slower than the 171 version, which had other problems. All-in-all, the desktop is usable but feels slower than it should be.

2. Core2Quad desktop with a GTX 260
- Ubuntu 8.10 II, with all the updates, including nvidia-driver 177.something
- KDE 4.1beta, Firefox 3.0
- compiz
=> everything is silky smooth, much better than on the laptop, including compiz effects, maximizing, scrolling, etc. I have them side-by-side so I can compare. Maybe the latest drivers are better is it because of the faster chip? Anyway, it seems not *all* KDE4/FF3 & nVidia combos are bad, in my case it's the older version having problems

This being said, I would very much like to see proper FOSS support from nvidia, at least on their older cards, instead of those "legagy" drivers which are starting to become quite numerous these days (do we really need dozens of "legacy" driver versions?)

Oh, and for a little offtopic -- I also have another computer with Intel G35 on-board. It's been the most unstable one of the bunch when it comes to playing videos, and I'm not even running compiz or anything 3D on it... so much for having alternatives :-/