Arch Linux

subatomic

Member

From: Berlin

Registered: 2005-06-26

Posts: 180

kde4, xorg or nvidia?

Hi guys and girls, I recently did a new install and went for kde4 (not impressed).
Now I'm having a problem with the windows. When I open a menu (kmenu for example) or a new window comes up (settings) it's not rendered completely, but after a second or two it will be OK. Here's an image of what it looks like (took me a while because it's only like that for a sec or two)

and here is an extract of my xorg.conf

#Section "DRI"
#    Mode 0666
#EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "ddc"  # ddc probing of monitor
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "glx"
    Load           "bitmap" # bitmap-fonts
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "record"
#    Load  "dri"
#    Load  "type1"
#    Load  "synaptics"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Card0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "All"
    BoardName      "All"
    Option         "RenderAccel" "True"
#    Option         "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP"
#    Option         "NvAGP" "1"
    Option         "BackingStore" "True"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "True"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
  Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

I tried adding DFP althought it's on analog. I've tried many other options as well. The card is a GeForce FX5200.
I appreciate the help.

carlocci

Member

From: Padova - Italy

Registered: 2008-02-12

Posts: 368

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

you can remove nvidia from the equation as I have your same issue with an ati 9550:
it displays garbage while it's loading the menus.
It doesn't depend on compositing.

subatomic

Member

From: Berlin

Registered: 2005-06-26

Posts: 180

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

what equation do you mean?

Sole

Member

Registered: 2007-04-09

Posts: 42

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

I don't know if it's nvidia or xorg, I used to have that problem of menus showing up garbage for a split second with my nvidia card, the problem was gone when I use the xorg-server-gentoo package from AUR or the new xorg 1.5 from testing, the problem only occurs with compositing enabled.

zeratul289

Member

From: Liverpool, UK

Registered: 2008-03-07

Posts: 24

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

It might also be worth pointing the finger at QT/KDE4, I recently compiled and tried the 4.5.0 Technical Preview of QT and the garbage behind pre-rendered menus and windows seems to be mostly gone.

You could also maybe try temporarily commenting out these options in your xorg.conf to see if it has any effect:

Option         "BackingStore" "True"
Option         "TripleBuffer" "True"

Last edited by zeratul289 (2008-11-05 00:50:01)

subatomic

Member

From: Berlin

Registered: 2005-06-26

Posts: 180

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

I commented out Composite  as well as BackingStore and TripleBuffer, which I put in there once in an attempt to resolve this.
I also changed the KDE desktop setting from XRender to OpenGL. I could try a few more options here but I believe the problem lies elsewhere, however the desktop does seem to run slightly better.

Oxyd

Member

From: Czech Republic

Registered: 2008-01-17

Posts: 167

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

I'm using an NVidia 7600 and I've got the same issue.  It's not KDE-specific for me, though, as the problem appears in any other WM with compositing enabled.

Rognon

Member

Registered: 2006-10-05

Posts: 40

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

It might not be related, but it seems that adding

Option      "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"

in my xorg.conf under the Device section fixed it. It might also be the fact that I switched to xorg 1.5 from testing. I'm don't have a nvidia card though.

subatomic

Member

From: Berlin

Registered: 2005-06-26

Posts: 180

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

This is the second post in which the testing package was mentioned as the solution, so I'd like to give it a try. Are there any tricks to removing xorg-out-of-date and going to testing? Is it going to break anything else?

Rognon

Member

Registered: 2006-10-05

Posts: 40

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

I just uncommented the testing repos in /etc/pacman.conf and did a pacman -Syu. Nothing got broken and I have not encountered any problems.

subatomic

Member

From: Berlin

Registered: 2005-06-26

Posts: 180

Re: kde4, xorg or nvidia?

Problem solved, but it wasn't evident. After going for Xorg 1.5, I restarted and didn't have a screen. RgbPath was invalid, so I just commented out this line. Now the question is if this was the culprit with xorg 1.4?