Slow scrolling issues despite performance tweeks!

[azenz]

I am using a 8400GS on Kubuntu Lucid 64 bit with the 195.36.15 proprietary driver. Thanks to glyphcache=1, pixmapcache "1000000" and initialpixmapplacement=2 settings, scrolling with firefox or Openoffice became fairly smooth. Performance is still not great, only 750 FPS with glxgears on 1920x1200 full screen with compiz effects enabled, I would expect more to be honest (I am running a Q6600 quad core system overclocked to 3 Ghz and 6GB ram).

NOW, the issue is that when I have quite a few Firefox browser tabs open, say 15-20, and have a few Openoffice files open, then the scrolling performance in these programs becomes terrible even though the overall system performance is fine and system memory usage is only 50-70%. I would say scrolling gradually gets slower until it becomes totally choppy. That is really a problem. Any ideas?


My xorg.conf file:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 1.0 (buildd@yellow) Fri Apr 9 11:51:21 UTC 2010

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder58) Fri Mar 12 02:12:40 PST 2010

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
Option "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "LEN L220xwC"
HorizSync 30.0 - 75.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 75.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8400 GS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"

# Removed Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Coolbits" "1"
Option "RenderAccel" "true"
Option "UseEvents" "false"
Option "TripleBuffer" "1"
Option "DamageEvents" "1"
Option "BackingStore" "1"
Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
# Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one.
Option "AllowSHMPixmaps" "0"
# Option "AllowIndirectPixmaps" "True"
# + Could improve hardware rendering on G80+ cards with more than 256 MB of video memory.
#Option "BackingStore" "True"
# + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later
Option "PixmapCacheSize" "3000000"
# + allocate said number of pixels for pixmap caches
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
# + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed
Option "TwinView" "0"
Option "metamodes" "1920x1200_60 +0+0"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

Note: I tried setting PixmapCacheSize to 1 million, then even 3million, but no difference.

[siyuan]

Does Kubuntu use Oxygen window decoration by default? If it does, there's a suspected(/confirmed?) issue with this window decoration in KDE 4.4.x. Try any others and see if that helps.

[damentz]

First, clean up xorg.conf

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
        Driver  "nvidia"
        Option      "Coolbits"  "1"
EndSection

Then, create a script you can run on login with something like this.

#!/bin/sh
nvidia-settings -a GlyphCache=1 -a PixmapCacheRoundSizeKB=4096

exit 0

It's important to take note which options are default and which options are, well, optional, and use only those. If you don't do that, you won't know which options make a difference.

Also, try putting your xorg.conf file and other bits of code in the code tags, makes it 100x easier to read.

[davelaser]

You shouldn't need any tweaks at all to get decent 2d performance on the new drivers, they work really well with the defaults.