KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

countercraft · 2010-08-02 12:50:58

Hi, I'm using KDE 4.4.5 on my notebook, totally updated and effects turned on, and KDE feels slow, not much responsive, when I open more than 2 windows, for example, opening firefox, dolphin and konsole, the cpu usage of KWin and X varies between 20% and 70%, even if I'm not using the computer, and the animations, like the slide when the kmenu opens, the minimize effect and the wobbly windows effect gets annoying slow, as well as the opening of new windows, like dialogs, for example. GNOME and Compiz runs very smooth, they really fly
I disabled Nepomuk to help with the CPU consumption, but it's still very slow and annoying to the point I have to get out of KDE, otherwise I would punch the screen =P
Does anyone runs KDE smooth on this hardware?
My note has a Intel x4500MHD graphics card and a Core 2 Duo T6600 processor.

Thanks in advance.

Vamp898 · 2010-08-02 13:07:00

Use Compiz in KDE too (works very well for me and much faster than KWin) or disable KWin Effects completely.

I dont know why but KWin effects doesnt work that good on Intel Cards :'( but Compiz works really fine

countercraft · 2010-08-03 12:40:20

Well, it seems that I'll have to use Compiz... Too bad that KWin has these problems with Intel

Thanks.

KlavKalashj · 2010-08-03 14:23:03

I am using KDE 4.5 on a Asus UL30a, with Intel culv 1,3 ghz, 4gb ram and x4500mhd, and it's working smoothly for me. Minimize effect, blur, transparency when moving windows etc. The only thing that's crap is moving windows around, it seems to lag, but that's probably just a bug. You could try to back up your .kde4/, moving it, and restart KDE to make it create a new config. If it doesn't help, just move the old one back.

On a side note, how is compiz in kde? I have never tried it, but if it's much better maybe I should. Will I miss options? I really like the new blur effect in kde4.5, is that available?

onzlaught · 2010-08-06 13:39:31

I have the same problem as you with a nvidia quadro card... what browser are you using??? cause i'm suspicious of firefox not being nice with kwin and compositing turned on!

grassmonk · 2010-08-06 17:33:11

onzlaught wrote:

I have the same problem as you with a nvidia quadro card... what browser are you using??? cause i'm suspicious of firefox not being nice with kwin and compositing turned on!

I also have problems with Firefox (and Thunderbird) with kwin compositing turned on. I have an Intel card, though (core i5). Lots of redraw issues, and I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Rezero · 2010-08-10 18:35:41

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1440 and KDE runs fine. Intel Dual Core T4400 processor and 4GB RAM. I learned that I got the best performance by installing xf86-video-intel-newest from AUR. Where the drivers from extra refuse to even allow compositing, the drivers from AUR run Kwin as well as my more powerful desktop PC. In System Settings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced, I use OpenGL in Texture From Pixmap mode, Texture filter set to "Nearest", and Direct Rendering and Vsync disabled.

I still think Compiz is better than Kwin, but I like Kwin because of its pretty login and slide effects (yes, I'm very easily impressed). Waiting anxiously for KDE 4.5 to hit the repos

zephyr · 2010-08-10 19:14:45

You could install qt compiled with raster engine rather than x11. eg. qt-raster-engine in aur http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37157 .

Also pre-KDE4.5 you could "export QT_NO_GLIB=1" and restart kwin. KDE SC 4.5 has this enabled forby default.

(to test these right away run

QT_NO_GLIB=1 kwin --replace
dolphin -graphicssystem raster
konsole -graphicsystem raster

etc.)

countercraft · 2010-08-11 02:04:43

Rezero wrote:

I'm using a Dell Inspiron 1440 and KDE runs fine. Intel Dual Core T4400 processor and 4GB RAM. I learned that I got the best performance by installing xf86-video-intel-newest from AUR. Where the drivers from extra refuse to even allow compositing, the drivers from AUR run Kwin as well as my more powerful desktop PC. In System Settings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced, I use OpenGL in Texture From Pixmap mode, Texture filter set to "Nearest", and Direct Rendering and Vsync disabled.
I still think Compiz is better than Kwin, but I like Kwin because of its pretty login and slide effects (yes, I'm very easily impressed). Waiting anxiously for KDE 4.5 to hit the repos

I like those effects too

zephyr wrote:

You could install qt compiled with raster engine rather than x11. eg. qt-raster-engine in aur http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37157 .
Also pre-KDE4.5 you could "export QT_NO_GLIB=1" and restart kwin. KDE SC 4.5 has this enabled forby default.
(to test these right away run
QT_NO_GLIB=1 kwin --replace
dolphin -graphicssystem raster
konsole -graphicsystem raster
etc.)

