[intel] delay when opening new windows/tasks causes lag in animation on awn 0.4

[David Rando]

I'm using ubuntu karmic 32bits, awn installed from awn-testing ppa (0.3.9.1 bzr1672-1.9.10). I'm using compiz from karmic repositories (0.8.2 i guess). I'm running it on a laptop with Intel 4500 gma card.

I noticed how good the 0.4 is working in terms of bar display, quality, and smoothness. But, when i open a window, program... anything that adds a new task to the bar, the animation opening the new window stutters before the new icon of the task is added to the bar. If i disable the task icons to awn and just use it as a program launcher, it works ok.

Also, the icon for the new task takes 1-2 seconds to appear on it.

Thanks ;-)

[moonbeam (rcryderman)]

Sounds like there may be two separate issues:

1) The 1-2 second delay for the new task to appear.
and
2) The stuttering animation. I assume the stuttering is on the new task icon animation from your description.

I'm not sure about the second issue.. mhr3, any ideas?

Regarding the first issue. If you open a specific application, the task icon occurs appears after the 1-2 second delay, what happens if you close that application and open it again? Do you still experience the 1-2 second delay?

[David Rando (david-rando)]

Thanks for your reply.

About the first issue: if i close it and open it again, the delay on appearing the new task on the bar is constant.

I noticed this because the slowdown/stuttering occurs always in the process of opening the new task on the bar. I click on a window (for instance, opening my home folder on nautilus). And after that, the new window appears (using the glide 2 animation) and it starts to stutter and then the animation stop, and the new icon for the task gets added to the bar. If i close the window (using the zoom-out animation) it gets stop and stutters again, and then the animation finish and the icon dissapears from the bar.

I could reproduce it on my netbook using the same ubuntu, with atom 1.6 and intel gma950.

I'll record an screencast with the issue, it will explain it much better.

[David Rando (david-rando)]

Btw, the 1-2 seconds delay seems it is a default setting in awn, no matter what i open or tweak, the new task takes always about 1 second to appears on awn. Not a big problem anyway ;-). It is just the stuttering, because it gives you a not-smooth-to-slow feeling.

[David Rando (david-rando)]

Here i've attached an screencast showing the problem. If you see it, there's a delay when opening/closing windows (and a big delay to appear the new task on the bar).

The delay on the bar can be an small problem, but opening programs and working with them this way gives you a very slow feeling. It can be very noticed at the last seconds on the video, when you see the awn setting window getting stuck semi-transparent and then it dissapears.

The window animation in the video doesn't exists for opening/closing just because when awn is working, it goes so bad that it just skip some frames and the window just appears.

Hope it's useful in some way.

Thanks.

(BTW, great work, AWN looks awesome!!)

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

I don't think this is something we can fix, as none of us is able to reproduce it and also other users using intel drivers don't see such issue.

Could you try using gnome-panel's window list instead of Awn and see if it has the same issue? I think this is something very specific to your system (unusual configuration?).

[David Rando (david-rando)]

Sorry for the delay in the reply.

My linux installation are very vanilla based (just a few themes, icons....)

I tried to reproduce it, and i was only able to do it on my laptops with intel integrated video card.

For your question, if i disable the option "show all window" and enable "display launchers only" i don't have a problem with it, so i can use it for only launching programs from it. So i use gnome-panel window list for the list of opened windows/programs.

These are the specs of both notebooks:

Advent 4211 netbook: Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950, 2 gb DDR2-667. Pretty usual for a netbook. Same problem, delays and stuttering
Acer Extensa 5230 laptop: Intel Celeron 585 2.16Ghz, 3 Gb RAM DDR2-667, Intel GMA4500.

Lastly, i tried AWN on my "big" rig, and i didn't have the problem there, no stuttering, no delay on new tasks to show on the bar, but that computer is powerful enough for that, it's a Intel Q9550 Quad core, 4 gb DDR2-800, Nvidia GTX265 898Gb GDDR3.

Hope it helps anyway.

[Fraser Murray (fraserm)]

I also have this problem, with an intel 945GME chipset.

[Andrew Stephan (thekiteeatingtree)]

I have this problem as well, but its severity varies greatly depending on the style of the panel. When using 3d or curved the lag is awful. It's unusable. It's pretty bad with edgy as well, but with flat, floaty, and no style its hardly noticeable at all. In fact I'm not sure that the slight delay I'm sensing isn't just in my head with those 3. I also have an intel chipset.

