Slow start effects

[taqtikat]

Hello all!

I recently got a new laptop with a 8400M G, and I'm having some troubles with the effects in compiz. It seems that all the effects are having "slow starts" when they have been unused for a while.

For example, if I'm surfing about and suddenly use the rotate cube, its lagging like hell the first two seconds or so. After that everything is fine and its as fast as it gets. Why is this?

It also seems that this is universal for all the effects. So lets say I start by using the rotate effect and get past the "slow start seconds", after that the other effects are also fast again. Now if I started with another effect, this is also slow at first (if I haven't used any effects in about a minute or so), and after a couple of seconds of usage all the effects are fast again.

I would really appreciate some help...

Thanks in advance

Edit: I'm using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon by the way, but I don't think its a problem with the beta. I saw in the Ubuntu-forums one guy with the same problem on Gentoo.

[Smith]

I have the same problem, but this almost never happens with the cube, just with my minimize and close animations.

[taqtikat]

I just noticed something really strange. The lags seem to disappear when the water effect is turned on. With the water effect turned on, performance is perfect?! This leads me to draw the conclusion that the lags is due to something unloading in the hardware when unused, since with the water effect it is continuously used.

[taqtikat]

*bump*

I'd really appreciate any ideas on how to solve this...

[taqtikat]

So it seems that this is a common problem (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=99554) with the 8-series and compiz. In the link you can also find the problem, which is that the gpu-clocks don't catch up to full speed before using a plugin with 3d-effects, but rather after a couple of seconds after the plugin has started (I tested this as well, the same for me).

But I don't know where the problem lies, in the NVIDIA driver or in the compiz software?

[spook]

@taqtikat: I'm the one who posted that nvnews forum thread you referred to.

I currently have the following lines executed when I log in to KDE:


nvidia-settings -a GPUOverclockingState=1
nvidia-settings -a GPU2DClockFreqs=300,400

My 3D clock frequencies are 400/600, but the driver doesn't allow me to set my 2D frequencies higher than 338/600, so I settled for 300/400 (power and heat are somewhat important too for me). It doesn't completely alleviate the problem, but the lag/stuttering becomes close to unnoticeable here.

Like I mentioned in that nvnews thread just now, the XP driver lets you disable the powermizer functionality, which would be an even better fix if it were included in the linux blob. Of course, the clock frequencies should be switched more fluently anyway by a driver-side fix, but I'm just trying different workarounds for now.

[taqtikat]

Nice! I'm gonna try this.

Thank you!

[spook]

No problem.

This thread has some interesting statements near the bottom:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=53676

It seems that most - if not all - performance problems are related to those 2D/3D clock speeds, and with the attention that bug is getting these days, I would find it hard to believe nvidia isn't working on a fix.

EDIT: I'm not entirely sure yet if it's really fixed, but I think I might have found a better workaround. I've disabled the powermizer functionality in my XP nvidia control panel, and now my clock frequencies stick at their highest rate in linux. No more automatic underclocking. *But*... I also installed a bios update for my system yesterday, which included the newest video bios for my nvidia card, so it will be hard to find out what caused this new behavior.

[Applegeek]

Hmmm...This sounds like the problem I'm having:

I have a box with an AMD 4600+ CPU, 1GB ram, and I'm running Feisty - AMD64.

I have everything running with the nVidia driver, it was just a modest 7100GS card. The cube and all were working pretty well.

I swapped in an 8500GT card with 256MB video memory - and now the effects animations are slower than ever. The cube rotates smoothly, but for instance the "Minimize Fire" effect is very slow. The "burn" will start, pause 1 second, then complete.

Will the above settings help me also??