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walt <w41ter@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> I'm seeing horrible performance from the xfce window manager (xfwm4) |
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> on my main, everyday machine, but not on an older backup machine or |
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> on any of the linux virtual machines I run on virtualbox. |
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> |
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> The symptoms: moving a window with the mouse is so slow as to be |
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> painful, and the CPU usage (on one of four CPUs) jumps to 100% almost |
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> immediately (xfwm4 is the culprit, see below). |
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I'm using XFCE as DE and xfwm4 as WM. Since I bought a new GPU (Radeon |
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R7 250), I don't use compositing any more because it causes tearing |
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when I watch videos in fullscreen with 3840x2160. With this GPU I also |
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had some random freezes when compositing was enabled. |
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Beside this, performance is very good, regardless compositing is enabled |
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or disabled. Scrolling text or moving windows around is a bit faster and |
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smoother with compositing enabled, especially when other windows are in |
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the foreground. |
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|
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With my old GPU (Radeon HD4550) I always had compositing enabled. |
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Everything was smoother and I saw absolutely no glitches, but performance |
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was also good with compositing disabled, just not quite as smooth as with |
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compositing enabled. |
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|
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> If I open an xterm and run (for example) "/usr/bin/marco --replace", |
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> this sluggish behavior returns to normal immediately. |
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> |
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> After wasting hours on google I finally noticed that I had compiled |
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> x11-wm/xfwm4 with the xcomposite useflag disabled, so I enabled it and |
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> re-emerged xfwm4. |
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> |
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> Now I can get decent performance from xfwm4, but only if first I turn |
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> on compositing by running xfwm4-tweaks-settings. (No, not by running |
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> the puny and feeble xfwm4-settings app: I need to invoke a "tweak" |
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> to make xfce4 an acceptable Desktop Environment on my main desktop |
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> machine. |
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|
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As long as I use XFCE (many years) xfwm4-tweaks-settings is the program |
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to toggle compositing. It's just a name, what is the problem? :-) |
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Or do you mean, that you must enable compositing every time you start |
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XFCE? |
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|
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> <official rant mode> |
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> I remember going through this same frustration with gnome3, which was |
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> (and is) unusable without installing the gnome-tweak-tool package and |
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> using it to customize settings that I still don't understand. |
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> |
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> (That's why I finally gave up on gnome3, and I may yet give up on |
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> xfce4 and go back to mate.) |
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> |
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> Note that I'm not turning off <official rant mode> yet, but I should |
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> mention that this machine is ~amd64 with ati-drivers-15.7 and vanilla |
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> kernel 3.14.51. (Same problem with gentoo-sources-3.18.19, BTW.) |
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I'm using stable xf86-video-ati and stable hardened-sources. I never used |
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ati-drivers because I don't like to have proprietary software on my |
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gentoo box. For me xf86-video-ati works well and has a sufficient 2D and |
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3D performance. |
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|
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-- |
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Regards |
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wabe |
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