xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

adekoba · 2008-02-09 16:48:57

I updated firefox the other day to version 2.0.0.11-2 and have noticed that it has been painfully slow, in the sense that it doesn't respond quickly. I press a menu item and it takes longer than usual for it to open. Tab switching is delayed. Overall rendering is slow and cpu intensive.

Is anybody else having these problems?

edit: I've found that it was my new video driver (xf86-video-intel) which is causing the slowness. I tried the older version (xf86-video-i810) and it works perfectly. Does anyone know how to fix this?

Last edited by adekoba (2008-02-09 17:13:48)

shining · 2008-02-09 17:29:30

Try using xaa instead of exa.
Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
in section device.

adekoba · 2008-02-09 17:38:51

it works! thank you!

much love <3

subset · 2008-02-13 23:10:07

shining wrote:

Try using xaa instead of exa.
Option "AccelMethod" "xaa"
in section device.

Many-many thanks from Hungary

It is working fine on my i940 laptop

THX

zadow · 2008-02-26 14:02:01

Hello,

this option helps me lot. It works perfectly on my i810 graphic card

bash-3.2$ lspci | grep -i vga
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Zadow

shining · 2008-02-26 14:49:31

There is another option that makes the exa AccelMethod (default one) as fast as xaa :

Option      "AccelMethod"   "exa"
Option       "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"

See : man exa.

andywxy · 2008-02-26 18:12:09

Thank you shining!
You r really my shining star!

figue · 2008-03-04 11:16:58

Thank you shining... I was desperate

schivmeister · 2008-03-05 02:54:02

wow shining you're the man. i've noticed this in some discussions before but thought them to be archaic. you have confirmed that they're not. but isn't xaa kind of deprecated?

you may also try INTEL_BATCH=1 as an env var.

Last edited by schivmeister (2008-03-05 03:01:45)

Misfit138 · 2008-03-05 02:57:01

When Shining speaks, I listen!
Always lending his wisdom that one is.

schivmeister · 2008-03-05 04:29:17

This is strange but are there requirements that need to be met in order to use exa acceleration? Xorg complains "not valid keyword".

shining · 2008-03-05 11:07:39

schivmeister wrote:

This is strange but are there requirements that need to be met in order to use exa acceleration? Xorg complains "not valid keyword".

Did you put it in the right section, Device ?
Anyway, you don't need to put anything at all, exa is used by default in the intel driver.
Just add the greedy option.

capthookb · 2008-03-05 13:15:00

Does anyone know if xaa or exa is supported by binary nvidia drivers? I'm having same issues with text rendering.
I tried both options in xorg.conf but it didn't help at all. With EXA or XAA enabled i get

(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "AccelMethod" is not used

in /var/log/xorg.0.log

Last edited by capthookb (2008-03-05 13:16:32)

shining · 2008-03-05 13:23:35

capthookb wrote:

Does anyone know if xaa or exa is supported by binary nvidia drivers? I'm having same issues with text rendering.
I tried both options in xorg.conf but it didn't help at all. With EXA or XAA enabled i get
(WW) NVIDIA(0): Option "AccelMethod" is not used
in /var/log/xorg.0.log

You should not experience the same issue with nvidia driver.
I doubt it's as slow as the default intel driver using exa. What do you use as a reference?

Here are some old informations which might still be valid :
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/x … 09434.html

schivmeister · 2008-03-05 14:55:10

Right, of course. Using xaa works, but exa doesn't. I'm presuming that's because it's a default. So I'll just remove any accel option and add the greedy one. But even so, others are having it there.

capthookb · 2008-03-06 08:44:48

shining wrote:

You should not experience the same issue with nvidia driver.
I doubt it's as slow as the default intel driver using exa. What do you use as a reference?
Here are some old informations which might still be valid :
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/x … 09434.html

I use Konqueror for browsing and tab switching is really slow. I feel konsole slow as well, when text changes fast e.g when i do ls -R /.
Maybe it has to do something with antialiasing. When i remove it i don't experience same slowness but the fonts look bad. I thought XAA or EXA enables hardware acceleration for font rendering, but i don't know if something like that exists.
You are right about NVIDIA though, it used it's own methods. I see at the log this line:

(II) NVIDIA(0): Using the NVIDIA 2D acceleration architecture

P.S. Sorry for being offtopic

Last edited by capthookb (2008-03-06 08:45:16)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-02-09 16:48:57

xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#2 2008-02-09 17:29:30

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#3 2008-02-09 17:38:51

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#4 2008-02-13 23:10:07

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#5 2008-02-26 14:02:01

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#6 2008-02-26 14:49:31

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#7 2008-02-26 18:12:09

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#8 2008-03-04 11:16:58

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#9 2008-03-05 02:54:02

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#10 2008-03-05 02:57:01

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#11 2008-03-05 04:29:17

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#12 2008-03-05 11:07:39

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#13 2008-03-05 13:15:00

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#14 2008-03-05 13:23:35

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#15 2008-03-05 14:55:10

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

#16 2008-03-06 08:44:48

Re: xf86-video-intel + firefox = slowness

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