Arch Linux

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

I have this problem but so far it's only in OpenGL games.  Probably because they are the only thing capable of demanding much from the CPU.  It affects games played in wine as well as native ones.  The application running is spiking when the graphics lag.  Xorg, however, is not spiking in CPU load, nor is anything else.  And I'm not running out of memory, either.  I'm running a bare-bones window manager with no composite garbage or anything. 

I tried adding nopat to the kernel boot line, and I think I tried every xorg.conf setting the internet could help me dream up.  In my internet travels there also seems to be a fair amount of very similar issues related to ATI users, as well, but that's not to say their drivers aren't garbage, either.  They probably are.   Anyway, the issue seems to keep popping up in Ubuntu forums, probably due to Ubuntu's popularity.

I have found no remedy.  But then, I'm not the one to be weighing in.  I'm hoping to reign in some experts.   I'd love to know how to stop the freeze-frames in graphics-intensive opengl games.  They're somewhat unplayable if the frame freezes long enough to get pwnt.  I've spent a few days on this, so here I am.  Thanks to any suggestions or questions.  Willing to revisit my xorg.conf if necessary.

I'm using Everquest 2 in Wine, and I downloaded Savage2 last night to cross-test the situation.  Ayup.  Freeze-frame issue is less frequent, but lasts longer per incident. 

System is 2.4ghz Athlon64 1mb L2 single core processor with 2gb of PC3200 RAM, and an AGP-based 7900GS video adapter.

One last question, how do I copy the contents of configuration files so I can paste them here.  My clipboard won't clear or accept contents from terminal apps.  Not sure which problem between those it is.  I used to be able to highlight the contents and then middle-click to paste.

Last edited by Bysshe (2009-04-12 02:29:45)

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

opened it in abiword.  duh.

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option  "AllowMouseOpenFail"
    Option  "VTSysReq"
    Option  "AIGLX" "false"
EndSection

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

Section "Module"
#    Load  "dri"
    Load  "glx"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Keyboard0"
    Driver      "kbd"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier  "Mouse0"
    Driver      "mouse"
    Option        "Protocol" "auto"
    Option        "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option        "ZAxisMapping" "4 5 6 7"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    #DisplaySize      350   260    # mm
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "GWY"
    ModelName    "VX920"
 ### Comment all HorizSync and VertRefresh values to use DDC:
    HorizSync    30.0 - 96.0
    VertRefresh  50.0 - 140.0
    Option        "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        ### Available Driver options are:-
        ### Values: <i>: integer, <f>: float, <bool>: "True"/"False",
        ### <string>: "String", <freq>: "<f> Hz/kHz/MHz"
        ### [arg]: arg optional
        #Option     "SWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "HWcursor"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "NoAccel"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "ShadowFB"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "UseFBDev"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "Rotate"                 # [<str>]
        #Option     "VideoKey"               # <i>
        #Option     "FlatPanel"              # [<bool>]
        #Option     "FPDither"               # [<bool>]
        #Option     "CrtcNumber"             # <i>
        #Option     "FPScale"                # [<bool>]
        #Option     "FPTweak"                # <i>
        #Option     "DualHead"               # [<bool>]
    # NoMTRR Setting negatively affects performance
    #Option      "NoMTRR"
    #Option         "Accel" 
    Option      "NoLogo" "true"
    #Option      "TripleBuffer" "true"
    #Option        "AGPFastWrite" "true"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"
    BoardName   "GeForce 7900 GS"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    Option     "TwinView" "0"
    Option     "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
    Option     "metamodes" "1280x960_85 +0+0; 1024x768_75 +0+0"
    #Option     "UseEvents" "true"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth 24
    EndSubSection    
EndSection

userlander

Member

Registered: 2008-08-23

Posts: 413

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

How's your flash playback? I think there's a bug somewhere, whether kernel, ati-drivers, OpenGL, etc. I can't find it, either.

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=58243

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

Everything runs perfectly fine except more graphically intensive OpenGL games.   The CPU just stays bogged down the entire time, and if you do something to place more load on it, the freeze-frames happen.   CPU load hangs around 95% if the window is focused even if graphics are dumped to absolute lowest settings and your in-game character is staring at a wall.  On one hand this sounds like drivers, on the other it sounds like the CFS Scheduler striking again. 

