Gnome gerneral performance

jakub · 2014-10-28 18:31:23

Hi,

Recently I've installed Gnome just to give it another try. It was never working smooth on my laptop (like KDE anyway). But as I'm using Arch since like a year and I'm impressed with its performance I decided to try to run Gnome on it.

But unfortunately it doesn't work smooth. The question is - should it work smooth on my laptop which is Thinkpad T61 with Core2Duo 2.1 Ghz, 3GB of RAM and nVidia Quadro 140M NVS.
So after giving a try I returned to XFCE which is my favorite one as it works really well. It's fast and I don't have impression I have to wait for any window to appear because it's rendering with some fancy shadows, animations and so on...

OK, maybe I'm a demanding user when it comes to performance. Could you please tell me which hardware is required to run Gnome so it works as fast as XFCE?
I'm probably not gonna buy new computer just to run Gnome smoothly on it (don't think like SSD drive or extra 1GB of RAM is gonna change anything) but if I would change my laptop which one should I choose? Dell E6420 with some i5 processor? Is dedicated graphics card requirement here?

Enlighten me please as I've never been able to run Gnome/KDE smooth. I'm sad because of it

Last edited by jakub (2014-10-28 18:32:33)

Pse · 2014-10-29 04:30:03

An integrated GPU works well. Not sure about your specific card, though, it does appear to be quite old. You do need OpenGL 2+ support, otherwise Gnome switches to mesa-llvmpipe (OpenGL on software), which is quite slow.

jakub · 2014-10-29 13:50:55

Pse wrote:

An integrated GPU works well. Not sure about your specific card, though, it does appear to be quite old. You do need OpenGL 2+ support, otherwise Gnome switches to mesa-llvmpipe (OpenGL on software), which is quite slow.

[kuba@t61 ~]$ glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.123

[kuba@t61 ~]$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh.  The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
246 frames in 5.0 seconds = 49.155 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.959 FPS

Isn't it just fine?

dsreyes1014 · 2014-10-29 14:27:23

jakub wrote:

Hi,
Recently I've installed Gnome just to give it another try. It was never working smooth on my laptop (like KDE anyway). But as I'm using Arch since like a year and I'm impressed with its performance I decided to try to run Gnome on it.
But unfortunately it doesn't work smooth. The question is - should it work smooth on my laptop which is Thinkpad T61 with Core2Duo 2.1 Ghz, 3GB of RAM and nVidia Quadro 140M NVS.
So after giving a try I returned to XFCE which is my favorite one as it works really well. It's fast and I don't have impression I have to wait for any window to appear because it's rendering with some fancy shadows, animations and so on...
OK, maybe I'm a demanding user when it comes to performance. Could you please tell me which hardware is required to run Gnome so it works as fast as XFCE?
I'm probably not gonna buy new computer just to run Gnome smoothly on it (don't think like SSD drive or extra 1GB of RAM is gonna change anything) but if I would change my laptop which one should I choose? Dell E6420 with some i5 processor? Is dedicated graphics card requirement here?
Enlighten me please as I've never been able to run Gnome/KDE smooth. I'm sad because of it

I'm running on a 14 yr old Dell Inspiron D630 Intel Core2Duo with integrated graphics card and it runs faster than my brothers Macbook Pro. His seems bloated and slow. Mine isn't blazing fast but it is pretty speedy. Been running Gnome on all of my PC's and it has always run pretty smooth. I don't have a problem loading any apps at all on here either.

ooo · 2014-10-29 15:17:09

glxgears doesn't tell much, especially when you have vsync enabled.

That being said, I've noticed that disabling vsync actually improves gnome-shell performance quite a bit.
You shouldn't even get tearing with intel if you enable tearfree.

still gnome-shell's animations have never been perfectly smooth for me either with low end integrated intel graphics.

jakub · 2014-10-29 20:28:10

[kuba@t61 codility]$ nvidia-settings --load-config-only --assign="SyncToVBlank=0"

  Attribute 'SyncToVBlank' (t61:0.0) assigned value 0.

