NVIDIA's Proprietary Driver Is Moving Closer With Kernel Mode-Setting

[duby229]

If you are not interested in gaming, well you should go for intel or amd apus... those have better 2D performance then mentioned dedicated chips by nature, intel driver even has 2D most optimized.

If you use radeon driver you might try glamor acceleration on that hd 5870m, that might now be better then EXA which is default for those chips.

No, EXA is definitely better than glamor for cards that support EXA. By a lot.

[duby229]

Glad this conversation is open. I was just about to upgrade to an amd m290x hoping to get away from the horrible DE performance i have with my hd 5870m and pretty much any desktop environment. But now im worried that the radeonSI based m290 is going to be just as problematic. Does anyone here recommend i should switch to a nvidia card instead? With this latest news, it sounds more interesting. Im not interested in gaming performance, but desktop performance, browser, etc.
Ps: yea, firefox sux for me right now, i thought that was just firefox, but someone mentioned it's the driver..

Sounds like you're useing the Catalyst driver for linux. It sucks. I highly recommend the OSS drivers for linux. Desktop performance is waaaaay better.

EDIT: I wouldn't worry about your fan spinning up. I would worry if it -wasn't- spinning up. If you are using hardware features and the fan spinns up, then it's doing what it's supposed to.

[gens]

EDIT: I wouldn't worry about your fan spinning up. I would worry if it -wasn't- spinning up. If you are using hardware features and the fan spinns up, then it's doing what it's supposed to.

i would
compositing in DE-s and programs like firefox shouldn't be any problem for a semi-modern gpu
so if the fan spins up it's either the program flooding draw calls that don't contribute to the final render or the driver doing same

[duby229]

i would
compositing in DE-s and programs like firefox shouldn't be any problem for a semi-modern gpu
so if the fan spins up it's either the program flooding draw calls that don't contribute to the final render or the driver doing same

If the temperature is high enough to warrant the fan spinning up, then it should spin up. I don't see how that's a problem. On the other hand, if the app is doing too much work or is doing more than you would like it to do, then choose another app to use that fits your likes better.

[gens]

If the temperature is high enough to warrant the fan spinning up, then it should spin up. I don't see how that's a problem. On the other hand, if the app is doing too much work or is doing more than you would like it to do, then choose another app to use that fits your likes better.

ofc
but you can't compare 10k draw calls with thousands of polygons each going through shaders doing 2-5 4x4 matrix multiplications and functions like sin() per pixel (aka a "modern" game)
with firefox that at worst does alpha blending

an nvidia 610 would spin up, but that card is weaker then an mx440

[duby229]

Well, I suppose it raises a question.... How well does the OSS driver stacks power management fair in comparison to Catalyst? I suspect it's about the same.

[gens]

Well, I suppose it raises a question.... How well does the OSS driver stacks power management fair in comparison to Catalyst? I suspect it's about the same.

that reminded me
if the fan will spin up also depends on what the temperature "limit" is in the driver and how good/big is the cooler
like i have a power hungry card with a huge cooler and the fans start spinning up at like 70? (on binary driver)
if it had a more stock cooler it would get to that temperature faster, same if i had a smaller, less vented, computer case

so it depends on what you want the working temperature to be and how fast the driver switches the card to more MHz and back

but still, a desktop environment doing compositing shouldn't heat up a semi-acceptable gpu by more then a couple ?C

[duby229]

Thats a pretty good point. If the temps really are getting too high, maybe the TIM needs replaced and the heatsink cleaned and reseated. The stock coolers on most cards are pretty good. I doubt the stock cooler is a problem. But if it needs cleaned and reseated that may be so.

[ciupenhauer]

that reminded me
if the fan will spin up also depends on what the temperature "limit" is in the driver and how good/big is the cooler
like i have a power hungry card with a huge cooler and the fans start spinning up at like 70? (on binary driver)
if it had a more stock cooler it would get to that temperature faster, same if i had a smaller, less vented, computer case

so it depends on what you want the working temperature to be and how fast the driver switches the card to more MHz and back

but still, a desktop environment doing compositing shouldn't heat up a semi-acceptable gpu by more then a couple ?C

Right, just so we dont get too much off the topic with this one, i have a big laptop cooler - that s why i get noise more easily, And it can be very very annoying.
But with oss drivers i hardly get pass the 61C point, ever, just running my desktop. Still, with glamor, or hyperz, the fan is just acting up for no reason (on resizing, desktop effects, etc..). Like u said, it never reaches even close to 70.
Bad AMD, Bad!
So I'm sticking with EXA. If anyone cares, the git driver with DRI3 enabled and EXA does help a bit in composited desktops and I dont recall making the fan louder. However suspend/resume sometimes doesnt work with gnome so I had to disable it.


I am absolutely sick of having to take this linux drivers crap for so many years, i could just switch to windows where 2D is smooooth, but my heart don't let me, and now i have to suffer because of their horrendous drivers. Woe, the pain...

[duby229]

You guys are nuts. If I looked and seen 60C and 70C, I'd be doing everything I could to raise the fan speed. I know GPU's are designed for higher operating temps, but there is no way in hell I would let it run that hot.