I'll try that, hope it works

Thanks.

DarksideEE7 · 2010-08-11 03:41:17

KlavKalashj wrote:

I am using KDE 4.5 on a Asus UL30a, with Intel culv 1,3 ghz, 4gb ram and x4500mhd, and it's working smoothly for me. Minimize effect, blur, transparency when moving windows etc. The only thing that's crap is moving windows around, it seems to lag, but that's probably just a bug. You could try to back up your .kde4/, moving it, and restart KDE to make it create a new config. If it doesn't help, just move the old one back.
On a side note, how is compiz in kde? I have never tried it, but if it's much better maybe I should. Will I miss options? I really like the new blur effect in kde4.5, is that available?

I have the exact same laptop (UL30A-X4 to be exact) and I also run KDE. I use kwin and get decent performance. I tried Compiz in the past in order to try Emerald themes and it was pretty bad IIRC.

I just use hal without a xorg.conf and i915 kernel module along with the latest xf86-video-intel driver. I keep compositing enabled, along with the following settings in System Settings/Desktop Effects:
General:
Improved Window management
Shadows
Various animations
cover switch
cube animation
normal animation speed

All Effects:
Zoom (this performs quite well, I use it often)
Fade
Highlight Window
Login
Logout
Minimize Animation
Shadow
Sliding Popups
Taskbar Thumbnails
Translucency
Dialog Parent

Advanced:
OpenGL Only for Shown Windows
Texture from Pixmap
Bilinear filtering
enable direct rendering

Under Appearance/Workspace/Fine Tuning:
Graphical Effects: High display resolution and low CPU (I'm still wondering which is best TBH)

I'm about to install KDE 4.5 provided it's available......

Have any of you 4500MHD users tried games? I have Starcraft install and play it with another X server session using fluxbox with this script set as an input action for meta+ctrl+F
xinit /usr/bin/fluxbox -- :1

Just wondering what sort of FPS you guys get...

Last edited by DarksideEE7 (2010-08-11 03:45:53)

KlavKalashj · 2010-08-11 08:34:45

DarksideEE7 wrote:

KlavKalashj wrote:
I am using KDE 4.5 on a Asus UL30a, with Intel culv 1,3 ghz, 4gb ram and x4500mhd, and it's working smoothly for me. Minimize effect, blur, transparency when moving windows etc. The only thing that's crap is moving windows around, it seems to lag, but that's probably just a bug. You could try to back up your .kde4/, moving it, and restart KDE to make it create a new config. If it doesn't help, just move the old one back.
On a side note, how is compiz in kde? I have never tried it, but if it's much better maybe I should. Will I miss options? I really like the new blur effect in kde4.5, is that available?
I have the exact same laptop (UL30A-X4 to be exact) and I also run KDE. I use kwin and get decent performance. I tried Compiz in the past in order to try Emerald themes and it was pretty bad IIRC.
I just use hal without a xorg.conf and i915 kernel module along with the latest xf86-video-intel driver. I keep compositing enabled, along with the following settings in System Settings/Desktop Effects:
General:
Improved Window management
Shadows
Various animations
cover switch
cube animation
normal animation speed
All Effects:
Zoom (this performs quite well, I use it often)
Fade
Highlight Window
Login
Logout
Minimize Animation
Shadow
Sliding Popups
Taskbar Thumbnails
Translucency
Dialog Parent
Advanced:
OpenGL Only for Shown Windows
Texture from Pixmap
Bilinear filtering
enable direct rendering
Under Appearance/Workspace/Fine Tuning:
Graphical Effects: High display resolution and low CPU (I'm still wondering which is best TBH)
I'm about to install KDE 4.5 provided it's available......

Have any of you 4500MHD users tried games? I have Starcraft install and play it with another X server session using fluxbox with this script set as an input action for meta+ctrl+F
xinit /usr/bin/fluxbox -- :1
Just wondering what sort of FPS you guys get...

Pretty much the same settings as me. I have used KDE 4.5 since RC2, and blur works just fine here. I think 4.5 is faster, but I'm not sure.
About the zoom, can you get it to behave like the desktop zoom in Compiz, with meta+scroll wheel on mouse? I just love that combination and when I used Gnome I used it every day. Now I tried, didn't succeed and I miss it.
About games, I played Warcraft III in wine on highest settings, worked kind of ok. Also, I am playing Elder scrolls IV: Oblivion in Windows 7 frequently. That's a tad bit too heavy though, hehe... I don't know if another X server is the best for performance, have you tried running it in windowed mode, same as your desktop resolution?

