KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

voeck · 2009-01-28 11:29:03

Hi!

I am happy that KDE 4.2 has finally hit [extra]. But unfortunately the update wasn't so well for me. I have an older laptop here but KDE 4.1 worked very well on it. But after the update today, KDE has got very slow. The window handling looks very sluggish. When I move a window it leaves traces and the kickoff menu take seconds to disappear completely and so on. So I believe that my graphic card could be the problem. It is an old ATI Radeon Mobility FireGL 9000 which isn't supported by the current closed source driver anymore. So I have to use the open source driver. Can anyone give me some hints how to tweak the performance a little bit? Or are there any other reasons why my KWin experience has got so bad?

Regards,
Voeck

AdeBe · 2009-01-28 11:35:59

Do you have desktop effects enabled? If so, try disabling them, it helped for me (intel gma945)

saneone · 2009-01-28 11:36:07

I have different feelings bout 4.2 release... It's faster than 4.1 significantly.

voeck · 2009-01-28 11:41:04

Oh, sorry. I have forgotten to mention. Of course I have disabled any desktop effects before. I didn't even use them under KDE 4.1.

So, that is strange. I heard a lot stories about 4.2 being much faster. But on the machine it isn't. Any ideas what the reason could be?

Mikko777 · 2009-01-28 11:42:57

Recheck the desktop effects...

Think they are automatically on in kde4.2 if supported.

Then test with vesa driver to see if performance increases.

signor_rossi · 2009-01-28 11:53:40

kde-4.2 (kdemod though) seems also quite snappier to me.
As for your problem, did you start with a clean kde config? If not, rename the old one and start with a clean one.
As for your graphics card, it should be very well and fully supported by the open source radeon driver. Look here on how to set it up:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI

SignorRossi.

toad · 2009-01-28 12:37:35

What is your machine? I have an IBM T41 with 1GB Ram, a 1600gH mobile processor and a 32MB RAM radeon video card. KDE 4.2 is flying on it... Now if I had your radeon 9000 I'd prolly have to put on a seat belt

voeck · 2009-01-28 13:30:06

Thank you very much for your help. Unfortunately I still can't fix it.

The machine is an IBM R51 with 1GB RAM and an 1.6 GHz Pentium M. So it is a very similar configuration. But it's slower.

Starting from a clean KDE setup does not help at all. The performance is the same in that case.
If I switch the vesa driver the performance increases but I was not able to set the screen resolution quickly to 1400x1050 instead it was running with 800x600. But performance was much better in that case. Although I am not so sure if that says very much. Maybe I should try to get vesa running with 1400x1050? Can it do that? I have never tried before.
I have also tried the performance tipps from the wiki and I have added all but AGPFastWrite which causes the system to freeze immediately.
And I rechecked the desktop effects. They are off. I have even disabled compositing in X.

And to give another example of the current performance: When I bring up a right-click menu on the desktop and click on the desktop to close the menu it takes approximately 2 seconds for the menu to disappear.

toad · 2009-01-28 13:39:05

I'd go along with signor_rossi's recommendation. Also, how is your xorg.conf set up? Did you do it yourself? What driver is it using?

voeck · 2009-01-28 13:48:01

Here is my xorg.conf. Currently it's using the "radeon" driver:

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "X.org Configured"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
EndSection

Section "Files"
    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  "drm"
    Load  "GLcore"
    Load  "extmod"
    Load  "xtrap"
    Load  "dbe"
    Load  "record"
    Load  "freetype"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor0"
    VendorName   "Monitor Vendor"
    ModelName    "Monitor Model"
    DisplaySize  305 225
    Option       "DPMS" "yes"
EndSection

Section "Device"
        Option      "AGPMode" "4"                # <i>
        Option     "ColorTiling" "on"           # [<bool>]
        Option     "AccelMethod" "EXA"           # <str>
    Option      "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
    Identifier  "Card0"
    Driver      "radeon"
    VendorName  "ATI Technologies Inc"
    BoardName   "Radeon RV250 [Mobility FireGL 9000]"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen0"
    Device     "Card0"
    Monitor    "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth 24
    SubSection "Display"
        Viewport   0 0
        Depth     24
        Modes "1400x1050" "1024x768"
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

Section "DRI"
    Group      "video"
    Mode       0666
EndSection

Maki · 2009-01-28 18:25:36

I'm using xf86-video-ati on an Ati Radeon 9200, and it is slugish for me too, gonna try vesa

Edit (tried vesa, now plasma has a big white square that cover almost all the desktop)

Last edited by Maki (2009-01-28 18:33:38)

voeck · 2009-01-29 09:08:19

I could now convince the vesa driver to run my 1400x1050 resolution. And the performance is much better now. Everything is working fine here although you can still see that it's just the vesa driver and no hardware adapted driver. But KDE is not so slow as it was anymore. Now my experience is comparable to KDE 4.1.

But the question remains. Why is KDE 4.2 so messed up with the open source radeon driver? Is this a KDE bug? A driver bug? Should one post a bug report? And where? And of course I would rather use the radeon driver if it supports my card so well. Any ideas?

hk2717 · 2009-02-01 08:29:33

My experience is rather different. Catalyst is like ten times slower than xf86-video-ati for my HD4650. I am using a minimal xorg.conf for catalyst and no xorg.conf for xf86-video-ati. But as a result I cannot enable compositing, I will try to create a working xorg.conf for xf86-video-ati later.

aquila_deus · 2009-02-01 08:44:57

Hmm it's very fast here, with nvidia 6200 card and official driver.

voeck · 2009-02-01 08:56:01

The issue seems to occur with the intel driver as well. See http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=64372.

Maki · 2009-02-02 14:28:16

It seems that disabling both the effects & akonadi server helped to reduce lag, it is faster now, but not perfect

Maki · 2009-02-06 16:31:22

Holly crap, i cleaned & put oil on the cooler, now its really really snappy!!!
On the other hand, it is probably this
[2009-02-06 03:13] upgraded kdemod-kdebase-workspace (4.2.0-2 -> 4.2.0-3)

Anyone knows something?

Last edited by Maki (2009-02-06 16:52:48)

SoftVision · 2009-02-07 04:02:06

If you're willing to get your hands dirty then try compiling qt 4.5. Its supposed to be much faster and from what I've read works fine with KDE 4.2.

dcrabs · 2009-02-10 12:41:37

You can of course try to compile it with qt 4.5 rc but it is probably a good idea to check this first:
http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=906
It is a blog post on planet.kde that explains what could not work.
I myself have an intel graphics card and it is painfully slow sometimes. After a fresh login it is better for a while but it gets really annoying. However, I think it can only be solved with a new xorg server version and not by qt. Don't know if that is true for ati as well.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-01-28 11:29:03

KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#2 2009-01-28 11:35:59

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#3 2009-01-28 11:36:07

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#4 2009-01-28 11:41:04

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#5 2009-01-28 11:42:57

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#6 2009-01-28 11:53:40

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#7 2009-01-28 12:37:35

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#8 2009-01-28 13:30:06

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#9 2009-01-28 13:39:05

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#10 2009-01-28 13:48:01

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#11 2009-01-28 18:25:36

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#12 2009-01-29 09:08:19

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#13 2009-02-01 08:29:33

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#14 2009-02-01 08:44:57

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#15 2009-02-01 08:56:01

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#16 2009-02-02 14:28:16

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#17 2009-02-06 16:31:22

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#18 2009-02-07 04:02:06

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

#19 2009-02-10 12:41:37

Re: KDE 4.2 is very sluggish for me

Board footer