Arch Linux

Kirodema

Member

Registered: 2010-01-08

Posts: 81

[SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Hi there,

today I reinstalled my laptop because my Arch was full of junk and I was too lazy to tidy up so I simply reinstalled

I have an Thinkpad R500 with this chip

db@kirodema ~ $ lspci | grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)

Before my reinstalling everything worked fine and fluent ... even Compiz. But now, when I start Compiz it seems to have problems with refreshing the screen. Thats extremly annoying at scrolling because I cant copy the text I want because Compiz hasnt refreshed the screen and so I am copying text which is above oder under the wanted text. Also when I am chatting I cant see the last 2 typed letters. Pretty annoying. Somewhere I read that I should add some settings to my device section in the xorg.conf ... since I dont know how the new xorg works, I simply created a new config-file in xorg.conf.d:

db@kirodema ~ $ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-intelgraka.conf 
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Device0"
    Driver    "intel"
    Option    "DRI"            "True"
    Option    "NoDDC"            "True"
    Option    "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"    "True"
    Option    "EnablePageFlip"    "True"
    Option    "RenderAccel"        "True"
    Option    "AccelMethod"        "XAA"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite"        "Enable"
EndSection

But it seems that xorg is ignoring it:

db@kirodema ~ $ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -e "(WW)" -e "(EE)"
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[   918.990] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/OTF/" does not exist.
[   919.053] (WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
[   919.598] (WW) intel(0): Option "NoDDC" is not used
[   919.598] (WW) intel(0): Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" is not used
[   919.598] (WW) intel(0): Option "EnablePageFlip" is not used
[   919.598] (WW) intel(0): Option "RenderAccel" is not used
[   919.598] (WW) intel(0): Option "AccelMethod" is not used
[   920.683] (EE) AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad Unable to query/initialize Synaptics hardware.
[   920.713] (EE) PreInit failed for input device "AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad"

Do you have any suggestions how I can fix this compiz problem?

PS: what does this AlpsPS/2 error mean? My trackpoint is working fine?

Last edited by Kirodema (2010-09-07 03:29:42)

Rezero

Member

From: US

Registered: 2010-02-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Try starting Compiz with --indirect-rendering. I have the same GPU and it worked for me.

Kirodema

Member

Registered: 2010-01-08

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

I will try it today, thank you

Dog

Member

Registered: 2010-09-06

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

I have the same problem and indirect rendering will help, but with this option compiz will not run as smooth as it will without and doesn't look nice.
I don't know when the problem started, but it was an update for the intel drivers or mesa, I'm not sure.

Kirodema

Member

Registered: 2010-01-08

Posts: 81

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Did work, thank you. Better a little bit slower compiz-effects than a slow refreshing screen

Compintuit

Member

Registered: 2010-03-19

Posts: 19

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Strangely, there is a package in aur, xf86-video-intel-newest, which if installed (it uninstalls xorg-xerver - reinstall it after) will give you back your speed, I believe.

Dog

Member

Registered: 2010-09-06

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Okay, that's strange xD
I tried the "xf86-video-intel-newest":
Without --indirect-rendering compiz has the same problem as discribed.
With --indirect-rendering the problem is gone and I have ~50-60 fps...

Thank you

archex

Member

Registered: 2010-08-13

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

Bump..
I don't regard indirect rendering as a fix, maybe a workaround.
If i run glxgears it reports 60fps, but i see only 3-4 frames per second.

# glxinfo | grep direct
# direct rendering: No (LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT set)

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT is only set with --indirect-rendering

After unsetting glxgears looks fluid:
# unset LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT
# glxinfo | grep direct
# direct rendering: Yes

There has to be a possibility to configure X/Compiz/... right so no --indirect-rendering workaround is necessary...
Any further ideas/tips?

Thanks archex

Last edited by archex (2010-09-09 02:03:35)

archex

Member

Registered: 2010-08-13

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

if (indirectRendering)
    {
    /* force Mesa libGL into indirect rendering mode, because
       glXQueryExtensionsString is context-independant */
    setenv ("LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT", "1", True);
    }

This is the only thing that --indirect-rendering does (according to the source of compiz core).
So why does Firefox need LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT at compiz start to work, but also works if i unset it later manually?

Rezero

Member

From: US

Registered: 2010-02-25

Posts: 30

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

I found that generating xorg.conf and adding

Option      "SwapBuffersWait"           "False"

doubled my Compiz benchmark from ~30fps to ~60fps, with none of that funky tearing. I start Compiz with

LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 INTEL_BATCH=1 compiz --replace --sm-disable ccp &

. I have Vsync disabled, lighting disabled, and texture filter set to good.

Last edited by Rezero (2010-09-13 02:33:20)

Dog

Member

Registered: 2010-09-06

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Compiz cant refresh the screen right

For those, who used xf86-video-intel-newest for solving this problem: Be careful updating intel-dri, mesa and co.
I got a blank screen after rebooting and had to uninstall xf86-video-intel-newest and reinstall the normal xf86-video-intel package. Thanks to all those nice Live-CDs