KDE Saw More System Settings Work While EGLStreams KWin Support Stole The Show

[starshipeleven]

On "auto", where it is now, without enabling VSync in xorg.conf I'll get tearing when scrolling anything (Firefox, Kate, terminals) and with videos (at least with mpv, mplayer, Netflix, and Hulu (both with Firefox); nothing else that I really notice. Enable it with the conf and it's fixed with "auto". Other KWin settings do fix it without the conf, but the compositor isn't as stable with them...to the point to where KWin will crash before Plasma has even fully started -- at least up to 5.14. Haven't tested on 5.15.

I've had that experience with two different AMD cards with AMDGPU on KDE and XFCE, two TVs with the 260x and my current TV with the 580.

Hm, so the xorg.conf is for enabling vsync in the driver. If it is not enabled in the driver, that kwin setting does nothing.

I guess in OpenSUSE this is set as a default somewhere else, as my xorg.conf.d config file for amdgpu is pretty generic.

[aufkrawall]

KWin in general has this stuttering problem because it syncs to a timer instead of VBlank. I attempted to solve that problem with a set of patches.

I just gave it a try: Wow, looks like you nailed it. Flawless compositing performance and I don't notice any increased hardware requirements.
Thanks a lot!

[skeevy420]

KWin in general has this stuttering problem because it syncs to a timer instead of VBlank. I attempted to solve that problem with a set of patches.

So now I have to test your fork with and without Vsync and vanilla with and without those tweaks listed in the readme...bastard

(just in case the sarcasm button breaks, that's a thank you post and I'll give that a shot when I get off this evening)

[aufkrawall]

Btw: There are pageflipping issues with AMD which might ruin your vsync on Xorg. You should have this PR for xf86-video-amdgpu:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-amdgpu/merge_requests/33

And probably also this when using modesetting:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/merge_requests/131

[Mario Junior]

Like XFCE, KDE really likes having an xorg.conf with VSync enabled. That alone will do wonders in my experiences. Here's my xorg.conf which is nothing but the default settings with VSync enabled (/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amdgpu.conf).

Section "Device"
Identifier "AMD"
Driver "amdgpu"
Option "SWcursor" "off"
Option "Accel" "on"
#Option "ZaphodHeads" ""
Option "DRI" "3"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"
Option "TearFree" "on"
Option "VariableRefresh" "off"
Option "AccelMethod" "glamor"
Option "ShadowPrimary" "off"
EndSection

Because I have a tone of them, here are my global environment variables that effect the GPU:
(the is also like the ultimate AMDGPU environment variable cheat sheet )

## Wine Variables
# Wine Esync
export WINEESYNC=1

# Wine PBA
export PBA_ENABLE=1

# DXVK Async
export DXVK_ASYNC=1

## System Vulkan (only enable one)
# AMDVLK
#export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/amd_icd64.json

# AMDVLK-Pro (thanks, TK-Glitch)
#export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/opt/amdgpu-pro/etc/vulkan/icd.d/amd_icd64.json

# AMDVLK Experimental Features
#export AMDVLK_ENABLE_DEVELOPING_EXT="all"

[B]# RADV[/B]
export VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json

## AMDGPU Tuning
[B]# AMDGPU 16x anisotropic filtering[/B]
export R600_TEX_ANISO=16

[B]# AMD\R600 Debug options[/B]
export AMD_DEBUG=sisched,nir,forcedma,unsafemath,llvm,gisel,dpbb,dfsm

# MSAA>EQAA Modes (all based on an AMD tech sheet; actual EQAA modes bug Dirt Rally :(; can set global and per game)
# Requires game to use MSAA to convert it to EQAA.
#No MSAA
#export EQAA=0,0,0

#2x MSAA
#export EQAA=2,2,2

#2f4x EQAA
#export EQAA=4,2,2

#4x MSAA
#export EQAA=4,4,4

#2f8x EQAA
#export EQAA=8,2,2

#4f8x EQAA
#export EQAA=8,4,4

#4f16x EQAA
#export EQAA=16,4,4

#8x MSAA
export EQAA=8,8,8

#8f16x EQAA
#export EQAA=16,8,8

## MLAA (only use one...blurs the font of KDE...better to set as an env variable in Lutris)
# Jimenez MLAA
#export pp_jimenezmlaa=16

# Jimenez MLAA Color
#export pp_jimenezmlaa_color=16

## Libstrangle Tuning (all below require libstrangle to be installed and programs to be launched with strangle name_of_program)
# Cap FPS for OpenGL/Vulkan programs to 60 FPS
export FPS=60

# Force enable VSYNC
export VSYNC=1

# Tweak Vuklan/OGL mipmap lod bias for crisper textures
export PICMIP=-1

Yes, I reboot my computer when I switch from amdvlk to radv. I bolded the important ones. The rest are just either obscure or hard to find good information on. I had to refer to an AMD tech manual from 2011 to find the EQAA modes and a Phoronix article to even know that feature exists.

