Ubuntu Developer Still Pursuing Triple Buffering, Deep Color For GNOME

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu Developer Still Pursuing Triple Buffering, Deep Color For GNOME

Triple buffering and deep color support are two of the features still being worked on for GNOME by Ubuntu maker Canonical...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GNOME-DC-TB-Still-WIP

[perpetually high]

I honestly can't believe how fast GNOME and Ubuntu has become. I've had the same computer, the software and OS are just getting noticeably faster.

Huge thanks to Daniel and others for their continued hard work. And Michael, thank you for allowing me to stay up-to-date on everything. That lifetime Phoronix buy during the holidays was one of my best buys. Salute

[Alexmitter]

I still believe this driver issue should be properly fixed in the driver.

The whole issue is quite easy. Gnome renders new frames only when needed, aka when something changes on screen. Now you did not do anything for some seconds and the Intel GPU goes into its low clock mode. Then you open the activities and the GPU still being in low clock mode does not render the animation fluently.

What Daniel is doing is to raise the GPU usage a little via the triple buffering causing it to not go down so far with its clock. Its a workaround, nothing more.

[perpetually high]

I still believe this driver issue should be properly fixed in the driver.

The whole issue is quite easy. Gnome renders new frames only when needed, aka when something changes on screen. Now you did not do anything for some seconds and the Intel GPU goes into its low clock mode. Then you open the activities and the GPU still being in low clock mode does not render the animation fluently.

What Daniel is doing is to raise the GPU usage a little via the triple buffering causing it to not go down so far with its clock. Its a workaround, nothing more.

Better a workaround, than no solution at all. Or until a proper solution comes out, then the workaround has served its purpose.

A lot of "workaround, nothing more's" but he's doing something and attacking these issues to A) bring attention to them B) get the proper solution in like you mentioned

The way you phrased your post made it seem like Daniel was misstepping or doing something wrong, which he is not.

[skeevy420]

I honestly can't believe how fast GNOME and Ubuntu has become. I've had the same computer, the software and OS are just getting noticeably faster.

Huge thanks to Daniel and others for their continued hard work. And Michael, thank you for allowing me to stay up-to-date on everything. That lifetime Phoronix buy during the holidays was one of my best buys. Salute

That just shows you how horribly bad GNOME was first written . That's sarcasm. I'm trying to make a joke.

GNOME might not be my preferred cup of tea, but I, too, appreciate how far it has come and the project as a whole; especially since a lot of it is used by other environments, like these features with Mutter.

[skeevy420]

I still believe this driver issue should be properly fixed in the driver.

The whole issue is quite easy. Gnome renders new frames only when needed, aka when something changes on screen. Now you did not do anything for some seconds and the Intel GPU goes into its low clock mode. Then you open the activities and the GPU still being in low clock mode does not render the animation fluently.

What Daniel is doing is to raise the GPU usage a little via the triple buffering causing it to not go down so far with its clock. Its a workaround, nothing more.

About the best solution I can think of is tying the GPU to an interactive boost scheduler. Anytime there's input, boost the GPU. Steal a page from the Android touch boost playbook.

[bug77]

Deep color is a must if we ever hope to use HDR on the desktop or doing some serious photo/video work.
But I'm not sure about "dynamic triple buffering support primarily for when the GPU is running behind in rendering elements". A modern GPU just shouldn't lag when rendering the desktop. (Yes, I'm a big fan of KISS.)

[CochainComplex]

X11 in total is a workaround (has become)

[stormcrow]

Deep color is a must if we ever hope to use HDR on the desktop or doing some serious photo/video work.
But I'm not sure about "dynamic triple buffering support primarily for when the GPU is running behind in rendering elements". A modern GPU just shouldn't lag when rendering the desktop. (Yes, I'm a big fan of KISS.)

Define modern? Ubuntu runs on a lot of systems that don't have discrete GPUs or the most current Intel iGPUs. I have a Sandy Bridge laptop up in the closet that might benefit from triple buffering at times. There's also R-Pis who's GPU can't be considered the fastest GPUs even in the ARM world. Resource contention happens. Triple buffering will probably help even recent GPUs at times, such as when those same GPUs are doing GPGPU tasks.

[bug77]

Define modern? Ubuntu runs on a lot of systems that don't have discrete GPUs or the most current Intel iGPUs. I have a Sandy Bridge laptop up in the closet that might benefit from triple buffering at times. There's also R-Pis who's GPU can't be considered the fastest GPUs even in the ARM world. Resource contention happens. Triple buffering will probably help even recent GPUs at times, such as when those same GPUs are doing GPGPU tasks.

I don't have to define it, Ubuntu does that for me: "3D Acceleration Capable Videocard with at least 256 MB"

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements