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#1 2005-05-23 16:12:40

EmbraceThePenguin
Member
From: New Mexico, USA
Registered: 2004-08-09
Posts: 197

losing performance

Not sure what the problem is, but for some reason after a fresh install, I start losing performance after a coulpe of hours.

When I get KDE up and running for the first time and install some trivial apps, I can set my AA and AF to 2x AA and 8x AF using nvidia-settings and run glxgears and get a solif 7225 (Geforce 6800 Ultra 256 with an AMD64 3400). Then, after a while of surfing and plying Doom3, the performance seems to drop considerably and glxgears runs at about 5600 to 5900. Even in Doom3, an initall timedemo will produce 76 FPS at those settings (1280x1024 res) and then drop to below 60 FPS.

I reboot, try not to use KDE (Basic X windows) even another WM, and it just seems to be locked to the lower performance rating.

If I reformat and reinstall, I get the same results.

Anyone know why this might be happenging? Its quite annoying to play flawlessly for a couple of hous and then crappy the rest of the time.

As a side note, I check the temps and they are all within a few degrees of idle (I have a Zalman cooler on my GPU). So its not a temp issue.

Maybe a kernel config issue? I tried a CK Kernel using the Arch config and it seems to last a little longer, but eventually does the same thing.

Is this just a Linux thing (I know Linux is not the best gaming platform).

Anyway, any insight would be wonderfull...

Thanks!!!

Joe

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#2 2005-05-23 16:20:12

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: losing performance

do a  "ps aux" when it starts getting crappy - see what's consuming the most CPU and RAM

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#3 2005-05-23 16:32:49

i3839
Member
Registered: 2004-02-04
Posts: 1,185

Re: losing performance

Could be a nvidia driver bug. Does restarting X help? Or maybe it's buggy FAM.

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#4 2005-05-23 16:45:56

EmbraceThePenguin
Member
From: New Mexico, USA
Registered: 2004-08-09
Posts: 197

Re: losing performance

phrakture wrote:

do a  "ps aux" when it starts getting crappy - see what's consuming the most CPU and RAM

Well, this is the weird thing. Nothing is out of the ordinary when I do ps or top.

X seems to use a bit more cpu than usuall, but only by 1 or 2 %.

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#5 2005-05-23 16:48:34

EmbraceThePenguin
Member
From: New Mexico, USA
Registered: 2004-08-09
Posts: 197

Re: losing performance

i3839 wrote:

Could be a nvidia driver bug. Does restarting X help? Or maybe it's buggy FAM.

Restarting X does not seem to help, but restarting the system will bring the scores back to above 7100, but not like it was after a fresh install.

Another thing to note is while playing Doom3 and UT2004 for awhile the performance will get jerky. I have to stop the game and start it again and it plays smooth again for awhile.

Interesting. Maybe an X or nvidia driver issue? I can try an older nvidia driver, I havnt tried that yet...

Thanks for the replies!!!

Joe

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#6 2005-05-23 17:07:12

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: losing performance

EmbraceThePenguin wrote:

Restarting X does not seem to help, but restarting the system will bring the scores back to above 7100, but not like it was after a fresh install.

what "scores"?

as a test... instead of running a WM to play something, try just using xinit to start only the game... see if that helps...

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#7 2005-05-23 17:13:54

EmbraceThePenguin
Member
From: New Mexico, USA
Registered: 2004-08-09
Posts: 197

Re: losing performance

phrakture wrote:
EmbraceThePenguin wrote:

Restarting X does not seem to help, but restarting the system will bring the scores back to above 7100, but not like it was after a fresh install.

what "scores"?

as a test... instead of running a WM to play something, try just using xinit to start only the game... see if that helps...

The scores I was refering too were the glxgears and Doom3 timedemo scores.

I can try that, however, and sorry for the dumb questions, but how would I use xinit to fire up the game? Modify the .xinitrc to not start a WM or DE and just type startx and launch the game?

Thanks for the tips!!!

Joe

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#8 2005-05-23 17:25:53

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: losing performance

just run "xinit doom3" from the console... it'll start up an X server that lives as long as doom3 is running

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#9 2005-05-23 20:29:48

lucke
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2004-11-30
Posts: 4,018

Re: losing performance

As i3839 indicated, disabling fam could help (if you use it, that is). Actually, I've spent last few days fighting with fam/gamin and found fam to be a real sucker (suddenly it started to give me big problems, possibly due to kernel change).

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#10 2005-05-23 20:35:36

EmbraceThePenguin
Member
From: New Mexico, USA
Registered: 2004-08-09
Posts: 197

Re: losing performance

I dont use FAM, but think I may have found a possible problem. I reinstalled the OS from scratch and started to isolate software packages. As I installed a  package, I tested glxgears to see where the slow down started. After installing the beta of Open Office2, I noticed a slowdown in the performance. I uninstalled it and it was good again.

Maybe this is the culprit. I will do some more testing and see what I can find out.

Thanks!!!

Joe

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