8086:29b2 [Intel DQ35JO] 3D performance is very bad

[Oded Arbel]

I'm using a couple of computers based on Intel DQ35JO board, which has a GMA graphics chip:

$ lspci | grep VGA
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

Running any sort of 3D graphics is incredibly slow, for example:

$ glxgears -fullscreen
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh. The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
51 frames in 5.1 seconds = 10.010 FPS

which is rather good comparing to the behavior of glxgears without fullscreen and maximized (showing the window borders and panels) which is aroudn 5 FPS.

This is the same for both Unity 2D, standard 3D Unity (in which also just moving windows around is painful) and KDE (in which everything is ever slower which makes KDE practically unusable).

I've had the same behavior since I installed Ubuntu 11.10, and its the same now with the 12.04 alpha. I have two identical machines running 12.04 - one is using the standard Ubuntu (with KDE installed as an option) and the other is installed with Kubuntu. When I run glxgears on the Kubuntu machine, its not running in synchronized mode and the fullscreen framerate is reported around 50 FPS, though the movement is almost as choppy as in the Ubuntu machine (so I don't understand what is going on). In the Kubuntu machine, KDE can't do OpenGL desktop effects at all - I get errors when I try to enable that, though glxgears does work.

A slightly older machine (running chipset 82801H - ICH8 family) works fine.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.17.0-1ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-15.24-generic 3.2.5
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-15-generic x86_64
.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 1.91-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: [core,bailer,detection,composite,opengl,decor,compiztoolbox,regex,imgpng,place,animation,expo,grid,mousepoll,session,vpswitch,wall,workarounds,resize,gnomecompat,move,fade,scale,ezoom,unityshell]
CompositorRunning: None
Date: Sun Feb 12 21:09:59 2012
DistUpgraded: Log time: 2012-01-31 16:47:44.405408
DistroCodename: precise
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes, whatever it takes to get this fixed in Ubuntu
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b2] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:4f4a]
   Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:4f4a]
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha amd64 (20111130.1)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.2.0-15-generic root=UUID=c0da3d10-fd8a-4518-9daa-70f698ce948a ro rootflags=subvol=@ quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-intel
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-01-31 (12 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 08/31/2007
dmi.bios.vendor: Intel Corp.
dmi.bios.version: JOQ3510J.86A.0677.2007.0831.0433
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: DQ35JO
dmi.board.vendor: Intel Corporation
dmi.board.version: AAD82085-800
dmi.chassis.type: 2
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnIntelCorp.:bvrJOQ3510J.86A.0677.2007.0831.0433:bd08/31/2007:svn:pn:pvr:rvnIntelCorporation:rnDQ35JO:rvrAAD82085-800:cvn:ct2:cvr:
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.6+bzr20110929-0ubuntu8
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs 20090808ubuntu33
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.30-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 8.0~rc2-0ubuntu5
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 8.0~rc2-0ubuntu5
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.11.4-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.6.99.901-1ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.14.99~git20111219.aacbd629-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.17.0-1ubuntu3
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:0.0.16+git20111201+b5534a1-1build2

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Nothing obvious in the logs. Do you have the same problem with a livecd? Is glxgears the only app you've tested with? It's not a benchmark, btw.

[Oded Arbel (oded-geek)]

Same problem with the lice CD, same problem with Kubuntu.

The performance is very bad with Unity 3D and Kwin with desktop effects, to the point where using the desktop is not possible. Using Unity 2D or KWin without effects makes the desktop usable, just slow.

If you want me to run any sort of application to test and report, I can do that at any point.

[Carsten Schnober (c-schnober)]

I can confirm the problem with the same graphics hardware. Extract from lspci output:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

glxgears -fullscreen gives me 34 frames in 5.0 seconds = 6.773 FPS
glxgears (no fullscreen): 118 frames in 5.0 seconds = 23.595 FPS

The GUI is generally very sluggish, especially for any operation involving 3D effects, e.g. the HUD, using the 3D windows switcher etc. However, even in the GDM welcome screen, it takes a couple of seconds to render the background image.

[Carsten Schnober (c-schnober)]

I've meanwhile de-activated the Window Animations plugin (active by default) via CCSM which does not really solve the problem, but at least makes the desktop usable again...

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

I am affected by this problem, too.

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

glxgeards -fullscreen : 4.594 fps
glxgears : 16.901 fps

[madbiologist (me-again)]

Does unity 5.12-0ubuntu1.1 help? It contains a fix for poor OpenGL performance.

