Greetings, I've been trying to resolve this issue on my netbook for a week to no avail, so I figure it's time to ask for help.

Problems since upgrade:
- OpenGl now crashes repeatedly
- Kwin Desktop effects (e.g., desktop cube, wobbly windows) can no longer be enabled, translucency works but crashes sporadically
- multiple windows are jumpy, slow
- overall the desktop looks awful

Is this a KDE bug? Or is this an error on my end? If it's the latter, does anyone have advice on how I can fix this? Cheers.

--Netbook Details--

Gentoo CFLAGS:
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"

Hardware:
Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (


Kernel Settings:
CONFIG_DRM_I915=y
CONFIG_DRM_I915_KMS=y

Glxinfo Output:
name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
...
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on i915 (chipset: 945GME)
OpenGL version string: 1.4 Mesa 7.11.2

Kwin Replace Output:
penGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.11.2
Driver: Software rasterizer
GPU class: Unknown
OpenGL version: 2.1
Mesa version: 7.11.2
X server version: 1.11.2
Linux kernel version: 3.1.10
Direct rendering: yes
Requires strict binding: yes
GLSL shaders: no
Texture NPOT support: yes

Edit: Thread title changed from "Desktop Effects Stopped Working on KDE 4.7 (Intel 945GME)" to [SOLVED] status

It appears that KWin is finding a completely different version of OpenGL/Mesa to what your system is supposed to be using with glxinfo. Please verify your X settings and ensure that the correct version of libGL is selected as the default to be used. You may need to recompile QtOpenGL and KWin.

Sincere thanks, bcooksley. I appreciate your reply. I didn't notice the version difference until you pointed it out. I've recompiled mesa, qt-opengl and kwin per your suggestion and now the glxinfo output is as follows:

name of display: :0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4

GLX version: 1.4

OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 7.11.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20

I've also upgraded to KDE 4.8.0

Issues Resolved: The frequent opengl crashing and screen blackout during the login process has stopped.

Original Issues Unresolved: I'm still having the same issues with non-working desktop effects (http://x8k.org/ss/kde04.png), and overall graphic issues (e.g., shading leaves unsightly black shadow or partial screen on all styles [does not occur when using compiz] http://x8k.org/ss/kde01.png)

New Issues Unresolved: now it seems that KDE is silently defaulting to XRender instead of giving me the previous error message that was along the lines of: OpenGL crashed fallback to XRender (http://x8k.org/ss/kde02.png -> http://x8k.org/ss/kde03.png -> closes system settings, reopens system settings -> http://x8k.org/ss/kde05.png).

In regards to my Xorg configuration, while troubleshooting I tried the following options in my 40-monitor.conf file in various combinations:

Device section:
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "PreferredMode" "1366x768"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "ExaNoComposite" "false"

Extensions section:
Option "Composite" "enable"

DRI section:
Mode 0666

... to no avail, so I removed them. My current 40-monitor.conf only s the has the following 8 lines:
Section "Device"
Identifier "VideoCard0"
Driver "intel"
EndSection

Section "dri"
Mode 0666
EndSection

If my issues stem from something as basic as an Xorg configuration, I honestly am at a loss on how to correct the error. If you or anyone here has any more suggestions on what further steps I can take to get my desktop effects working, I would greatly appreciate it.


Again, thank you very much for your reply.

The key line here is:

Code: Select all

OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer

It appears that Direct Rendering is not available to your system as such, which is why KWin automatically and silently falls back.

I'm not sure what part to rebuild here, but I recall it having something to do with the kernel (a reboot might be all that is needed to get the updated driver loaded)

Thank you very much. That key line you gave me helped me resolve my issue quickly. It was a permissions issue. When I grepped render from root access the output was:
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) 945GME x86/MMX/SSE2

But from my user account it was:
direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer

When I logged into KDE from root and ran kwin --replace and sure enough desktop effects started working.

(Assumed) Problem:
user account did not have access permission to /dev/dri/card0

Solution:
added user to video group, deleted kwinrc file, logged in again

OpenGL works fine and desktop effects are enabled thanks to your help. Cheers.