[kuba@t61 codility]$ glxgears
11261 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2252.134 FPS
9627 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1919.131 FPS
709 frames in 5.0 seconds = 141.662 FPS //glxgears window was maximized here
809 frames in 5.0 seconds = 161.534 FPS
813 frames in 5.0 seconds = 162.421 FPS
807 frames in 5.0 seconds = 161.235 FPS
805 frames in 5.0 seconds = 160.926 FPS

OK, so lets test it on Gnome...

lmello · 2014-10-29 22:34:25

Are you using a 32 or 64 bit system? If the latter, I strongly recommend a memory expansion.

mar04 · 2014-10-29 22:34:57

My experience is similar. Gnome-shell's animations were never smooth, especially transition to and from overview with many windows open. What's more I could never eliminate tearing completely.
My laptop has Intel SandyBridge graphics. Sure, it's not the most powerful GPU, but come on, it's more than capable of displaying some simple desktop animations.
By contrast all animations in KDE are silky smooth, CPU usage stays very low at all time, and there is no tearing. The only gripe I have with KDE is the lack of design and usability in comparison to Gnome, but the underlying tech seems to be better optimized and overall works better.

bulletmark · 2014-10-29 22:57:51

mar04 wrote:

My experience is similar. Gnome-shell's animations were never smooth, especially transition to and from overview with many windows open. What's more I could never eliminate tearing completely.
My laptop has Intel SandyBridge graphics.

I find that I only get smooth animation in gnome shell if I enable Tearfree with xorg SNA as per the wiki. (Note the link there specific to changing tearing for gnome shell does nothing for me). Also, changing to glamor driver as per that wiki also gives me smooth gnome-shell animation. Default SNA (without the Tearfree option) gives me stuttery animation.

Pse · 2014-10-30 03:58:36

@jakub: just to confirm Gnome is indeed using your GPU, you can check in Settings -> Details -> Graphics. It should not say LLVMPipe.

flannelhead · 2014-10-30 07:10:18

mar04 wrote:

My experience is similar. Gnome-shell's animations were never smooth, especially transition to and from overview with many windows open. What's more I could never eliminate tearing completely.

Just as a curiosity: the previous Gnome versions weren't particularly great in this aspect. However, when I upgraded from 3.12 to 3.14 in its beta stage (3.13) I noticed a very big improvement in both smoothness and tearing. The devs have apparently done a great deal of optimization for 3.14.

VikingWarrior75 · 2014-10-30 08:21:04

I'm upset at Gnome's poor performance as well
I thought I would add another user with Gnome
and the Desktop did not even open, correctly,
some update broke the system, I have rarely
had any issues with KDE4 in that, It's more
work to learn how to configure everything
until you get the hang of it, I think KDE has
Gnome beat on alot of levels.

mar04 · 2014-10-30 08:52:59

bulletmark wrote:

I find that I only get smooth animation in gnome shell if I enable Tearfree with xorg SNA

TearFree is a no-go for me since it has a side effect of increasing a chance of hitting this bug: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=54226

bulletmark wrote:

changing to glamor driver as per that wiki also gives me smooth gnome-shell animation

I may try that, thanks.

flannelhead wrote:

The devs have apparently done a great deal of optimization for 3.14.

Yes I've heard they are trying to improve performance and I've tried 3.14, maybe it improved slightly in comparison to previous releases but it's still not smooth. I guess that's the price of writing gnome-shell in JavaScript.

jakub · 2014-10-30 09:47:28

lmello wrote:

Are you using a 32 or 64 bit system? If the latter, I strongly recommend a memory expansion.

64 bit

blackout23 · 2014-10-30 12:03:12

jakub wrote:

Pse wrote:
An integrated GPU works well. Not sure about your specific card, though, it does appear to be quite old. You do need OpenGL 2+ support, otherwise Gnome switches to mesa-llvmpipe (OpenGL on software), which is quite slow.
[kuba@t61 ~]$ glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
OpenGL version string: 3.3.0 NVIDIA 304.123
[kuba@t61 ~]$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh.  The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
246 frames in 5.0 seconds = 49.155 FPS
300 frames in 5.0 seconds = 59.959 FPS
Isn't it just fine?

