Arch Linux

femc

Member

Registered: 2007-03-31

Posts: 10

Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

Using latest fglrx driver seems to screw Xorg (xorg-server 1.5.3) performance, at least for me. Switching between workspaces, opening terminals, resizing windows.. everything went very sluggish. This is a fresh Arch install with latest xorg-server, catalyst and kernel.

I was able to help this a great amount with xf86-video-ati and libgl, adding `Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"` in xorg.conf. Other Options I have in "Device" section: XAANoOffscreenPixmaps = true, AGPMode = 4, ColorTiling = on, (AccelMethod = EXA), AGPFastWrite = yes. Open-source ati-driver also fixed this: <http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=32494>

Still there's a performance gap which can be seen e.g. in Firefox and doing things in Terminal. <http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=61041> I hope someone gets an idea what might be wrong.

Anyone else suffering problems like this?

SaThaRiel

Member

Registered: 2008-09-24

Posts: 19

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

Try disabling composite in xorg.conf - if you dont need it, great. If you want to have it i think you (and me too) have to wait for catalyst 9.1

Disbale composite in xorg.conf

Section "Extensions"
    Option    "Composite"    "Off"
EndSection

Last edited by SaThaRiel (2008-12-22 13:55:18)

femc

Member

Registered: 2007-03-31

Posts: 10

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

I also had a notable drop down in GLXGears FPS from 5500 -> 1500 (fglrx), 1300 (open source driver). Direct rendering is on.

pedepy

Member

Registered: 2007-02-21

Posts: 198

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

i havent done extensive testing as xorg server 1.5.3 more or less works with some of my hardware, however I can attest that 8.11 (didnt try 8.12) had a much choppier feel than 8.8 or 8.9 (no one quite knows where 8.10 went).

as for glxgears however, i wouldnt count on it that much. might give you an idea, but youd be better off checking other benchmarks as well before you draw any conclusions.

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phenom

Member

Registered: 2007-07-06

Posts: 4

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

I also had a notable drop down in GLXGears FPS from 5500 -> 1500 (fglrx), 1300 (open source driver). Direct rendering is on.

and how about cpu-load??!!!!!!!!
when you have 5500 ->100%( cpu)
when you have 1500 ->~10-20%( cpu)
think again

Diaz

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2008-04-16

Posts: 366

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

since the last upgrade of X i've been using the open-source driver (radeonhd), but i had to change, because with that one i can't suspend/hibernate nor control the screen brigthness. So i changed for catalyst and it really is slower than the opnesource one.

here is my xorg.conf

Section "Files"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier   "Monitor"
    Option        "VendorName" "ATI Proprietary Driver"
    Option        "ModelName" "Generic Autodetecting Monitor"
    Option        "DPMS" "true"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Device"
    Driver      "fglrx"
    BusID       "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier "Screen"
    Device     "Device"
    Monitor    "Monitor"
    DefaultDepth     24
EndSection

what changes do you recommned to improve the performance a little?

for reference my xorg.conf of the radeonhd driver

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "ATI Device"
    Driver       "radeonhd"
    Option       "AccelMethod" "EXA"
    Option       "DRI" "True"
EndSection

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

Section "Files"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi"
    FontPath     "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi"
EndSection

leeyee

Member

From: Kingston, Canada

Registered: 2009-01-07

Posts: 150

Re: Catalyst 8.12 and crappy performance in X

It's catalyst 8.12 + xorg 7.4-2 AGAIN!

This seems an upstream bug, but didn't see it solved till now.

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Archlinux x86_64 on Thinkpad T400
Intel X4500MHD / ATI HD3470 Graphics, 2G RAM, 160G HD