hello. I've archlinux, latest kde, intel 915 and there's no blur effect, though it's enabled in systemsettings
the panel and win.decorations are transparent, but no blur is present. I made no changes to kwinrc file, neither have i disabled lanczos(or smth). what could be the reason of it?

Some effects do not take effect if you are judged not to have enough memory or the video graphics to handle them.

It largely depends on your video card. Kwin will check to see if each feature will work given your available hardware, and if the hardware doesn't support it Kwin will turn the feature off. Blur apparently is very dependent on having a capable video card, and is usually one of the first to go.
I've got two computers at home - one with and NVidia card and one with integrated intel graphics. Blur is enabled on the NVidia card but not on the Intel, even though the later is on a slightly more powerful machine.

ok, but is there a way to force using blur? just to try?
PS: I just recovered from backup(thnx clonezilla) and blur was working perfectly on kde SC 4.6.0 with intel 915. After upgrade to kde sc 4.6.1 there's again no blur. So, the problem is in kde 4.6.1.

If you try a new user, does it work there?

no

It is probable that the developers have deliberately disabled Blur for your hardware due to system requirements in changes made in KDE 4.6 or reports of instability with your hardware and the Blur effect.

any way to force enable it?

If you have OpenGL selected, it can work. If you select XRender, it wont (at least in my case.

EVEN IF the developers judge your computer an say it's not going to bee smooth, and you are able to force it, you'll get a slow system. Does transparency work? If so, read the arch Wiki about your specific graphic provider setup instructions, and optimize them. Then, try to forze it (however someone finds out it to be able). And even then, if its still slow, Google about "KDE raster engine" and see which way of using it is better suited to you (it's another way of showing your desktop effects which is lighter for older graphics cards, but cant perform as well some plugins if i remember correctly).

the thing is that blur WAS working smooth with kde 4.6.0. Transparency worked and now works fine.

Try running the following command to force it. Note that KWin may still override this and disable it.

Code: Select all

kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Plugins --key kwin4_effect_blurEnabled --type bool true

KWin needs to be closed for this to have effect.

I have the same problem on the same configuration: Arch, KDE 4.6.1, Intel 915
Blur was working on KDE 4.6.0, but it doesn't on 4.6.1
It's enabled in setting, but actually there's no blur effect, just transparency. The same with new users

Code: Select all

kwriteconfig --file kwinrc --group Plugins --key kwin4_effect_blurEnabled --type bool true

I've tried that, but there's still no blur effect

Well.. How to fix or at least debug it?

It is therefore likely then that your hardware has been blacklisted for the Blur effect. Nothing you can do unfortunately.
(You could file a bug report asking for it to be unblacklisted, but it isn't likely they'll unblacklist it as they probably had a good reason to)

I have the exact same issue but I should add that the blur effect seems to have stopped working on the "Window Decorations" only. I use the "thumbnail" feature for the task manager and blur works perfectly. I shall recapitulate:

Note that I tested this on two different systems, both using Fedora 14, both using proprietary drivers. One system uses NVIDIA and the other uses ATI. In both cases Desktop Effects are enabled and direct rendering is enabled.

After upgrading to 4.6.1 I discarded all my old KDE settings by moving my .kde directory to .kde.bak.

I don't use a lot of customization so this does not impact me much. After re-enabling "desktop effects", adding translucency to "decorations" and ensuring "blur" is enabled, I tested.

Blur does work because the background appears blurry behind the task manager; however the window decorations have lost the effect. Note that the window decorations' translucency is working fine though.

Cheers.

kde SC 4.6.2. Still no blur. Not that I needed it much, but..