Feature changed by: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) Feature #307845, revision 18 Title: Fast/usable desktop effects with fglrx driver openSUSE-11.3: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Package Wishlist: Unconfirmed Priority Requester: Important Requested by: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) Partner organization: openSUSE.org Description: Some desktop effects (e.g. maximizing windows on compiz and kwin4) are unacceptably slow (take a few SECONDS) when using the fglrx driver on ATI cards. This problem is well known and has been discussed in many places (e.g. on the Phoronix forums (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?p=90703) ). Who is to blame for the problem, is not entirely clear (possible candidates: kwin, xorg, fglrx - e.g. see this blog (http://blog.jasondonenfeld.com/169) ). It is reasonable to suspect that it will still take some time until the true source of the problem is located and a fix is brought foreward. As an intermediary solution there exists a "workaround" (a patch (https://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/F-11/xorg-x11-server/xserver-1.4.99-don...) for xserver), which disables background initialization. This will result in background corruption (video garbage) in windows or new objects, however it also gives a performance boost e.g. for users of ATI graphics cards and chips under the fglrx driver, and on some drivers the corruption isn't noticeable. It is the background corruption for other drivers, which prohibits the patch from being applied upstream. Therefore Ubuntu provides a PPA (https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill) containing xserver packages with this patch applied for users of fglrx. I think that openSUSE should follow suit and create a (semi-)official repository. I have already built the respective packages in my private buildserver project (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dgrafenhofer/openSUSE_Factor...) , but I think that these packages deserve a more prominent and visible place Update: I started to use a different patch, which addressed the (theoretical) security issues of the no-backfill patch but achieves the same performance gains: xserver-xorg-backclear.patch Links: Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=546033 (https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=546033) (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dgrafenhofer/openSUSE_Factor...) Buildservice repository for 11.2: http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dgrafenhofer/openSUSE_11.2/ (http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dgrafenhofer/openSUSE_11.2/) Buildservice repository for Factory (11.3): http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/dgrafenhofer:/backclear113/o... Fedora patch: https://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/F-11/xorg-x11-server/xserver-1.4.99-don... (https://cvs.fedoraproject.org/viewvc/F-11/xorg-x11-server/xserver-1.4.99-don...) PPA for Ubuntu: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill (https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/xserver-no-backfill) backclear patch: http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?s=9f07eb0050fda9b71c152982840803b1&p=8035730&postcount=30 (http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?s=9f07eb0050fda9b71c152982840803b1&p=8035730&postcount=30) Kano's script to install Catalyst 9.10 beta on distributions other than Ubuntu 9.10: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18915 (http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18915) Test Case: Install the fglrx drivers for your ati card/chip. Turn on desktop effects (compiz or kwin4). Open a window. Maximize the window. Minimize the window. Note the delay (measured in seconds without the no-backfill patch, not noticeable with the patch applied) Use Case: Everyday work using a destop environment typically involves opening, maximizing, minimizing,... windows all the time. Business case (Partner benefit): openSUSE.org: We want fast/usable desktop effects with the fglrx driver Discussion: #1: Jimmy Berry (boombatower) (2010-06-10 23:33:44) I am assuming that the lagg isn't very noticeable for me (not instant... but no more then half a second), since my graphics card is quite powerful, Radeon HD 4870, and my resolution isn't overly large, 2 x (1280 x 1024), but I would be curious to see what this looks like and see if there is a noticeable difference. I know a friend of mine with larger screens and the same video card complains that the effects run slowly. #2: Jimmy Berry (boombatower) (2010-06-10 23:52:21) To clarify, it laggs quite bad when I drag-resize using one of the grips on the window edge. + #3: Dominik Grafenhofer (dgrafenhofer) (2010-06-11 07:48:36) + @Jimmy Berry: Did you try the packages with the backclear patch from my + repository? Links for 11.2 and Factory can be found above -- openSUSE Feature: https://features.opensuse.org/307845