[David Rando (david-rando)]

I've tested latest awn on a brand new laptop with NVIDIA 9400M and latest nvidia driver (190.42) and no problem whatsoever, no delay, no stuttering.

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

@David, @Fraser: Can you confirm that this is mostly problem with non-flat background only?

[Mark Lee (malept)]

I cannot reproduce this bug, with the following system specs:

Distro: Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04), amd64
Awn version: 0.3.9 (revision 1792), installed via PPA
Graphics card (via `lspci`): Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
Driver version (via synaptic): xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.6.3-0ubuntu9.3
Window Manager: Metacity 2.25.144

[Mark Lee (malept)]

oh, and I'm using the "edgy" background.

[Fraser Murray (fraserm)]

The lag / stutter is visible with all backgrounds, but is most obvious with 3D and curved.

System:
Ubuntu Karmic (9.10), x86
AWN version 0.3.9, rev 1791, from PPA
lspci: "Intel Corporation Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)"
Compiz 0.8.4, Metacity 2.28.0
xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2

[David Rando (david-rando)]

I've tested it on the Intel laptop and i say exactly what Fraser Murray said: it's there on all the styles, but it gets worse in the 3D/Curved one, less bad on edgy/floaty and just a bit on the simple one. But it's there.

[enolive (enolive)]

the same effect happens on my Mac mini with Intel 945 and the latest awn trunk under karmic i386. I don't see similar issues with ati or nvidia drivers on my other machines.

[patmalcolm91 (patmalcolm91)]

I am experiencing this problem on 64bit karmic on a new laptop with an nvidia GeForce 9600M GS (w/ the 173 driver). In fact, all animations are very slow and glitchy in 0.4 for me. the version in the ubuntu repos had no animation issues with my setup.

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

@patmalcolm91: As far as we're concerned nvidia's drivers prior to 180 never worked properly with Awn, there were various artifacts.. Anyway 180 and later work fine (karmic with 185 here).

[David Rando (david-rando)]

I can confirm, like I said earlier that I tried it with a laptop with a 9400M Nvidia integrated card with the latest 192.43 and don't have any problem described here.

[patmalcolm91 (patmalcolm91)]

@Michal: Thanks, i just installed the 190 driver and awn works beautifully! This also improved performance throughout my system.

[sonicsteve (slougheed-bcs)]

I have the same problem,
I'm running Karmic 9.10 32 bit
2gb ddr2 Ram 800mhz
Asus p5g41-m (Intel g41 chipset with GMA x4500 gpu)
Very plain install, nothing of note added or removed. Using Awn testing ppa
Awn 0.3.9-rewrite-bzr1801-karmic1-1

The lag isn't awful but it is noticeable.

[sonicsteve (slougheed-bcs)]

I can confirm as others that it happens using;
Edgy
3D
Curved
Curved and 3D seem worse than the Edgy. I don't know why that would be but the lag doesn't seem as bad.

Floaty and Flat aren't affected.

[moonbeam (rcryderman)]

As further data point.

Unable to reproduce on an old laptop with an Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller. So far it appears to be affecting the following Intel chipsets to varying degrees:

GMA 950
945GME Express
Intel 945
GMA 4500
Intel g41 chipset with GMA x4500 gpu

Of particularly interest would be someone who is using one of these chipsets and _not_ experiencing the issue. If anyone falls into that category please post system specs including the intel driver version.

[Jamin Thornsberry (jamin.thorns)]

I am currently being affected with the same problem. I'm using an Aspire One with Intel GMA 950. The delay only occurs with the 3D, edgy, and curved modes, and others are unaffected. All other animations are perfectly smooth.

[Uri Shabtay (uri.shabtay)]

I also experience this problem, with 9.10 installed on a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop with Intel X3100. i tried using the desktop (especially when trying to open/close new nautilus windows) without AWN, and performance was way better, as animations were smoother than ever.
uploading AWN again, and the problem returned. Although, i'm certain this is not an issue regarding AWN devs. alone, but a compiz issue with intel drivers in general..

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

Can anyone experiencing this issue and ability to build from source try if this patch makes any difference? (patch against r1866)

[Fraser Murray (fraserm)]

I can confirm that the above patch fixes the problem, and there is not more lag when opening / closing windows.

[Michal Hruby (mhr3)]

Hopefully this should be fixed in R620.