Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:46 am

This problem list came from GPU-Performance page in UserBase and I copied here for people who uses directly search feature on the forum and not at UserBase. All topics are redirected to an UserBase page to keep all people with the newest tips.

Please, if you have any other problem or kind of problems modify the UserBase page and poke me and I'll update this list.

• Resizing certain windows is choppy
• Plasma performance is bad
• KRunner (Alt+F2) looks strange

Before posting with a question take a look by here too, is the Lemma UserBase page. Thanks to Lemma for testing hardly KDE4 with Nvidia cards, is appreciated.

This list doesn't include ATI only problems, there are not to much, so it won't suppose any problem to look here and search for it.

Last edited by Arkold Thos on Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

[ComaWhite]

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Thu Oct 16, 2008 3:04 am

Using nVidia as described in my signature. I don't notice the problems like I did before in 4.0.x

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:03 pm

I use a 128 MB nVidia 8400M GS, and even vesa makes KDE 4 faster than nvidia binary driver.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:49 am

Update to 177.80 - it's much better now. Still not perfect though.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:07 pm

I have a Geforce 4 mx (64 MB)
And no blur effect.

I don't know if it's related to my nv card or if it's a software issue

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Fri Oct 17, 2008 6:26 pm

I have a Geforce 4 mx (64 MB)
And no blur effect.

I don't know if it's related to my nv card or if it's a software issue

It has to with your graphics card. Geforce 4's don't support shaders and you need shaders to make the blur effect work.

[Moult]

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:14 am

I have an nvidia computer and it's experiencing choppy window resizing as well as laggy plasma folder view resize. I haven't tested any desktop effects yet though. The fixes mentioned on that page worked for the plasma but window resizing still is pretty choppy.

However, what I'm most concerned with is is it possible for this to be fixed? As in, will this problem still exist in something like KDE 4.2? Or is it some hardware support problem with proprietary issues that everybody end up just ignoring?

If so, what work is being done to fix this, and when can we expect nvidia computers to work well with KDE 4?

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sat Oct 18, 2008 10:35 am

However, what I'm most concerned with is is it possible for this to be fixed? As in, will this problem still exist in something like KDE 4.2? Or is it some hardware support problem with proprietary issues that everybody end up just ignoring?

If so, what work is being done to fix this, and when can we expect nvidia computers to work well with KDE 4?

Read for example this blog post by aseigo.

IMO it is very annoying that NVidia's proprietary closed-source driver, which so many people use, has serious issues with methods that Qt4 and KDE4 use, because NVidia didn't do their homework when making that driver in the first place. But what can anybody (except the NVidia devs) do? Nothing but complain to NVidia and wait. That's how closed-source works for the user.

On the bright side: During the last 3 beta versions (last two months or so) of that driver there was a huge improvement, and it's definitely getting there.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:04 am

Update to 177.80 - it's much better now. Still not perfect though.

So... I didn't notice any difference: performance is still very bad. I'll have to keep vesa, unfortunately .

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sun Oct 19, 2008 3:13 am

Update to 177.80 - it's much better now. Still not perfect though.

So... I didn't notice any difference: performance is still very bad. I'll have to keep vesa, unfortunately .

What about the free nv driver? I mean come on, VESA, I can draw it faster by hand! There must be something very weird going on in your setup. Maybe your X.org configuration.

I'll try to clean up my xorg.conf device section and attach it to this post soon - right now it's too messy from all the experiments

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:50 am

Update to 177.80 - it's much better now. Still not perfect though.

So... I didn't notice any difference: performance is still very bad. I'll have to keep vesa, unfortunately .

What about the free nv driver? I mean come on, VESA, I can draw it faster by hand! There must be something very weird going on in your setup. Maybe your X.org configuration.

I'll try to clean up my xorg.conf device section and attach it to this post soon - right now it's too messy from all the experiments

nv is much better than nvidia, but is still bad - it only supports 16-bit color depht, for example.

Anyway, I'll post my xorg.conf when I get on my computer.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:40 pm

Hello !

I'm using KDE4 with a GeForce 8500GT.
With the old drivers it was awful. 2D, even without 3D desktop effects was really really slow. Windows resizing could lead to a 100% cpu load for a few seconds.
I tried "nouveau" opensource driver then, but it hadn't 2D acceleration yet for theses GPUs.

Finally nvidia released 177.80 beta drivers and now everything looks okay. I enabled OpenGL 3D effects and it's okay.

However I still have a few hacks grabed at nvnews forum:

Code: Select all

gandalf@thrall:~$ cat .kde4/Autostart/nvidia-settings.sh
#!/bin/sh
nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1


And this in xorg.conf:

Code: Select all

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
        Option          "PixmapCacheSize"       "1000000"
        Option          "AllowSHMPixmaps"       "0"
EndSection


I hope this will help people experiencing the same issue

Last edited by eL_vErDe on Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Mon Oct 20, 2008 8:45 pm

Useful post eL_vErDe, thanks.
Since I am having hardware problems with mine Nvidia I am using the integrated Intel 3100 and it goes way _BETTER_ than mine nvidia, and here I can use effects quite slow, but i am able to

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Sat Oct 25, 2008 5:20 pm

I have a Geforce 4 mx (64 MB)
And no blur effect.

I don't know if it's related to my nv card or if it's a software issue

It has to with your graphics card. Geforce 4's don't support shaders and you need shaders to make the blur effect work.

OK thanks for the info,
there were a time where I could activate blur effects in compiz, so I wasn't sure.

RE: Common problems of KDE4 using Nvidia GPUs

Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:22 pm

Update to 177.80 - it's much better now. Still not perfect though.

Ditto here, even the beta drivers released in the 2 or so weeks before 177.80 did wonders for my performance. I'm using a Go 7700 on an Asus A8Js and every single feature is running perfectly smooth. Although I do get very odd screen glitches now and then where I end up with the screen cut in half and the desktop appears twice (once on top, once on the bottom) and the screen will cut into random vertical chunks, or it just goes black. All of these can be fixed by restarting X (ctrl+alt+backspace) but it's really annoying. Anyone else getting similar errors? I'll post a screen shot next time it happens, my camera is charging.

Edit: Here's the images, anyone else getting these glitches?
As you can see the screen is duplicated, both are the exact same screen, it's just one on top of the other.. so confusing...

Last edited by Destroyer661 on Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.