[opensuse] kde4 speed tips - got any?
Listmates, After 2 months working with kde 4.3 beta 2, one thing that is apparent is that it feels slow compared to kde3. Menu crispness, start time, etc. are all very sluggish compared to kde3. I rarely use kde3 anymore, but when I do start kde3, I'm amazed at how fast it is compared to kde4. This isn't because my laptop is just slow. AMD Turion-58, 4G of RAM, SATA II drive, the hardware should be fine. Start time on kde3 on this box is just about 7 seconds (login to desktop loaded). KDE4 is well over 25 seconds to accomplish the same task. Are there any tips for speeding kde4 up? We are now at 4.2.96 from factory x86_64. Sven, etc. do you see any speed improvements for kde4 coming? -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
Am Freitag, 10. Juli 2009 05:33:59 schrieb David C. Rankin:
Listmates,
After 2 months working with kde 4.3 beta 2, one thing that is apparent is that it feels slow compared to kde3. Menu crispness, start time, etc. are all very sluggish compared to kde3. I rarely use kde3 anymore, but when I do start kde3, I'm amazed at how fast it is compared to kde4.
This isn't because my laptop is just slow. AMD Turion-58, 4G of RAM, SATA II drive, the hardware should be fine. Start time on kde3 on this box is just about 7 seconds (login to desktop loaded). KDE4 is well over 25 seconds to accomplish the same task.
Are there any tips for speeding kde4 up? We are now at 4.2.96 from factory x86_64. Sven, etc. do you see any speed improvements for kde4 coming?
Just a quick shot, since I got to leavve in a minute. My experience is that nepomuk is one app that causes "slowness", so disabling it might help. It will be off by default for 11.2 for that reason. However the biggest improvement I got, and in my case KDE4 is up to speed with KDE3 since then, was that NVIDIA improved their graphics driver. There is now hardly any noticeable response difference with my 7600 GS/GT, not sure which one I have. On my netbook, with intel, it was really slow with effects enabled and 11.1. There were improvements with 11.2, since the intel driver is in flux and apparently improving if one has the right combo of kernel+xorg+driver. KDE4 without effects works nicely on the netbook as well. So in my experience, if one has enabled desktop effects, KDE4's speed highly depends on the quality of the graphics driver. If there is none available for ones graphics board, one has to live with the kde3 standard graphics effects, i.e. none. For loading speed, some plasmoids take time to initialise and if you click on the splashscreen, you see that the desktop is actually available a long time before the splash fades away. Sven -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:03:59 David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
After 2 months working with kde 4.3 beta 2, one thing that is apparent is that it feels slow compared to kde3. Menu crispness, start time, etc. are all very sluggish compared to kde3. I rarely use kde3 anymore, but when I do start kde3, I'm amazed at how fast it is compared to kde4.
This isn't because my laptop is just slow. AMD Turion-58, 4G of RAM, SATA II drive, the hardware should be fine. Start time on kde3 on this box is just about 7 seconds (login to desktop loaded). KDE4 is well over 25 seconds to accomplish the same task.
Are there any tips for speeding kde4 up? We are now at 4.2.96 from factory x86_64. Sven, etc. do you see any speed improvements for kde4 coming?
David, My system (AMD Athlon XP 2600, NVidia GeForce FX 5500, 1GB Ram) runs OK (just) with KDE4 with compositing turned on but I tend to see processor usage hitting 100% and top shows a load average of 2.5+. Kwin tends to be using between 30 and 50% of the available CPU time. Disabling compositing (and hence desktop effects) using Alt+Shift+F12 dramatically drops the CPU load and restores the system to KDE3 type speed. This is not only restricted to KDE4 though - I used to see exactly the same behaviour with KDE3 + Compiz on 10.3 and 11.0. On the other hand, Gnome + Compiz does not show the same behaviour (in fact it runs fine with no noticeable slowdown). Unfortunately, I just don't like Gnome very much compared to KDE3 or KDE4 (but some so, and that's OK - that's why we have choices...). It seems to me that KDE + Desktop Effects (whether internal or via compiz) demands very decent graphics hardware. BTW, I run dual-head on my box too (can't go back to working with a single screen after using dual for >4 years). BTW, I tend to leave desktop effects turned on unless I'm watching video/tv or doing some other resource-intensive task, otherwise I put up with a slight slowdown (which doesn't render the system unusable by any means). Cheers, Rodney. -- =================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au ===================================================
On Friday 10 July 2009 06:20:15 am Rodney Baker wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:03:59 David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
After 2 months working with kde 4.3 beta 2, one thing that is apparent is that it feels slow compared to kde3. Menu crispness, start time, etc. are all very sluggish compared to kde3. I rarely use kde3 anymore, but when I do start kde3, I'm amazed at how fast it is compared to kde4.
