r300: poor 2D performance in some apps

[Nicolò Chieffo]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

I have a radeon mobility 9700 64MB ram r300
xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.6.193-1ubuntu1 (Gutsy)

I don't have compiz enabled.
Some 2D apps are a bit slow. I will give you examples:

- a maximized terminal, with "man bash" open, when scrolling down fast (lots of cpu usage and huggy scrolling)
- other apps in the terminal, especially if maximized, when scrolling
- firefox, when viewing flash (flashplugin-nonfree) big animations and non-flash animations (lots of cpu usage, very slow animations, in some case)
     flash example: http://www.asus.com (only lots of cpu usage)
     non-flash example: http://notebookitalia.it/ricognizione-notebook-santa-rosa-centrino-duo-centrino-pro.html click on the CPUs image to start the animation
- evolution, when scrolling (up and) down fast between the email, the cpu goes to 100%, and the scrolling is slowed down a bit

[Linus Mannervik (glitter)]

I can confirm the mentioned examples using a mobility radeon 9700 with 32mb ram.

Additionaly I would like to mention that
- in Firefox scrolling gets really slow on sites using fixed and/or semi-transparent backgrounds or graphics.
- viewing flash movies with gnash also gives very high cpu usage
- moving windows across the screen gives high cpu usage and screen redrawing seems quite slow

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

the firefox issues with transparent background is in bug # 125970
please add your contribution there, it is not a r300 issue but a
firefox issue (tested with other graphic cards)
also the gnash bug is here : bug # 91910
I can confirm the moving windows problem, but it is also present with
fglrx, so it might not be a driver problem... have you got an nvidia
card to test it?

[Linus Mannervik (glitter)]

ok! thanks for the info bug links.
Unfortunately I don't have any other computers/video card to try anything on at the moment.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I think this bug gets fixed after adding

Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"

in the device section of xorg.conf

[Linus Mannervik (glitter)]

I already have that in my xorg.conf, but still experience these problems.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

With this option I fixed the evince problem, the terminal problem, and
the slow flash animation problem.
the slow scrolling problem of firefox is still there, but it is not
included in this bug report

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I have a radeon mobility 9700 64MB ram r300

I don't have compiz enabled.
Some 2D apps are a bit slow. I will give you examples:

- a maximized terminal, with "man bash" open, when scrolling down fast (lots of cpu usage and huggy scrolling)
- other apps in the terminal, especially if maximized, when scrolling
- firefox, when viewing flash (flashplugin-nonfree) big animations (lots of cpu usage, very slow animations, in some case)
     example: http://notebookitalia.it/ricognizione-notebook-santa-rosa-centrino-duo-centrino-pro.html click on the CPUs image to start the animation
- evolution, when scrolling (up and) down fast between the email, the cpu goes to 100%, and the scrolling is slowed down a bit
- evince, when scrolling a pdf everything gets blocked until the image is drawn. scrolling is terribly slow

my distribution: ubuntu gutsy
my packages:
compiz 0.5.2-0ubuntu3
xserver-xorg-video-ati 6.6.193-1ubuntu1
xserver-xorg 7.2-5ubuntu6
xserver-xorg-core 1.3.0.0.dfsg-6ubuntu3
mesa 7.0.1-1ubuntu1
libdrm2 2.3.0-4ubuntu1

My xorg.conf is clean

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I just managed to resolve 2 problems:
the evince one and the slow flash animation one

just adding Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps"

why is this option needed?

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I have to correct myself: the animation in http://notebookitalia.it/ricognizione-notebook-santa-rosa-centrino-duo-centrino-pro.html is not flash! I really don't know which type is.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I have to correct myself: the animation in http://notebookitalia.it/ricognizione-notebook-santa-rosa-centrino-duo-centrino-pro.html is not flash! I really don't know which type is.

[Vedran Rodic (vrodic)]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I have to correct myself: the animation in
> http://notebookitalia.it/ricognizione-notebook-santa-rosa-centrino-duo-centrino-pro.html
> is not flash! I really don't know which type is.
>

Hi, I've had the same problem and I've described it here:

http://vrodic.blogspot.com/2008/01/firefoxmozilla-performance-under.html

[Michel-tungstengraphics (michel-tungstengraphics)]

Basically looks like software rendering fallback overhead. A lot of it could be due to missing RENDER acceleration.

[maacruz (maacruz)]

Confirmed on opensuse 10.3 (xorg 7.2 with fixes up to october 2007) with a radeon 9200SE (rv280).

[Vedran Rodic (vrodic)]

this bug is actually also valid for the at least one additional driver: intel

Use Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true" (and add Option "AccelMethod" "XAA" for newer drivers, since the EXA performance is also really bad for the intel driver).

I've changed the bug 12069 title, and the component and reassigned the bug to the default assignee, since this is clearly a wider XAA problem.

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

fixed in EXA with migration heutistic = greedy
I've thrown away XAA

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

fixed with migration heutistic = greedy