X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

alexandernst · 2010-10-26 14:24:18

I have Arch 2.6.35 + KDE 4.5.2 + X (everything is up to date), but I'm having serious problems with KDE.
Moving a window makes kwin to take 100% of 1 core, and X is using around 300mb just after fresh startup, and it can get up to 1gb after a few days.

My PC: 4gb RAM DDR2 + Intel Quad Core @ 2,8Ghz + NVidia 8600 GTS

PS: KDE desktop effects are enabled, but I tried disabling them and X still uses _that_ much RAM. kwin stops eating that much CPU, but it's there any other solution?

Regards

Bregol · 2010-10-26 16:35:13

With the CPU only happening when you move a window, it sounds like it is just whatever set of composite effects you have enabled. Either disabling the eye candy or even going into the settings for the desktop effects and playing with the settings there might help with that. Since you mention that you have a Nvidia card, maybe look at this:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Nvi … _CPU_usage
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=705935

There's plenty of material out there on the forums or the google on desktop effect performance with different cards and so forth. The CPU usage is all in the combination of what card you use and what settings for the desktop effects. And the driver... whether you use nvidia's driver or the nouveau driver makes a difference, too.

The RAM thing is a separate issue. That is going to be dependent on what all you have running when you start. I doubt that kwin itself is eating that much, but you can check your processes to see what is using up all the RAM. My suspicion is that Nepomuk/Strigi (desktop search) is what is eating a good chunk. You can configure its cache size and what all it indexes in kde's settings. My own desktop starts up with maybe 300 or 500 mb RAM used, but that's because I have plenty of RAM, so I told it to go ahead and use a bunch of that for Strigi and other stuff. So 300mb just starting up isn't necessarily a surprising number, it just depends on what all you have starting up and how big of caches and etc.

alexandernst · 2010-10-26 17:07:56

About the kwin cpu thingy, as I said, disabling the desktop effects helps. But really, I think my pc can handle the really basic desktop effects (gelly windows + transparency, nothing more).

About the RAM thing. I think you didn't understood me. I mean that after a fresh boot on, only X process (X server) uses around 300mb. That's insane!! It shouldn't use more than 50.
At the moment I'm writing this it's using 518.8 + 5% CPU all the time.

onzlaught · 2010-10-26 20:53:14

The problem is that the default underlying qt rendering engine (based on xrender) doesn't work very good with the nvidia module. You can change it to a software based by setting the environmental variable QT_GRAPHICSSYSTEM=raster before launching KDE. Another thing you should do is update to the latest nvidia module (260.xxx.xxx) since they've addressed some problems with the fonts rendering under the latest xorg version.

Bye!

alexandernst · 2010-10-26 21:02:48

I already did both things a few months ago.

EDIT: I mean, the raster thing. I also updated nvidia to latest drivers (260) a few days ago. Still the same probs.

Last edited by alexandernst (2010-10-26 21:03:54)

ChoK · 2010-10-26 23:39:54

I have the same problem with kde 4.5 and a 9300M GS. After a fresh start, memory usage is "normal" but after playing with image-related programs (gwenview, firefox, chromium) the X process suddenly jumps to 180MB memory usage and grows to a max of 500MB. chromium and suspend to RAM are a good way to reproduce this.

the related bug report in chromium http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=57782

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-26 14:24:18

X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

#2 2010-10-26 16:35:13

Re: X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

#3 2010-10-26 17:07:56

Re: X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

#4 2010-10-26 20:53:14

Re: X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

#5 2010-10-26 21:02:48

Re: X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

#6 2010-10-26 23:39:54

Re: X and KDE4.5 high memory and cpu usage

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