This isn't because my laptop is just slow. AMD Turion-58, 4G of RAM, SATA II drive, the hardware should be fine. Start time on kde3 on this box is just about 7 seconds (login to desktop loaded). KDE4 is well over 25 seconds to accomplish the same task.
Are there any tips for speeding kde4 up? We are now at 4.2.96 from factory x86_64. Sven, etc. do you see any speed improvements for kde4 coming?
David,
My system (AMD Athlon XP 2600, NVidia GeForce FX 5500, 1GB Ram) runs OK (just) with KDE4 with compositing turned on but I tend to see processor usage hitting 100% and top shows a load average of 2.5+. Kwin tends to be using between 30 and 50% of the available CPU time.
Disabling compositing (and hence desktop effects) using Alt+Shift+F12 dramatically drops the CPU load and restores the system to KDE3 type speed.
This is not only restricted to KDE4 though - I used to see exactly the same behaviour with KDE3 + Compiz on 10.3 and 11.0. On the other hand, Gnome + Compiz does not show the same behaviour (in fact it runs fine with no noticeable slowdown). Unfortunately, I just don't like Gnome very much compared to KDE3 or KDE4 (but some so, and that's OK - that's why we have choices...).
It seems to me that KDE + Desktop Effects (whether internal or via compiz) demands very decent graphics hardware. BTW, I run dual-head on my box too (can't go back to working with a single screen after using dual for >4 years).
BTW, I tend to leave desktop effects turned on unless I'm watching video/tv or doing some other resource-intensive task, otherwise I put up with a slight slowdown (which doesn't render the system unusable by any means).
Cheers, Rodney.
Rodney, There must be something else going on here. I have 10.3, kde 3.5 + compiz running smooth as silk on a PIII 800 with 512M and an NVidia 5700 Ultra. Speed is better there than it is on my Turion-58, 4G Ram, ATI x1200 with KDE4. I haven't tried disabling desktop effects since I use compiz instead of the KDE4 DE. I'll keep playing with it. Don't get me wrong, the KDE4 setup is "usable", but the speed difference between it and KDE3 is night and day. On my laptop CPU usage isn't an issue. With the desktop running and normal browsing, email, word processor, etc. CPU usage never exceeds 15-18%. Stressing the desktop by spinning the desktop round-and-round in the cylinder never pushes CPU use over 40% and then it immediately drops back to the 10% range when I let go. I still have plenty of CPU and RAM to go around, something is just slow. Popping back to kde3 and it's like it's turbo-charged. I'll keep looking at it. Is there some type of profiler I can run that would likely show anything? -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
David C. Rankin wrote:
On Friday 10 July 2009 06:20:15 am Rodney Baker wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:03:59 David C. Rankin wrote:
Listmates,
After 2 months working with kde 4.3 beta 2, one thing that is apparent is that it feels slow compared to kde3. Menu crispness, start time, etc. are all very sluggish compared to kde3. I rarely use kde3 anymore, but when I
choices...).
It seems to me that KDE + Desktop Effects (whether internal or via compiz)
instead of the KDE4 DE. I'll keep playing with it.
Don't get me wrong, the KDE4 setup is "usable", but the speed difference between it and KDE3 is night and day. On my laptop CPU usage isn't an issue. With the desktop running and normal browsing, email, word processor, etc. CPU usage never exceeds 15-18%. Stressing the desktop by spinning the desktop round-and-round in the cylinder never pushes CPU use over 40% and then it immediately drops back to the 10% range when I let go.
I still have plenty of CPU and RAM to go around, something is just slow. Popping back to kde3 and it's like it's turbo-charged. I'll keep looking at it. Is there some type of profiler I can run that would likely show anything?
Am using KDE4 on my PC and haven't really noticed any real hit in speed, but it IS a reasonable machine (quad core...) BUT have just upgraded my wifes P4 approx 2G, 512MB, (yeah, I know, I spoil her!! :-) ) from 11.0 to 11.1, and initially I installed KDE4, and then updated to 4.2.3 - dog slow, basically unusable. So thought I would give gnome a run.... to my surprise, it wasn't a great deal better! Have just installed KDE3 back on it, and again it is quite usable. So the comparison did surprise me, particularly the Gnome experience. John. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (4)
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David C. Rankin -
John Bennett -
Rodney Baker -
Sven Burmeister