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The idea is that certain graphics cards have a tendency to work better against certain graphics settings.

For example, most newer cards will work well with the OpenGL 2 shaders as well as direct rendering enabled.

KDE should auto-detect these cards and set recommended defaults. If possible it can then monitor the FPS to see the improvements, and then tweak it to get the best performance (eg: by setting scale method to crisp, disabling use vsync, and so on)

This may help a lot of people who complain about speed issues when it's simply an issue of tweaking what's best for the card.

There already a compability check testing working so when FPS drops, it tuns off the compositing.

Just to turn off some effects is not wise thing as user does not know what just happened. So turning them permamentally off is better and allow user to choose what to disable.

A compatibility check is one step, this is the next.

For example, my FPS runs fine for my card, but there are human noticable stuttering that gets past the FPS filter. Tweaking the settings to what is described in the userbase wiki as appropriate for my card changes it from a "Works OK" to a "Works Great!".

I would suggest that most users _don't_ understand what they should disable. Without research most users don't know what VSync, direct rendering, or even what opengl 2 shaders are.

I think as well most users dont understand those at all.

But nothing should be disabled automatically unless it is to fix problem of crash or avoiding such kind.

We would need a tester. What is ran automatically when user wants and it does complex effects and tests the hardware demands per every effect. Then it lists effects what did not hit to functionality and list of effects what gave bad FPS.

And then allow user to disable (or enable) them if wanted.

Example, I want that I can see window when I scale it. I am not ready to take retancle form when I scale window. Not even because I would get totally smooth scaling.

There is problem what needs to be fixed then.

Even netbooks have a 3D capabilities what could run more complex effects what were 4 years ago than what today a desktop offers. Something is wrong if we have problems with desktop.

We can not fix binary drivers for 3D cards than just write to hardware manufacturers about it.
KDE SC 4.8 is bringing new KWin version what has again faster functionality. And many other improvements.
So those need to be tested again.

One thing what most PC games hate is that when game does automatic quality checks. Like if your game FPS drops down to 23 for one second while otherwise 99.5% of time it runs fine over 30, game turns off shadows or even lowers resolution.
Or when you are playing online game and your ping is 100ms and suddenly your ping just peeks to 250 and you get kicked from servers because bad connection. And all because Windows wanted to do a update check and slowed your connection.

The point is, nothing should be automatic. Only make a tester for person like 3D cards are tested. Render a scenes and different setups and calculate FPS and respon time. Give user a change to itself scale down effects.

We can not start maintaining a database for hardware (CPU+GPU with database of screen resolutions) as it would grow as big what even futuremark has about their testlab.

I would take the first step as test and fix plasma itself. Check what we can do with it and KWin to get hardware requirements smaller.

Why I can play Crysis 2 with my 4 year old GPU+CPU just fine with medium settings but I can't have a kate text editor open and scale it from 350x500 size without it lagging?

I don't like situations when something happens without reason and I cant turn something on because automatic things it does not work.
Like right now I am again sitting in Xrender mode because KDE believes I do not have direct rendering and compositing enabled. Only because Nvidia binary drivers have been updated twice now without fix.
Still I can proof that direct rendering is enabled and I have compositing enabled but it simply does not allow turn OpenGL on. I can play games just fine but not desktop effects. And there is no way I could force them, as "Disable checks" does not help at all on that.

Not even GNOME Shell throws me like that. Even Unity gives me effects while it lags like hog and renders everything un-usable.

I would accept well a test suite. What does different Plasma and KWin tests, creates blank windows, draws widgets and moves and resize them. Tests FPS and response time with them. And then give user a change to make own compromises if wanted. And that could be even a own activity.