Edit: Tried zoom a little more now and you're right, it works really good. Too bad I can't use the mouse, but it seems less annoying now that I changed it to something better than meta+=
Another thing, do you have this strange bug that if you change certain settings, the screen will "freeze", but everything seems to work still? I can move windows, I can tell by the cursor changing, close apps, pause/play music, but the screen does not refresh? It's such a weird bug, I haven't reported it since I don't know where and what to say... bug reporting is so hard...

Last edited by KlavKalashj (2010-08-11 08:44:48)

DarksideEE7 · 2010-08-11 09:30:13

For zoom I like to use the FPS type controls (meta+w for zoom in, meta+s for out, meta+a for return). Personally it's easier this way. I've never experienced the bug exactly as you describe, however I do get an EXTREMELY annoying bug where going full-screen with flash completely freezes X. It doesn't redraw the screen, however keyboard and mouse input is still active, and I can also still hear the sound effects.

I basically logout blindly using alt+F2, type logout, then spacebar. I've been experiencing this one for some time. It SUCKS. Youtube, huludesktop, Scribd, you name it.

Also where is the blur effect option you're talking about?

Another thing, are you able to enable the 'Sharpen' effect under System Settings/Desktop/All Effects/Accessibility/ ? When I try to enable Sharpen it just says 'The following effects could not be enabled: Sharpen'.

Do you (or anyone else with the 4500MHD) get black artifacts in any Office 2007 apps? I began experiencing this after bin32-wine 1.2 (suse package as well), and I've almost certainly determined that it is a graphics related bug. I'm going to look into performing a regression test (for the first time.......) and if I can recreate on other hardware that would be great. I configured my desktop with Arch x86_64 with a 4870X2 today and it doesn't experience artifacting.
http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=9280

We should definitely compare notes though, seeing as our systems are identical. Also I'm on x86_64 without testing enabled.

KlavKalashj · 2010-08-11 12:09:07

DarksideEE7 wrote:

For zoom I like to use the FPS type controls (meta+w for zoom in, meta+s for out, meta+a for return). Personally it's easier this way. I've never experienced the bug exactly as you describe, however I do get an EXTREMELY annoying bug where going full-screen with flash completely freezes X. It doesn't redraw the screen, however keyboard and mouse input is still active, and I can also still hear the sound effects.
I basically logout blindly using alt+F2, type logout, then spacebar. I've been experiencing this one for some time. It SUCKS. Youtube, huludesktop, Scribd, you name it.
Also where is the blur effect option you're talking about?
Another thing, are you able to enable the 'Sharpen' effect under System Settings/Desktop/All Effects/Accessibility/ ? When I try to enable Sharpen it just says 'The following effects could not be enabled: Sharpen'.

Do you (or anyone else with the 4500MHD) get black artifacts in any Office 2007 apps? I began experiencing this after bin32-wine 1.2 (suse package as well), and I've almost certainly determined that it is a graphics related bug. I'm going to look into performing a regression test (for the first time.......) and if I can recreate on other hardware that would be great. I configured my desktop with Arch x86_64 with a 4870X2 today and it doesn't experience artifacting.
http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=9280
We should definitely compare notes though, seeing as our systems are identical. Also I'm on x86_64 without testing enabled.

Ah! I should try those controls, then I can use only one hand Almost as good as scroll wheel!
This bug, someone found a great work-around which might solve your flash problem too, perhaps. Just do Alt+Shift+f12 to disable effects, then once more to re-enable. Solves my problem.
The blur effect is in the 'all effects' tab, it makes the panel blurry (think Windows 7) and also the popups from networkmanager etc. It's really fancy and doesn't slow anything down. I actually feel that it's making things faster. And easier to read.

I don't use either wine or MS Office so I can not tell about that. Koffice suits my needs fine.

We don't have identical systems then, I have testing enabled. It's very stable for me, and I like being a cowboy

I will try the sharpen effect and then edit this post.

Edit: Sharpen works fine, but it looks horrible

Last edited by KlavKalashj (2010-08-11 12:11:36)

DarksideEE7 · 2010-08-11 18:14:53

KlavKalashj wrote:

DarksideEE7 wrote:
For zoom I like to use the FPS type controls (meta+w for zoom in, meta+s for out, meta+a for return). Personally it's easier this way. I've never experienced the bug exactly as you describe, however I do get an EXTREMELY annoying bug where going full-screen with flash completely freezes X. It doesn't redraw the screen, however keyboard and mouse input is still active, and I can also still hear the sound effects.
I basically logout blindly using alt+F2, type logout, then spacebar. I've been experiencing this one for some time. It SUCKS. Youtube, huludesktop, Scribd, you name it.
Also where is the blur effect option you're talking about?
Another thing, are you able to enable the 'Sharpen' effect under System Settings/Desktop/All Effects/Accessibility/ ? When I try to enable Sharpen it just says 'The following effects could not be enabled: Sharpen'.

