nvidia 256.35 driver is slow and renders elements incorrectly

[Yotam Benshalom]

Binary package hint: xorg

I use 64-bit laptop with geforce 9500m, and I upgraded lately to maverick.

The system became very sluggish and unresponsive, even after removing all ubuntu-one related horrors. Compiz animations stutter and window contents are being drawn slowly. Moreover, there are elements the system fails to paint correctly with the nvdia driver (probably gradient-related):

1. Selected menu items and progress bars are brighter then they should be.

2. The lovely glowing dots below docky icons, which mark which app is being ran, became ugly grey blobs.

Screenshots are attached with nouveau (correct rendering) and nvidia (incorrect rendering) on the same system.

I know we cannot fix the nvidia driver mess, but can we please have an option of downgrading to 195 series? It worked perfectly well in lucid.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: xorg 1:7.5+6ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-13.18-generic 2.6.35-rc6
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-13-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 256.35 Wed Jun 16 18:42:44 PDT 2010
 GCC version: gcc version 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease) (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.4.4-8ubuntu1)
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Aug 2 18:22:00 2010
DkmsStatus:
 nvidia-current, 256.35, 2.6.35-13-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia-current, 256.35, 2.6.32-24-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia-173, 173.14.27, 2.6.35-13-generic, x86_64: installed
 bcmwl, 5.60.48.36+bdcom, 2.6.35-13-generic, x86_64: installed
 bcmwl, 5.60.48.36+bdcom, 2.6.32-24-generic, x86_64: installed
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100224.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Studio XPS 1340
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-13-generic root=UUID=eb46fc15-d83a-490d-b085-d4b98ff0e167 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en_US:en
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
dmi.bios.date: 09/08/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A11
dmi.board.name: 0K183D
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A11
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: A11
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd09/08/2009:svnDellInc.:pnStudioXPS1340:pvrA11:rvnDellInc.:rn0K183D:rvrA11:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvrA11:
dmi.product.name: Studio XPS 1340
dmi.product.version: A11
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: maverick
 architecture: x86_64
 kernel: 2.6.35-13-generic

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

Upgrating the nvidia drivers to 256.44 from the ubuntu-x-swat-x ppa did not solve the issues.

[Harry (harry33)]

Yotam

You made this bug report against xorg, on the other hand you seem to believe this is a nvidia driver issue.
However, on what grounds this is a nvidia issue?
The reason for incorrect rendering is cairo (package libcairo2) and particularly its 1.9 branch.
In lucid we have libcairo2_1.8.10 which works perfectly with nvidia-current_256.35 and 256.44 drivers.
The reason for desktop sluggishness is the incompatibility of the new libcairo with gtk-themes.
You can easily workaround this by customizing the theme (appearance) you use:
choose "Mist" from the "Controls" list. Then the incorrect rendering and sluggishness is gone.

Also this report is a duplicate of the bug #601220 and bug #595845 among others.

I also have a report from Arch-linux user, who claims there is absolutely no rendering nor sluggishness issues with nvidia_256.44 and libcairo2_1.9.12. This makes me believe this is rather an "ubuntu" specific issue.

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

Hi Harry! Thanks for your reply.

1. Linking this bug report is a decision made by ubuntu-bug, not me.

2. Using the visually displeasing Mist controls is not really a solution. I want to enjoy the look of a modern OS.

3. If the problem is the incompatibility of libcairo 1.9 with gtk-themes, how come I have no problems when I use nouveau on my system?

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

The issues are solved completely when I downgrade to libcairo2 1.8.10-4. However, this breaks the package index.
It would be really nice to treat this seriously and either fix libcairo2 or use its earlier version.

[Harry (harry33)]

Yotam,
Thanks for Your reply.

That is the issue.
If nouveau would be as fast and fluently working as nvidia drivers (2D acceleration), you would certainly see the sluggishness.
I have also seen this with open source radeon driver with ATI HD2600 pro graphics card.

The rendering issue is more severe with nvidia drivers.
But nvidia-current_256-35 is older than libcairo2 1.9 branch.
It can only be seen cairo has evolved into a direction where it ended up being incompatible with nvidia drivers.
Note also that, libcairo issues may be apparent only in ubuntu-family, at least not in arch-linux.
So where is the bug then? Who knows.

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

Just to make it clear: regardless of the sluggishness, when I use the 1.9 branch of libcairo2 there are rendering issues with nvidia drivers that do not exist with nouveau driver. This can be seen in my screenshots.

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

Problem still here after the last upgrade of libcairo2 to version 1.9.14-1.

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

Reported upstream:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29368

[Det (det++)]

I'm experiencing a little different issue with Archlinux, cairo 1.9.14 and nvidia 256.44. The 'window selection' rendering in the panel is brighter and the whole desktop is a bit 'wider' than with Nouveau (and nv).

Here's screenshots:

nvidia: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/841/nvidiam.jpg

nvidia with compiz: http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4020/nvidiacompiz.jpg

nouveau: http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/986/nouveaut.jpg

There's no incorrect rendering with the menu and these 'slowdowns' somebody reported, though.

[Harry (harry33)]

Please take a look at the bug #605979
and especially Aaron Plattners comment on this issue.

[Harry (harry33)]

I think this bug has been fixed with libcairo update, libcairo2_1.9.14-1ubuntu1.
Now the themes render correctly and sluggishness is gone.

[Harry (harry33)]

Also these are fixed as well:
bug #595845
bug #601220

[Yotam Benshalom (benshalom)]

libcairo2_1.9.14-1ubuntu1 fixes the issue for me. I still hope, of course, that nvidia will give us a proper fix from their side.