Ubuntu Unity Proves Very Slow To KDE, GNOME, Xfce, LXDE

[bmoez]

What's the role of Valve to improve its gaming perfermance on ubuntu/unity?

should valve work with unity/compiz-team to help them improving the perfermance of unity/compiz?
that will affect so much their gaming experience on linux/ubuntu

[Hamish Wilson]

Xfce and LXDE overall are very strong competitors without having some heavy compositing window manager interfere with the OpenGL gaming performance.

Actually, Xfce has a fully supported and configurable compositor, it is just not on by default. On 4.8 it can be toggled from the "Window Manager Tweaks" settings option under the "Compositor" tab. From there you can also tweak the compositor effects and also specifically set the compositor to "Display fullscreen overlay windows directly". Considering you took the time to tweak KDE for this benchmark, I would appreciate it if you would also do the same for Xfce in future tests.

[simongaiteiro]

Actually, Xfce has a fully supported and configurable compositor, it is just not on by default. On 4.8 it can be toggled from the "Window Manager Tweaks" settings option under the "Compositor" tab. From there you can also tweak the compositor effects and also specifically set the compositor to "Display fullscreen overlay windows directly". Considering you took the time to tweak KDE for this benchmark, I would appreciate it if you would also do the same for Xfce in future tests.

I wouldn't call that "to tweak KDE". You only need to check an option in system configuration.

[deanjo]

KDE works flawless with Dual-Monitor: my System http://www.sysprofile.de/id123113.

Same here.

[simongaiteiro]

I was answered by Martin Gr??lin and he states that the results from this kind of tests are not relevant as "the difference is too low, it's performed on just one hardware, just one distribution, there is no indication about how often the tests have been performed and so on. The benchmark is saying exactly nothing".

https://plus.google.com/u/0/115606635748721265446/posts/YSRDPgeV8vE

[simongaiteiro]

I was answered by Martin and he states that the results coming from this kind of tests are no relevant as "the difference is too low, it's performed on just one hardware, just one distribution, there is no indication about how often the tests have been performed and so on. The benchmark is saying exactly nothing."

https://plus.google.com/115606635748721265446/posts/YSRDPgeV8vE

[narciso]

Compiz, Mutter and xfce fullscreen detection mechanisms sometimes won't identify the application running at fullscreen, so it thinks that the game is running in a window, and doesn't suspend the effects.

Cube2 or supertuxkart are some examples of games that are properly detected as a fullscreen game and effects are disabled by the compositor, making the game run with fullspeed and proper vsync.

Trine 2 for example is a problematic game that only kwin runs flawlessly with the suspend fullscreen effects enabled. Mutter, compiz, xfce won't work very good with it.

I run Xubuntu 12.10, and I spot that problem right away when I see screen tearing. Disabling the compositor fix it.

[bug77]

I wonder why the full screen tweaks actually works. Since there is no more desktop to render, hence nothing to decorate, reason says there should be no performance penalty in the first place.

[Hamish Wilson]

I wouldn't call that "to tweak KDE". You only need to check an option in system configuration.

Well, the same is true for Xfce. What would you call it?

[gururise]

Compiz, Mutter and xfce fullscreen detection mechanisms sometimes won't identify the application running at fullscreen, so it thinks that the game is running in a window, and doesn't suspend the effects.

Cube2 or supertuxkart are some examples of games that are properly detected as a fullscreen game and effects are disabled by the compositor, making the game run with fullspeed and proper vsync.

Trine 2 for example is a problematic game that only kwin runs flawlessly with the suspend fullscreen effects enabled. Mutter, compiz, xfce won't work very good with it.

I run Xubuntu 12.10, and I spot that problem right away when I see screen tearing. Disabling the compositor fix it.

Very good point. I'm wondering if what we are seeing is a problem with full-screen detection in these DE's. It has been rumored, that Mutter disables compositing effects when full-screen apps are detected. Anyone know if this is really the case? If so, I would expect performance to be very similar to Kwin with suspended effects.