GNOME Magnifier: Performance issues with Pipewire and OBS

[Grayson Peddie]

Timeline:

1. (March 11, 2023) I have uploaded a video regarding the problems with GNOME Magnifier.
https://odysee.com/@GraysonPeddie:6/gnome-mag-obs:5

2. (March 11, 2023) I filed a bug report on Pipewire.
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/issues/3087

3. (March 14, 2023) I uploaded another short video with pw-top (Pipewire) running on the terminal.
https://odysee.com/@GraysonPeddie:6/gnomemag-pwtop-obs-pipewire:d

4. (March 14, 2023) I filed a bug report on GNOME Mutter's issue tracker and referenced the two videos and a bug report from Pipewire, but I get no response from the Mutter team.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/2698

Affected GNOME versions and why I am filing the bug here:

This affects GNOME 42, GNOME 43, and GNOME 44. For GNOME 42 and 43, I used Nobara 36 and 37. Nobara is based on Fedora but includes patches for gaming and content creation.

I wanted to try out GNOME 44 in Ubuntu 23.04 and I managed to run OBS with Pipewire Screen Sharing, but then the performance with GNOME Magnifier is very sluggish and it froze my entire computer. I've had to restart my computer, but for some reason, GNOME 44 won't load and I've had to go back to Nobara as that is my distro of choice for gaming. This issue with GNOME not loading is beyond the scope of the bug report.

So in short, all the recent versions of GNOME (up to 44) are affected regardless of which Linux distribution I use.

The reason why I need to file a bug here is because I do not get a response from the Mutter team and I'm at a standstill with Pipewire as they cannot diagnose the problem that I am having.

I could test the issue in Ubuntu 22.04 and 22.10, but unfortunately, I do not have another computer to test. On top of that, even if I could install OBS in a live USB image of Ubuntu 22.04 and 22.10, I have an NVIDIA GPU and the GNOME Magnifier is sluggish with Nouveau driver, but again, that is beyond the scope of this issue that I am having.

Specs:
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU
32GB of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Resolution: 3840x2160 at 60Hz

What I'm Expecting to Happen:

The performance with GNOME Magnifier and Pipewire screen capturing with OBS should be smooth.

Actual Behavior:

Please refer to the two videos in the Timeline section.

Steps to Reproduce:

In order to reproduce an issue, OBS needs to be installed. However, I am not sure if this is only related to OBS, but that is the only software I use for screen capturing and with support for JACK.

1. Open OBS.
2. Under Sources, press the Add (+) button.
3. Select "Screen Capture (Pipewire)."
4. Select the monitor and press "Share." The screen capture should show up on the preview area of OBS.
5. Open the Settings from either the Overview or the Quick Settings Menu.
6. Scroll down to Accessibility and turn on Zoom.

Move your mouse around and you should see performance issues with GNOME Magnifier when doing screen capturing using Pipewire. This affects both Xorg and Wayland.

Questions:

Is there anything else that I am missing? Should I only test this in Ubuntu even though it's not Ubuntu-specific? Besides, the supported Ubuntu versions should all be affected by this issue.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Libera.chat.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/2012556/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Grayson Peddie (graysonpeddie)]

I'm not sure if this bug should be filed against the mutter package or the gnome-shell itself.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[ElTouco72 (eltouco72)]

i have the same issue with Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS woth the same graphics cards (NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti) and nouveau driver.
it seems related to this issue
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-nouveau/+bug/2048797

[Grayson Peddie (graysonpeddie)]

Are you using GNOME Magnifier for screen sharing? Because I do not see a mention of desktop magnification in your bug report.

[ElTouco72 (eltouco72)]

for me, on the same machine, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (with Gnome 46) fixed the issue