Do you (or anyone else with the 4500MHD) get black artifacts in any Office 2007 apps? I began experiencing this after bin32-wine 1.2 (suse package as well), and I've almost certainly determined that it is a graphics related bug. I'm going to look into performing a regression test (for the first time.......) and if I can recreate on other hardware that would be great. I configured my desktop with Arch x86_64 with a 4870X2 today and it doesn't experience artifacting.
http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=9280
We should definitely compare notes though, seeing as our systems are identical. Also I'm on x86_64 without testing enabled.
Ah! I should try those controls, then I can use only one hand Almost as good as scroll wheel!
This bug, someone found a great work-around which might solve your flash problem too, perhaps. Just do Alt+Shift+f12 to disable effects, then once more to re-enable. Solves my problem.
The blur effect is in the 'all effects' tab, it makes the panel blurry (think Windows 7) and also the popups from networkmanager etc. It's really fancy and doesn't slow anything down. I actually feel that it's making things faster. And easier to read.
I don't use either wine or MS Office so I can not tell about that. Koffice suits my needs fine.
We don't have identical systems then, I have testing enabled. It's very stable for me, and I like being a cowboy
I will try the sharpen effect and then edit this post.
Edit: Sharpen works fine, but it looks horrible

That's weird, I wonder why I can't use sharpen then.......I also don't see blur on the All Effects tab. It must be because you're on 4.5.

KlavKalashj · 2010-08-12 06:03:27

DarksideEE7 wrote:

KlavKalashj wrote:
DarksideEE7 wrote:
For zoom I like to use the FPS type controls (meta+w for zoom in, meta+s for out, meta+a for return). Personally it's easier this way. I've never experienced the bug exactly as you describe, however I do get an EXTREMELY annoying bug where going full-screen with flash completely freezes X. It doesn't redraw the screen, however keyboard and mouse input is still active, and I can also still hear the sound effects.
I basically logout blindly using alt+F2, type logout, then spacebar. I've been experiencing this one for some time. It SUCKS. Youtube, huludesktop, Scribd, you name it.
Also where is the blur effect option you're talking about?
Another thing, are you able to enable the 'Sharpen' effect under System Settings/Desktop/All Effects/Accessibility/ ? When I try to enable Sharpen it just says 'The following effects could not be enabled: Sharpen'.

Do you (or anyone else with the 4500MHD) get black artifacts in any Office 2007 apps? I began experiencing this after bin32-wine 1.2 (suse package as well), and I've almost certainly determined that it is a graphics related bug. I'm going to look into performing a regression test (for the first time.......) and if I can recreate on other hardware that would be great. I configured my desktop with Arch x86_64 with a 4870X2 today and it doesn't experience artifacting.
http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=9280
We should definitely compare notes though, seeing as our systems are identical. Also I'm on x86_64 without testing enabled.
Ah! I should try those controls, then I can use only one hand Almost as good as scroll wheel!
This bug, someone found a great work-around which might solve your flash problem too, perhaps. Just do Alt+Shift+f12 to disable effects, then once more to re-enable. Solves my problem.
The blur effect is in the 'all effects' tab, it makes the panel blurry (think Windows 7) and also the popups from networkmanager etc. It's really fancy and doesn't slow anything down. I actually feel that it's making things faster. And easier to read.
I don't use either wine or MS Office so I can not tell about that. Koffice suits my needs fine.
We don't have identical systems then, I have testing enabled. It's very stable for me, and I like being a cowboy
I will try the sharpen effect and then edit this post.
Edit: Sharpen works fine, but it looks horrible
That's weird, I wonder why I can't use sharpen then.......I also don't see blur on the All Effects tab. It must be because you're on 4.5.

Yes, Blur is a new feature in 4.5.

countercraft · 2010-08-15 00:54:34

I'm back
I've tested the hints from zephyr and DarksideEE7 and they worked fine. Now I have a usable KDE desktop again (and that cool login effect)
Thanks everybody.

Now I hope that KDE 4.5 behaves the same way 4.4 is now... and I really hope that blur works fine

DarksideEE7 · 2010-10-20 08:14:26

Well sorry for the necro, but this thread is very relevant. Today I reinstalled Arch on my laptop due to many small problems that I felt would take longer to fix than simply reinstalling.