Your card seems to be still supported in the nvidia-340xx legacy branch you should use that. There has been quite a performance boost since 310, which was NVIDIAs driver to complement the Steam on Linux launch.
http://www.nvidia.de/download/driverRes … x/78496/de

jakub · 2014-10-30 12:09:07

blackout23 wrote:

Your card seems to be still supported in the nvidia-340xx legacy branch you should use that. There has been quite a performance boost since 310, which was NVIDIAs driver to complement the Steam on Linux launch.
http://www.nvidia.de/download/driverRes … x/78496/de

I would like to use 340xx but recently there is some problem with monitor detection.

blackout23 · 2014-10-30 13:39:08

If the performance is better with 340 (which it should) it might be better to work on the monitor detection problem, since that maybe solvable. You can't make an old driver run faster, tough.

jakub · 2014-10-30 13:41:54

blackout23 wrote:

If the performance is better with 340 (which it should) it might be better to work on the monitor detection problem, since that maybe solvable. You can't make an old driver run faster, tough.

You are right. OK, I'll assure first that performance is poor also with 340xx. I'm just not sure if the monitor detection problem is already solved. Anyway - I'll be back

Last edited by jakub (2014-10-30 13:42:24)

Carl Karl · 2014-10-30 22:56:55

And another problem: Gnome-Shell leaks. Memory footprint is only getting bigger with time, limited only by the size of your RAM + Swap.

Pse · 2014-10-30 23:48:41

Not seeing leaks here. And I do have reasonably long uptimes.

blackout23 · 2014-10-31 10:03:12

There is also a repainting problem that seems to affect at least some cards. Gnome has a patch ready, but can't apply it due to a bug in the driver. The work around is to set your card to "Prefer Maximum Performance".
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi … 2-gtx-580/

lmello · 2014-11-02 21:35:46

jakub wrote:

lmello wrote:
Are you using a 32 or 64 bit system? If the latter, I strongly recommend a memory expansion.

64 bit

Try a memory expansion - 3 Gb just isn't enough for big DE's on 64-bit systems anymore. I used to have 4Gb. Upgraded to 8 Gb and tá-da! A 'brand-new' machine

jakub · 2014-11-02 21:44:29

lmello wrote:

jakub wrote:
lmello wrote:
Are you using a 32 or 64 bit system? If the latter, I strongly recommend a memory expansion.
64 bit
Try a memory expansion - 3 Gb just isn't enough for big DE's on 64-bit systems anymore. I used to have 4Gb. Upgraded to 8 Gb and tá-da! A 'brand-new' machine

Sounds good, but because of recent problems with nvidia drivers for older hardware (as mine Quadro NVS 140M) I'm not sure if I want to invest more in this machine

lmello · 2014-11-14 16:09:12

jakub wrote:

lmello wrote:
jakub wrote:
64 bit
Try a memory expansion - 3 Gb just isn't enough for big DE's on 64-bit systems anymore. I used to have 4Gb. Upgraded to 8 Gb and tá-da! A 'brand-new' machine
Sounds good, but because of recent problems with nvidia drivers for older hardware (as mine Quadro NVS 140M) I'm not sure if I want to invest more in this machine

Since I'm not into high-tech gaming nor 3D modelling, I prefer open-source Intel drivers. You said you have a core2duo right? Have you tried to use it's integrated GMA? Perhaps the nvidia driver is the one leaking memory...

jakub · 2014-11-14 19:01:58

No Core 2 Duo processor has an integrated graphics card. It could be integrated into mainboard, but unfortunately my chipset, which is PM965 doesn't have a GPU.

Last edited by jakub (2014-11-14 19:02:20)

Arch Linux

#1 2014-10-28 18:31:23

Gnome gerneral performance

#2 2014-10-29 04:30:03

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#3 2014-10-29 13:50:55

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#4 2014-10-29 14:27:23

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#5 2014-10-29 15:17:09

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#6 2014-10-29 20:28:10

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#7 2014-10-29 22:34:25

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#8 2014-10-29 22:34:57

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#9 2014-10-29 22:57:51

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#10 2014-10-30 03:58:36

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#11 2014-10-30 07:10:18

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#12 2014-10-30 08:21:04

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#13 2014-10-30 08:52:59

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#14 2014-10-30 09:47:28

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#15 2014-10-30 12:03:12

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#16 2014-10-30 12:09:07

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#17 2014-10-30 13:39:08

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#18 2014-10-30 13:41:54

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#19 2014-10-30 22:56:55

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#20 2014-10-30 23:48:41

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#21 2014-10-31 10:03:12

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#22 2014-11-02 21:35:46

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#23 2014-11-02 21:44:29

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#24 2014-11-14 16:09:12

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

#25 2014-11-14 19:01:58

Re: Gnome gerneral performance

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