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#1 2008-02-27 16:19:26

jstarek
Member
Registered: 2008-02-27
Posts: 15

[Solved] Xorg driver "intel" seems slow

Hello everyone,

I'm using Arch Linux on a laptop with an i810 graphics chip. Hence, I use the intel xorg driver. While 3D acceleration works fine, I have the impression that its 2D performance is rather bad. Scrolling through a web page results in a jumpy, slow animation and the desktop generally feels slow to react to user input. The processor, meanwhile, is rarely fully loaded and there is free RAM left, so I do not think the problem is related to a lack of system resources.

Previously, I ran the machine with the older i810 driver (under Kubuntu, not Arch) and that seemed quicker. I just tried out xorg's auto-configuration mechanism and, by moving my xorg.conf elsewhere, got it to use the VESA driver. Even that was quicker than the intel driver, at least with regard to scrolling through web pages and the like.

Is this a known behaviour? Are there any settings in xorg.conf that slow the driver down? I'm pasting some potentially interesting sections of my current xorg.conf below.

Many thanks in advance!

  Jürgen

Snippets from my xorg.conf:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier    "Xorg Configured"
    Screen          0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Touchpad" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "PS/2 Mouse" "SendCoreEvents"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option "AllowMouseOpenFail"  "true"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    RgbPath        "/usr/share/X11/rgb"
    ModulePath    "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
     FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
    FontPath    "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
    FontPath     "/usr/local/share/fonts"
EndSection

Section "Module"
#      Load  "ddc"  # Don't include this here as it's included in intel driver
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "dri"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "glx"
        Load  "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
    Load  "freetype"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

### Left out input devices for brevity ###

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "LCD"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
    HorizSync    28.0 - 85.0
    VertRefresh    50.0 - 62.0
    Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768"
### Left out the auto-generated default VESA modelines ###
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Onboardchip"
    Driver      "intel"
    VendorName  "Intel"
    BoardName   "i810 onboard"
    Option "HWCursor" "off"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Onboardchip"
    Monitor    "LCD"
    DefaultColorDepth 24
### Left out the analoguous sections ###
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth     24
        Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Mode 0666
EndSection

Last edited by jstarek (2008-02-27 19:37:25)


Restoring the oldest German radio telescope: http://astropeiler.de

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#2 2008-02-27 16:50:40

bluePoet
Member
From: Düsseldorf, Germany
Registered: 2006-01-09
Posts: 38
Website

Re: [Solved] Xorg driver "intel" seems slow

Hi, recently there was a thread about something like this, maybe it helps:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=43656

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#3 2008-02-27 19:35:04

jstarek
Member
Registered: 2008-02-27
Posts: 15

Re: [Solved] Xorg driver "intel" seems slow

Thanks for the link, I must have overlooked that thread...

But indeed, adding

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

to the device's section helped. I'm marking this closed.


Restoring the oldest German radio telescope: http://astropeiler.de

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#4 2008-02-27 20:07:23

augustob
Member
From: Florianópolis, Brazil
Registered: 2006-03-17
Posts: 135

Re: [Solved] Xorg driver "intel" seems slow

Awesome, using this and it's a marked improvement. Thanks!

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