Clutter is darn slow

[Michael Terry]

Trying both netbook-launcher and the new unity sessions, everything is super slow. Mouse movement, keyboard input, reactions to mouse clicks. The CPU, memory, and hard drive are all not busy. I assumed a clutter issue.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: libclutter-1.0-0 1.2.4-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed May 12 18:12:44 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: clutter-1.0

[madbiologist (me-again)]

It could just be because Gallium3D (in KMS) is still rather slow at the moment. See the benchmarks at http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=home for examples. Things may improve with mesa 7.8 and a newer xserver-xorg-video-intel driver. Or we may need to wait until kernel 2.6.35. In the meantime try using UMS instead by specifying the nomodeset kernel boot parameter.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Oh wait, you are using the Lucid kernel. It you are trying out Unity it's probably a good idea to use the 2.6.34-2.7 Maverick kernel available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/2.6.34-2.7

[SnoStorm (n0nl1nearsb0x)]

This affects me as well. I've got an NVidia FX 5500 card, and pretty much everything Clutter - Quadrapassel, GNOME-Shell, Unity, etc. - is running a slow as a snail. It all worked fine on this exact same hardware in Karmic.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

@SnoStorm - Does it work better with nomodeset? KMS was not enabled by default for NVidia or ATI hardware in Karmic.

[SnoStorm (n0nl1nearsb0x)]

I may be experiencing something different; Unity and UNE spontaneously started working (Without nomodeset), though Quadrapassel and GNOME-Shell still don't.

nomodeset doesn't change anything. I'm using the proprietary NVidia drivers, which I don't believe support KMS anyway.

[dino99 (9d9)]

That version is no more maintained