[i915GM] Short-lived display corruption with compiz on Intrepid

[John Carlyle-Clarke]

On my desktop with nvidia hardware, running xcompmgr with openbox I always noticed that when windows first appear (especially complex ones like Firefox/Thunderbird) you get a moment of either garbage or some old framebuffer after the wm brings the window up and before the app fills it. I'd always noticed by contrast that my much less powerful Intel-based laptop running 8.04 with Compiz was as smooth as butter. I saw this effect very occasionally, but generally performance was good.

Having upgraded to the latest 8.10 on that laptop, I really notice that when opening Firefox or Thunderbird I get that same effect almost every time in quite a pronounced way.

I tried to capture with xvidcap without success, but managed to grab photos of the effect, which are attached.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller [8086:2590] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:81b7]
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller [8086:2592] (rev 03)
     Subsystem: Sony Corporation Device [104d:81b8]

[John Carlyle-Clarke (jpcc)]

Xorg.0.log

[Alex Kunitsa (mc-troy)]

I have the same problem in 8.10 - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/282374

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

I have the same problem on a Thinkpad X61 Tablet (965GM graphics chipset). I only have it when running KDE, not in gnome. It may be because desktop effects settings are more fancy in KDE used in gnome on my computer. I get it both when I start a new window like firefox, and when I use drop-down menus. It is garbled for less than a second and then it is fine.

I had read this bug report before I exprienced the bug, but could not find it again. Now I see that the title only says "performance degraded" and nothing about garbled windows, and that's why I overlooked it (there are many bugs saying that compiz and other 3d stuff is slow). I'll change the title to reflect that this is about screen corruption, not speed. I've also tagged this and some similar bugs with "corruption".

John, could you also upload
- the output of `lspci -vvnn`
- /etc/X11/xorg.conf (if you have anything else than the auto-generated one)

[John Carlyle-Clarke (jpcc)]

I installed Arch with KDE 4.1 on this Intel-based machine too, and saw the same effect in KDE. This makes me think the problem is most likely in the xserver or the intel driver.

[jorge (xxopxe)]

I have this too, with a Intel 945GM (on a Sony Vaio).

Intrepid updated from Ubuntu, and i *think* i didn't have it previously, but i'm not really sure.

[Alex Kunitsa (mc-troy)]

Has someone solved this problem?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notice.]

We'd like to forward your bug upstream, however upstream requires
that you first test it against their newer driver code.

To save you the effort of building the driver from source, we've built
packages for the driver and its new dependencies.

So you have a couple options:

 1. Download and test .debs for intrepid, from:
     https://edge.launchpad.net/~intel-gfx-testing/+archive

 -or-

 2. Download and test the Jaunty alpha-2 (or newer) Live CD,
     (which includes a beta of the new xserver 1.6 as well).
     See http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/ for ISOs

Thanks ahead of time! You can simply reply to this email to report your
findings.

P.S., if you wish to forward your bug upstream yourself, please follow
these directions to do so:
  http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html

[jorge (xxopxe)]

Hi,

After adding the ppa and doing this:

Upgraded the following packages:
libdrm2 (2.3.1-0build1) to 2.4.1-0ubuntu7~intrepid
linux-headers-generic (2.6.27.10.13) to 2.6.27.11.14
linux-image-generic (2.6.27.10.13) to 2.6.27.11.14
linux-libc-dev (2.6.27-11.21) to 2.6.27-11.22
xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.4.1-1ubuntu10.1) to
2:2.5.1-1ubuntu5~intrepid

Installed the following packages:
libdrm-intel1 (2.4.1-0ubuntu7~intrepid)
linux-headers-2.6.27-11 (2.6.27-11.22)
linux-headers-2.6.27-11-generic (2.6.27-11.22)
linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic (2.6.27-11.22)

And after rebooting, i still get the screen corruption while the window
maximizes.

Jorge

On Sat, 2008-12-20 at 02:35 +0000, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> [This is an automatic notice.]
>
> We'd like to forward your bug upstream, however upstream requires
> that you first test it against their newer driver code.
>
> To save you the effort of building the driver from source, we've built
> packages for the driver and its new dependencies.
>
> So you have a couple options:
>
> 1. Download and test .debs for intrepid, from:
> https://edge.launchpad.net/~intel-gfx-testing/+archive
>
> -or-
>
> 2. Download and test the Jaunty alpha-2 (or newer) Live CD,
> (which includes a beta of the new xserver 1.6 as well).
> See http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/ for ISOs
>
>
> Thanks ahead of time! You can simply reply to this email to report your
> findings.
>
>
> P.S., if you wish to forward your bug upstream yourself, please follow
> these directions to do so:
> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html
>
>
> ** Changed in: xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

@John, as you are the original reporter, could you confirm jorge's findings that the bug still exists with the newer driver?

Also, since this issue seems related to compiz, it is also possible the newer mesa or xserver has resolved the problem - can someone test with the Jaunty Alpha-2 livecd? (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/)

If the issue can be confirmed on Jaunty, we should upstream this bug.

[John Carlyle-Clarke (jpcc)]

Hi Bryce. I can confirm that I still get the issue with the newer driver from the PPA. I am still waiting for the Jaunty Alpha CD to download and will report back on a test with that.

[John Carlyle-Clarke (jpcc)]

Sorry, no luck with the 9.04 Alpha CD. I can't get a login. I get some interesting screen junk and then I'm back to the greeter. I tried a bit of fiddling but I couldn't find a quick resolution. It appears to be X server related. It's probably OT for this discussion, for now.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Alright, well we can assume the issue is still present. Let us know otherwise.

[Fred van Zwieten (fvzwieten)]

Is there any progress in this matter? Is it reported upstream for example?

[Sebastian Keller (skeller)]

This bug sounds like a duplicate of #254468
Since xorg-server (2:1.5.99.901-0ubuntu1) I no longer have those corrupted windows.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

A new major version of the -intel driver is now available in Karmic.

This version includes a major reworking of the acceleration
architecture, which resolves a huge number of issues. We do not know
whether it resolves the issue you reported.

Would you mind testing Karmic Alpha-2 and seeing if it is still a
problem? CD ISO images are available here:

  http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic/

If the issue can still be reproduced on karmic, please report here with
your findings, and attach a fresh Xorg.0.log from your test, and we will
be able to forward the bug upstream.

Otherwise, if the bug no longer exists in Karmic, let us know that as
well.

In the off chance you encounter different bugs while attempting to test
Karmic, please report those as new bug reports.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

It seems likely to me this bug is gone; the -intel driver has improved immensely in Karmic and a lot of bugs are being reported as no longer present. So hopefully that's the case here too.