And I've been out of the loop for awhile, so I'm asking for some help on the best way to get debug info.  I don't exactly remember all that.

shazeal

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2007-06-05

Posts: 341

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

CPU should always be at 100% in games no matter what your doing, 95% is odd since its too low. Doubt its the CFS thing, they made quite a few major fixes to CFS in 2.6.27.
Try the games with sound turned off, is about the only thing I can think of. My girlfriends machine is about same spec AMD Barton 2500+, 1g ram DDR400, same drivers/kernel but with a 7300gt instead of 7900 and she has zero issues.

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

I'm now in the process of converting over to oss.  Right now most things are alsa-centric.  can't find the savage2 configuration file.  Might have to uninstall the program if there's no way to make it support oss.

  Converting over to oss v.4.1, then selecting oss driver in wine fixed the problem in Everquest 2.  I was trying to make it harder than it should have been.  Thanks for the help.

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

And the same identical problem is back.  Even tried reinstalling oss in case the script might have cleaned something for me.    But it did work almost all day after installing oss.  One thing is for sure, sound is no better than it was 10 years ago.

shazeal

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2007-06-05

Posts: 341

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

It was fine and now its not? Consistent problems are software, erratic problems are almost always hardware. Sure your video card is not overheating or something?

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

It either has to be the video card or the memory just about.  I took the video card out, coincidentally, to try and clean the fan and wound up damaging the stupid thing.   Busted an extremely tiny solid surface mount capacitor at the slip of a screwdriver. So, I guess problem solved.    Tossing around the idea of getting a new card.  But it's AGP.  So not much point with the integrated 3200/3300 motherboards out there for about as much money.  Throw in a cheap AM2 proc and 2gb of PC6400, and back in business.  Maybe not as good, but it wasn't that good to start with.  Haha.  Won't be missing much.

As for the sound drivers, heh, good old Creative Labs had a hard time getting decent Windows drivers, so to get them this good with Linux is damn good.   Thank you to the alsa and oss teams both.

I'm just gonna cancel my EQ2 account and forget about it for now.  Computing isn't all about gaming anyway.  Thanks for the help.  Sometimes just a voice of reason is needed.

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

I was never able to solve this problem entirely, and note I'm using 32-bit Arch.  I found that if I play WoW through Wine I have no problems.  But if I play EQ2 through wine, the freeze-frames are there, but audio works perfectly including voice chat.  If I play EQ2 through Wine on 64-bit Xubuntu, the graphics problem that makes EQ2 unplayable is gone as long as I have the latest Wine, but Ubuntu has a support-everything attitude about sound, while I only care about ALSA, so audio capture is totally screwed up as default.  Kernel is most likely the problem with Ubuntu.  Anyway, enough speculation, I could go on awhile with that.

Damn. 

I want to try 64-bit Arch now to see if that is it.  I will this weekend.  Thanks again.

droog

Member

Registered: 2004-11-18

Posts: 877

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

damn now that freeze-frame song from the 80's is stuck in my head

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

I am hoping this problem corrects itself with new xorg-server.  That's about all I can at this point.  And if it's not that, then I'll just have to continue waiting.  There are no unusual terminal outputs.  Meanwhile, I have Xubuntu, and I'll boot to Arch when I need it, which is mostly only when I get bored and want to tweak and play.  I just hate how slow and buggy Xubuntu is.  It's like Vista all over again.  Arch is just blazing fast and everything tends to work flawlessly, except this.

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

Well, it's not Xorg.  I upgraded to the testing version, which is very nice, btw, but the problem persists.  Identically.

I'm gonna look at dmesg again real close and then post it to be sure.  But does anyone have any insight into this?
BTW I don't necessarily have problems with flash, but it may explain flash applications crashing randomly.

Last edited by Bysshe (2009-04-06 05:08:16)

JK3mp

Member

Registered: 2009-03-25

Posts: 105

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

Sounds like a dominating topic the problems with games on linux.

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

Mostly just Arch Linux.  And I've been working on this continually.  Still no answer as to why only Arch Linux has screwed up 3D performance.  I've tried all known kernel boot parameters like noacpi noapic nopam nosmp.  I've made sure ACPI modules are loaded when using ACPI, and I've tried a solid number of xorg configurations including entire files from other distros.  Me + Arch Linux=doesn't work.

Last edited by Bysshe (2009-04-06 20:51:49)

Bysshe

Member

Registered: 2004-12-10

Posts: 271

Re: OpenGL, games, choppy freeze-frames [solved by pacman -Syu]

Suddenly the problem is gone.  Another flawless pacman -Syu. LOL.  Thanks guys!

Last edited by Bysshe (2009-04-12 02:30:03)