So I have KDE set up again with most of the packages I had before, and I'm getting some strange bugs. First of all the desktop will stop redrawing after clicking on 'okay' in certain system settings dialogs. At that point I have to hit ctrl+alt+del, then space to logout, then startx again.

Another one is where the 'thumbnail peek' function in smooth tasks and/or task manager is showing in black and white, while only drawing a few parts of the thumbnail. When this happens the framerate slows down substantially.

I've also had to type 'reset' several times after logging out of KDE because the console is completely corrupted. I can count the number of times I had to do that before on one hand (over the past year or so).

Other than that I'm getting fairly decent kwin performance. I know some people suggested switching to compiz, but I would rather not because I've found it performs poorly from my own testing.

I'm going to play around with disabling certain desktop effects, as well as add KMS to initrd . I know this probably doesn't matter, but I had this set before, so for consistency's sake I'm going to set it up.

What's funny is that I helped OP with his problems....now I'm basically in the same boat :\
If anyone has had any success with this chipset (4500MHD) or any other chipset using the i915 kernel module then by all means let me know

Last edited by DarksideEE7 (2010-10-20 08:15:10)

countercraft · 2010-10-20 18:12:53

Now I have an AMD laptop
Due to some bugs in Mesa related to Direct Rendering, the open-source drivers have some problems with KDE 4.5, especially Intel. When I was with my old Intel laptop, what I did was setting the LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 variable in my .bashrc, to force Indirect Rendering in Mesa. That way, all the kwin problems disappeared, and I noticed that it was much faster. You need to disable Blur plugin too, or Plasma will be over-transparent.

Here is a post of a KWin developer, about those problemas and the Mesa stack.

DarksideEE7 · 2010-10-20 18:53:26

countercraft wrote:

Now I have an AMD laptop
Due to some bugs in Mesa related to Direct Rendering, the open-source drivers have some problems with KDE 4.5, especially Intel. When I was with my old Intel laptop, what I did was setting the LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 variable in my .bashrc, to force Indirect Rendering in Mesa. That way, all the kwin problems disappeared, and I noticed that it was much faster. You need to disable Blur plugin too, or Plasma will be over-transparent.
Here is a post of a KWin developer, about those problemas and the Mesa stack.

Thanks, I'll try that. So ironic that I had a perfectly graphic setup, and now that I've reformatted it's hosed. I was running that installation for quite some time, so it's possible that I had already set a performance fix in place long ago and forgot about it.

I've never experienced this out...........my FPS grinds to single digits when I display all windows.

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ctarwater · 2010-10-20 19:56:45

@Darkside - I fixed the same issue on my Intel laptop by enabling the testing repos and installing:
- mesa
- intel-dri
- xf86-video-intel
- mesa-demos

Performance in general has increased since doing that.

DarksideEE7 · 2010-10-20 21:32:06

ctarwater wrote:

@Darkside - I fixed the same issue on my Intel laptop by enabling the testing repos and installing:
- mesa
- intel-dri
- xf86-video-intel
- mesa-demos
Performance in general has increased since doing that.

I'll give that a shot. I wasn't aware that there was a newer Intel driver in testing.....for as long as I've had this laptop testing never had a newer one.

Just as I type this on my desktop, I logged out of KDE and had to type 'reset' again because the terminal was completely borked.

DarksideEE7 · 2010-10-20 22:46:51

I installed the acksges from testing and it fixed the thumbnail bug....nice. now it's time to do my usual tweaks to increase performance..

toketin · 2010-11-12 18:47:12

i've upgraded to testing packages but now the plasma theme is no more trasparent, why?

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-02 12:50:58

KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#2 2010-08-02 13:07:00

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#3 2010-08-03 12:40:20

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#4 2010-08-03 14:23:03

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#5 2010-08-06 13:39:31

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#6 2010-08-06 17:33:11

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#7 2010-08-10 18:35:41

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#8 2010-08-10 19:14:45

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#9 2010-08-11 02:04:43

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#10 2010-08-11 03:41:17

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#11 2010-08-11 08:34:45

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#12 2010-08-11 09:30:13

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#13 2010-08-11 12:09:07

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#14 2010-08-11 18:14:53

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#15 2010-08-12 06:03:27

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#16 2010-08-15 00:54:34

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#17 2010-10-20 08:14:26

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#18 2010-10-20 18:12:53

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#19 2010-10-20 18:53:26

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#20 2010-10-20 19:56:45

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#21 2010-10-20 21:32:06

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#22 2010-10-20 22:46:51

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

#23 2010-11-12 18:47:12

Re: KDE slow on Intel x450MHD

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