Window movement/videos appear laggy/slow

[David Raid]

Dragging a window appears to be a bit slow and laggy for me. This problem appears limited to moving a window, as switching between workspaces is a very smooth, fast and 'high frame-rate' animation.

Playing HD videos, such as MKVs, show a painful lag.

I'm using the proprietary ATI FGLRX graphics driver and this problem feels similar to the vsync issue that Compiz used to suffer from when using the proprietary ATI drivers, though it may not be related. Is anyone having this problem with the open source drivers?

Gala version 0.1-0~r94+pkg7~precise1, installed from elementary daily PPA.

I'm very impressed with Gala and it's speedy development is full of promise.

[Willeo Soeurs (ding-yeen)]

Second here, using Intel GMA 4500

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

It's perfectly fine here, on intel and nvidia card. Do you think you can manage to record a screecast showing the contrast between moving windows and the smooth workspace animation?

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Unfortunately, it appears I cannot. I made a screencast with Kazam, demonstrating the difference between moving a window under Gala and under Compiz. However, when I looked through the video, Kazam had only recorded my Ubuntu login wallpaper (Ubuntu logo tag included) and my cursor. At the part of the video where I used the 'compiz --replace' command to switch over, the video began showing my windows and desktop. But after using the 'gala --replace' command, the video only showed my desktop wallpaper and cursor. I am filing a separate bug for this issue. Using other desktop recorders, such as RecordMyDesktop yields the same result.

I can offer my terminal output, if it helps? Perhaps it will offer a clue when compared to yours.

The video would have demonstrated a literal frame rate difference when moving windows, there are far less 'in-between' states when moving it from one to the other. I would have thought this problem limited to ATI cards, if not for Willeo Soeur's comment.

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Just booted from a daily build ISO, the problem is not present there for me. That likely means that because my system doesn't experience this under the open source drivers Gala may have an issue with the proprietary ATI driver.

I really hope a workaround for this can be found, as the laggy windows is quite annoying and it would seem at current to be a necessary compromise for 3D acceleration/gaming on ATI systems.

[David Raid (davidraid)]

I am now increasingly convinced that this is extremely similar/related to the issue suffered in Compiz back in Oneiric. The way the windows lag is practically identical.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/763005

[Tom Beckmann (tombeckmann)]

Could you run "mutter --replace" and see if this is still hapening?

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Installed mutter and changed compositor with that command. Same problem. Resizing windows is also a very laggy and low frame-rate experience.

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Now that I'm using gala completely, I finally got around to playing a HD video. It is painfully laggy. Both normally and fullscreen. Exactly the same way my system used to behave back when that compiz issue plagued me. I'm convinced the two are related by cause.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

I did not notice any issues on open-source Radeon drivers on HD 6770. Could you please boot a Luna LiveCD and check if it still happens there with open-source drivers?

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

Sorry, this was already covered... so it's a bug in the proprietary driver, not in Gala. We can hardly do anything about it; it should be fixed in the driver or worked around in libmutter. I'm re-targeting this bug to fglrx-installer.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Can this be targeted to libmutter too? I'm convinced a solution similar to the one that solved the same (or at least very, very similar) problem in compiz (switching off 'sync-to-vblank' in the openGL plugin) will fix this. Would such a change be there?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff (shnatsel)]

A new fglrx version was just released, could you test it?

You can grab it here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42&lang=English

[Igor Lucifaro (lucifaro666)]

With the new kernel and new AMD drivers do not start the X server

[David Raid (davidraid)]

Greatly improved with 12.6

[Rubén Reina (ruben-teatinos)]

Is painfull for me to use "fglrx" (propietary drivers) with my AMD in Elementary OS. Gala doesn't work well with those drivers because they function properly in Ubuntu 12.04.

The unique solution I've found is to use "radeon" open source drivers but I don't have 3D acceleration, I can't play games with Wine.

[Radics Ottó (saboteur777)]

I experience this error, too. Just like in Gnome-Shell after installing fglrx.