[ati] unity extremely slow

[madmed]

Binary package hint: unity

 Desktop edition works fine, but the netbook edition is extremely slow. I have an ATI HD3470 graphic card and use the latest fglrx driver. If I uses the free driver I get a corrupted display. I've never got unity or gnome shell to work properly in this laptop.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: unity 0.2.44-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.33-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Sep 25 12:30:14 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Beta i386 (20100901.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=fr_FR.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unity

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and helping to make ubuntu better.

there are some issues with ATI driver (which isn't very common on netbooks).
Adding it to the list.

[Mohamed IKBEL Boulabiar (boulabiar)]

Thanks for reporting the bug.
Can you test unity using the radeon free driver ?

[madmed (medbelh)]

With the free driver I don't have the speed problem but the display is corrupted.

[testaccount2 (testaccount2-deactivatedaccount)]

I just finished Ubuntu Netbook 10.10 installation (Installed on MSI Wind U100 Plus).

I'm experience same issue. Unity is _extremely_ slow. Tool tips appears after ~1-2 seconds. Clicking on any of unity shortcuts, freeze whole system for a few seconds.

Can I help somehow with debugging?

Netbook Specs:

Intel Atom N280 1.6 Ghz
2GB RAM
Intel GMA 950

[testaccount2 (testaccount2-deactivatedaccount)]

https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/657976

[Benjamin Neu (benjamin-neu)]

I've got the same issue on my Lenovo S10-2 with Intel Atom N280, 2GB RAM and also Intel Gma950.
After upgrading from 10.04 to 10.10 everything is pretty sluggish with the new unity interface. For example opening up "applications" takes several seconds. Mutter sometimes shows CPU-usage of 70%
I'll gladly provide any information you may need if you provide what is needed

[David Barth (dbarth)]

Benjamin & Boris, I propose we continue investigating slowdowns on Intel GMA950 on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/657976, and keep this bug for the radeon/fglrx users.

[David Barth (dbarth)]

@madmed: so this card/driver combination seems to have issues with mutter anyway, but here are a few elements that can help to investigate the problem:

1. Can you provide some glxgears performance numbers? under both fglrx and the open source radeon driver; to see if something is obviously wrong in the configuration

2. Can you post some examples of the corrupted display you're getting with the radeon driver; does it looks like what is reported on https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/641674, or http://imagebin.org/117525?

3. You're saying that Gnome Shell doesn't work as well: do you have a bug report for that? is it the same symptoms or is there something more specific like crashers or errors on specific circumstances?

[madmed (medbelh)]

With fglrx
2619 frames in 5.0 seconds = 523.771 FPS
4080 frames in 5.0 seconds = 810.633 FPS
3372 frames in 5.0 seconds = 673.761 FPS
2970 frames in 5.2 seconds = 571.876 FPS
3456 frames in 5.1 seconds = 675.318 FPS
3479 frames in 5.0 seconds = 694.237 FPS
almost the same with the free driver (compiz off, compositing enabled in metacity)
I already posted a screenshot of the corrupted display. But I wanted to retest and unity doesn't work anymore with the free driver!!! I get a flickering dark screen!! I can see Docky (not the unity launcher) and the windows for a few seconds the it goes dark again and then it goes back ....
I didn't test gnome shell with maverick but here is the bug I reported a while back https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/+source/clutter-1.0/+bug/572465

[madmed (medbelh)]

Sorry the bug that I linked was with my other laptop. I installed gnome-shell now and I have exactly the same problem using fglrx, ie the interface is very slow and the mouse is sluggish. I will try it with the free driver later.

[Jan-Erik Mai (in0de)]

@Berman Boris: "I'm experience same issue. Unity is _extremely_ slow. Tool tips appears after ~1-2 seconds. Clicking on any of unity shortcuts, freeze whole system for a few seconds."

Thats the same situation on most nvidia powered netbooks.
Personally I had always problems with mutter/clutter/gnome-shell on my nvidia powered netbook. Gnome-shell problems solved some months ago, always the critical issue is clutter/mutter with prop graphic drivers. I do not know what Gnome-Shell developer did to solve performance issues on prop driver but they made it work fast at least. I am anyway confused about other users with intel drivers having no issues with unity although they dont have a very fast gpu. I will investigate that...

[Korek (korczyk-l)]

The same issues on Acer Aspire One D150L
It is so slow that i had to switch to desktop.

[Robin van Leeuwen (robinvanleeuwen)]

Same here on Acer Aspire 7540G (6Gb ram) with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series. With no applications running the interface feels fine, as soon as i open a windows (terminal window for example) it becomes extremely sluggish. Mouse pointer hangs a couple of times moving over the screen. With 4 or 5 terminal windows open the whole thing crawls to a halt... This is all directly after startup (within first couple of minutes)... Any more info needed? please let me know....

[Robin van Leeuwen (robinvanleeuwen)]

Forgot to mention, this is on ubuntu desktop edition 10.10 on a notebook with unity added later through synaptic, so no ubuntu netbook edition...

[David Barth (dbarth)]

Unfortunately, there are particular problems for running Unity/Mutter with ATI drivers. This is an old version, so sorry we don't have time to fix that now. Please try Natty, it works better with ATIs.

[no!chance (ralf-fehlau)]

Even the desktop edition has very poor graphics performance. On RS780 graphics, which was fast enough to view hd-movies in Ubuntu12.04.

VMware graphics is EXTREME slow compared to ubuntu12.04.