Hey

Opening new windows feels very slow. I have a quad core i820QM machine with 8GB RAM. I expect small programs to open up instantly, especially if I just closed them, since then they shouldn't need to be read from disk. This is not the case. This leads me to believe that there is a problem regarding graphics somewhere in KDE. This belief is reinforced when I try other window managers, but I appreciate KDE and the power and ease it offers and want to continue using it.

I have heard that nvidia drivers don't work well in KDE. Quite surprising, as its like saying that unleaded fuel doesn't work well on our KDE continent, but it could be true. I tried nouveau some months ago and now that I think about it, KDE itself did seem much more responsive. However opengl doesn't work in nouveau (or at least didn't back then) so I switched back to nvidia-drivers.

Are there any tips and tricks I can attempt to speed up KDE?

Here's a screencast, notice how slowly dolphin opens up twice in a row:
http://media.dropdo.com.s3.amazonaws.co ... 141737.m4v
[2MB]

which Nvidia drivers?

do you have blur enabled? if so disable

Also, consider creating and logging in as as different user - same slowness?

nvidia-drivers-260.19.36

Blur was enabled, I just disabled it.

Haven't tried creating a new user.

Turning blur off didn't have any effect. I also don't see how it could have anything to do with the Dolphin window taking so long to get filled with contents once it covered the desktop.

in the vid Dolphin takes 2 like seconds, are there apps that take longer?

try a different widow decoration

is you graphics card new than the drivers - the 270 series is available on the ftp site ftp://download.nvidia.com