And for my kernel command line:

zswap.enabled=1 zswap.compressor=lz4 zswap.max_pool_percent=25 zswap.zpool=z3fold [B]amdgpu.dpm=1 amdgpu.dc=1 amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xfffd7fff amdgpu.deep_color=1 amdgpu.exp_hw_support=1[/B] zfs.zfs_arc_max=8589934592 [U]pti=off spectre_v2=off l1tf=off nospec_store_bypass_disable[/U]

That part underlined at the end disables the kernel mitigations and I have three entries in GRUB per kernel -- unmitigated (the above), mitigated (remove what's underlined), and the mitigated fallback.

The zswap ones may or may not help, I've been using the amdgpu ones since my 260x days (sans the CIK enable one), the last one is to limit the ZFS arc to 8GB because a single 2tb drive doesn't need a 24GB arc...doesn't need 8GB either ...

There is also a post I did in a recent Firefox thread where I listed a bunch of the Firefox tweaks I use. Those will help you on the browser part...the search bar is your friend for those

Holly shit! You need this all configurations to Kwin runs "better"? This is a fucking joke for 2019! Also, I thank you for having taken the work to write all this and confirm what I was saying.

Shit per shit i prefeer what gives me less work to run.

Look @M@GOid and starshipeleven

Are you sure it is running on OpenGL and not Xrender? I have a RX570 too and mine have no problems keeping things running fluidly in a 120Hz monitor.

Obivous. From what I read, you have to make settings in xorg and add some kernel boot commands so things start to "work" correctly.

Another user of Plasma and RX570 here, also no problems. Mario Junior please check your compositor settings, or maybe the GPU you bought has issues. Was it bought used? If it was used maybe it was used for mining with a custom firmware (which is known to cause issues when rendering actual 3D loads) and you need to flash it back to stock firmware.

My GPU doesn't have any problems. This is a problem only with Kwin. All configs make with compositor and still the same problem.

[skeevy420]

Holly shit! You need this all configurations to Kwin runs "better"? This is a fucking joke for 2019! Also, I thank you for having taken the work to write all this and confirm what I was saying.

Shit per shit i prefeer what gives me less work to run.

Obivous. From what I read, you have to make settings in xorg and add some kernel boot commands so things start to "work" correctly.

My GPU doesn't have any problems. This is a problem only with Kwin. All configs make with compositor and still the same problem.

The only thing I actually need for KWin is the xorg.conf with VSync enabled.

The only thing I actually need for KWin is the xorg.conf with VSync enabled. (Repeated for dramatic effect) The rest are various tunables that either don't have GUIs or that I want to be universal across my system by default. The kernel command line ensures I'm running the latest AMDGPU code on my system and unlocks overclocking (well, undervolting for my uses).

In that one part:
The first 3 enable experimental wine features for better gaming.
The next 4 are the different AMDGPU Vulkan Implementations with AMDVLK's "enable all extensions" export.
The next 2 are AMDGPU exports for better gaming.
The next list of MSAA stuff accompanies this Mesa commit & is based on an HD6900 MSAA tech sheet that documents official AMD MSAA/EQAA modes for DirectX.
The 2 MLAA lines can be configured on a per-game basis with driconf...just wanted to try them system wide and it isn't something that I recommend...
The final 3 are all related to libstrangle and two of them are to enable force games to 60fps and to force enable VSync just in case.

Except for theAMD\R600 Debug options line, everything from ## AMDGPU Tuning and down is able to be configured on a per-app basis with the GUI provided by the Windows driver...which may be inaccurate since some of the Debug options may very well be in the Windows GUI somehow, somewhere...

[starshipeleven]

Holly shit! You need this all configurations to Kwin runs "better"?

He is using Gentoo, or Arch or whatever. On other distros you don't need that.

My GPU doesn't have any problems. This is a problem only with Kwin. All configs make with compositor and still the same problem.

No I don't think it's a Kwin problem as I and others (apart from skeevy420) dcan't reproduce it and never had to change xorg config.

Probably a distro issue, something was configured bad by the distro maintainers. Can you try with KDE Neon distro or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and see if you still have the same issue?

[Mario Junior]

He is using Gentoo, or Arch or whatever. On other distros you don't need that.

No I don't think it's a Kwin problem as I and others (apart from skeevy420) dcan't reproduce it and never had to change xorg config.

Probably a distro issue, something was configured bad by the distro maintainers. Can you try with KDE Neon distro or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and see if you still have the same issue?

KDE devs need fix Kwin perfomance on AMD graphics. I get a 570 and perfomance is disastrous with Plasma. Stutter, no 60fps all time, scroll with lag as hell on browsers...

Same problem on Fedora with KDE, Solus, KDE Neon and Opensuse. With Gnome i don't have this problem.

12345

[starshipeleven]

12345

67890

then there is something weird going on with the card

[Mario Junior]

67890

then there is something weird going on with the card

There is nothing weird going on with the card, otherwise I would have the same problem in Gnome or even using Windows or MacOS.