Using Kdemod 4.2 on an archlinux system with ati 9200 SE card, and it is really awfull, it is slow and around the mouse cursor there are artefacts, anyone digged in the problem?

Have you tried toggling Desktop Effects?

Yes i have, the box covering the cursor still stays

Which driver is X using? I don't use ATI, but I can recommend ensuring your driver is fully updated.

i'm using the ati radeon free driver, that is part of X.org, and it is the newest version

The only thing I can think of is that the Free Radeon driver is not optimised for the methods KDE 4 uses. Please try the "vesa" driver to see if it gives increased performance.

It seems that disabling both the effects & akonadi server helped to reduce lag, it is faster now

I've got the same problem. Thanks for the akonadi tip, maybe that will help. How does one actually disable it though? I see where I can switch between internal and external servers, but not how to disable. Thanks.

p.s. No, I'm not going to switch to the vesa driver. Sheesh.

Brandybuck, i just stoped the server in the akonadi conf window

Maki wrote:Brandybuck, i just stoped the server in the akonadi conf window

Ah. But it is a workaround to explore.

I also discovered something interesting. If I use KDE3, subsequent KDE4 sessions have the performance problem, but if I boot into KDE4 first, it's just normal sluggishness. So there is something KDE3 is doing to the environment. Dbus? Hal? Dunno. I'm using 4.2 as default on my higher powered laptop, but I can't switch yet to 4.2 on my desktop.

p.s. I did try the vesa option. No such luck, it was very problematic.

Since the newest update it seems that KDE4.2 on ati is fixed, anyone can confirm?

The update to 4.2 didn't fix it, but more tweaking of xorg.conf did. You rememer those ancient days when we had to manually tweak modelines to get stuff to run at higher than VGA resolution? The more things change, the more they stay the same!

In this case, I discovered by accident that you need to put the following in your ServerLayout section.

Code: Select all

Option "AIGLX" "True"

Also make sure your AccelMethod is EXA. This works in X.org 7.4, which has had some significant updates to the radeon driver for R200 chipsets.

How much of an improvement is this? My Radeon 9000 has utterly smooth transparent windows and effects, while my fglrx Radeon X1300 is jerky. My jaw hit the floor last night when I saw this.

p.s. Someone with write access to userbase.kde.org, please put this note in the drivers section for others to use. One shouldn't have to scour dozens of forums, sifting through hundreds of conflicting advice, just to configure their system to run KDE.

I dont have that option

I only have this options, from this wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI

Section "Device"
Identifier "ati"
Driver "radeon"
Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"
Option "AGPMode" "8"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
Option "EnablePageFlip" "on"