Regression from 0.8.6 to 0.9.2: Wakes up CPU at 60 Hz

[Tobias Wolf]

Binary package hint: compiz

It used to be possible to configure Compiz to not generate interrupts at 60Hz to save some battery.

I’m not sure what’s going on nowadays with things like .drirc and buffer swaps and so on.

The thing is in 0.8.6 Compiz didn’t feature prominently in Powertop when »Sync to VBlank« was disabled (and neither did i915), it had less than 5 wakeups per second and i915 almost none. Now in natty it has 60-70 wakeups, the most CPU waking process. I could figure out how to get rid of these.

Top causes for wakeups:
  26.1% ( 70.0) compiz
  24.5% ( 65.7) [i915] <interrupt>
  17.1% ( 46.0) [extra timer interrupt]
   8.4% ( 22.7) [iwlagn] <interrupt>

[Sam Spilsbury (smspillaz)]

Committed a fix to git yesterday to use our own custom timers to avoid damage issues when doing smart repaint timeouts. I now get 0.7 wakeups with no screen activity.

[Tobias Wolf (towolf)]

Thats great to hear. Did you push your git changeset anywhere public? Or will we see an updated compiz core in natty? Then I would just wait for that.

[Sam Spilsbury (smspillaz)]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:55 PM, Tobias Wolf <email address hidden> wrote:
> Thats great to hear. Did you push your git changeset anywhere public? Or
> will we see an updated compiz core in natty? Then I would just wait for
> that.

An updated core will hit natty in the coming days.

For now my changes can be found here:

git clone git://git.compiz.org/users/dbo/compiz-with-glib-mainloop
git checkout glibmm-experimental

>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of compiz
> packagers, which is subscribed to compiz in ubuntu.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/681696
>
> Title:
>  Regression from 0.8.6 to 0.9.2: Wakes up CPU at 60 Hz
>
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--
Sam Spilsbury

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

Getting a similar result (1.0 wakeup).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package compiz - 1:0.9.2.1+glibmainloop4-0ubuntu1

---------------
compiz (1:0.9.2.1+glibmainloop4-0ubuntu1) natty; urgency=low

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * New upstream release:
    - Fixed a high number of wakeups (LP: #681696)
    - Fixed links not working in some gtk windows
    - Raise the window when it is moved if raise on click is enabled
    - Fix crash when loading plugins on the command line
    - Fix focus issues on window close and reopen rapidly
    - Fix focus issues with multiple X screens
    - Glib plugin removed
    - Fix bug where not moving the mouse and clicking button 2 or 3 in
      scale addon would close the current active window, not the window the
      mouse hovers over
    - Add unity-window-decorator
    - Move window doesn't raise window (LP: #695570)
    - gtk.Label <a href> link-activate signal broken with compiz in natty
      (LP: #687732)
  * debian/patches/060_move_checks_to_compiz.patch:
    - remove GNOME failsafe detection as now handled as a session type in
      gnome-session
  * Remove deprecated or now merge upstream patches:
    - 01_backport_trunk_fix.patch
    - 002_ship_splited_gconf_cmakeext_files.patch
    - 004_packagemode_is_release_debug_for_plugins.patch
    - 005_no_glib_plugin.patch
    - 017_always_unredirect_screensaver_on_nvidia.patch
    - 080_migrate_gconf_from_alpha1.patch
  * debian/compiz-gnome.gconf-defaults,
    debian/patches/029_default_options.patch:
    - new settings for natty. Also set the 2x2 layout by default
  * unity-decorator:
    - debian/compiz-decorator:
      launch unity-compiz-decorator in gnome sessions
    - debian/compiz-gnome.install:
      install it
    - debian/control:
      depends on latest metacity having the right extension
    - debian/patches/01_unity_window_decorator.patch:
      add unity-window-decorator
  * debian/patches/02_add_debug_spewer_for_apport.patch:
    - new plugin (not activated for now) to get additional info for apport

  [ Bryce Harrington ]
  * compiz-core.install, compiz-core.links, source_compiz.py:
    Replace the compiz apport hook with a link to xorg's apport script.
 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:50:27 +0100

[Tobias Wolf (towolf)]

After the recent update I can report that compiz remains between 3 and 10 wakeups on an idle desktop.

I suppose this is as good as it gets now. Thanks.

Power consumption summary

14.9 wakeups/second, 5.3 GPU ops/second and 0.0 VFS ops/sec

Usage Events/s Category Description
0.0% 3.9 Process compiz
0.0% 2.7 Process gnome-terminal
0.0% 1.7 Process /usr/lib/gnome-applets/multiload-applet-2
68.6 us/s 2.1 Timer tick_sched_timer
0.2% 1.1 Process /usr/bin/X :0 -nr
100 us/s 1.4 Timer hrtimer_wakeup
25.6 us/s 1.2 Interrupt [46] i915
0.0% 0.8 Process /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
0.0% 0.6 Process gnome-power-manager
62.2 us/s 0.7 Interrupt [9] acpi