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

Yes, unity 5.12-ubuntu1.1 helps. But the Unity performance is still unedifying.

Ubuntu (3D):
# Moving windows is and fading effects are still very jerky.
# glxgears runs at 30 fps
# glxgears -fullscreen crawls most of the time at 5 fps but sometimes jumps up to 18 fps.

Ubuntu 2D:
# Moving windows feels like it was before in 10.04. The window moves together with the pointer, no more drag but not smooth.
# glxgears runs at 60 fps and seems to be limited by the screen refresh rate. Good!
# glxgears -fullscreen still crawls along with 4.7 fps.

I know that glxgears is not a proper benchmark but it is an application with simple 3D graphics and should run smoothly.

[nunojpg (nunojpg)]

Confirmed. Had it in 12.04, continues on 12.10. Same card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

[Yaron (sh-yaron)]

Same card here, can't see the problem, using Dell Optiplex 755

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

Can you attach glxinfo? Sounds very much like you are using swrast or llvmpipe.

[gian (glsarto)]

here is my glxinfo

[oliver (oliver-schinagl)]

I am using my Q35 to run XBMC and am only getting 17 FPS for the 'plain old menu'. While I'm sure the Q35 isn't a powerhouse, 17FPS @ 1280x720 is a bit low I would think. I wil test in the next few weeks running plain X without any ubuntu and see if that is any better.

[oliver (oliver-schinagl)]

13.04 with xorg edgers PPA performance is to cry for. Especially with gnome-shell/unity, which requires 3D, we're talking about 5- 15 FPS and i can't do more then 1600x1200 on the DVI port, vs 1920x1200 on VGA. Strange.

[Chris Wilson (ickle)]

DVI has a lower bw than VGA - it can only do a max dotclock of around 300MHz (which is approx.1920x1080 @ 60Hz).

The problem with xorg-edgers is that mesa/i915 now pretends to be OpenGL2.1 capable - which causes Unity to try and use more expensive shaders and cause mesa to fallback to swrast.

[oliver (oliver-schinagl)]

Ah, well auto detection and forcing that resolution doesn't work right now either. My monitor just goes to blank if I use displays to set things up.

But lower bw than VGA you mean specifically on this chip? Because wikipedia says, that single link DVI has a pixel clock of 165 MHz which should be plenty: "With a single DVI link, the highest supported standard resolution is 2.75 megapixels (including blanking interval) at 60 Hz refresh." They list some examples to which 1920x1200 fits just fine :(

I actually have slightly better performance with xorg-edgers. I've played mostly with gnome-ubuntu (gnome-shell) and even there performance was slugish. Granted, no dedicated video memory.

Best performance came with xubmcuntu, which drops all the composited UI etc, but the framerate was pretty bad even there.

[madbiologist (me-again)]

No dedicated video memory? You might want to try checking you BIOS settings to see if you can allocate more system memory to graphics. According to Wikipedia the Q35 chipset supports both DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 memory. If you have DDR2-667, upgrading to the faster DDR2-800 should help. You can find out what speed memory you have by running the following command in a terminal:

sudo dmidecode --type 17

or

sudo dmidecode --type memory

Check your motherboard manual to confirm what type/s of memory are supported and the maximum module size and maximum total memory size.

And please attach the output of glxinfo (you will need to install the mesa-utils package first).

[oliver (oliver-schinagl)]

I had DDR2-667 inthe machine and using ddr-800 did improve to around 15-20 FPS so it is a noteworthy improvement ;)

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Oded Arbel, this bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? If so, could you please test for this with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ .

If it remains an issue, could you please run the following command in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal), as it will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report:

apport-collect -p xserver-xorg-video-intel REPLACE-WITH-BUG-NUMBER

Please note, given that the information from the prior release is already available, doing this on a release prior to the development one would not be helpful.

Thank you for your understanding.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

.tmp.unity.support.test.0:

ApportVersion: 2.12.7-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.336ubuntu1
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: compiz
CompositorUnredirectDriverBlacklist: '(nouveau|Intel).*Mesa 8.0'
CompositorUnredirectFSW: true
CurrentDesktop: Unity
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: trusty
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
DistroVariant: ubuntu
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes, if not too technical
GraphicsCard:
 Intel Corporation 82Q35 Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:29b2] (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:2819]
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Alpha amd64+mac (20140108)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq dc7800p Convertible Minitower
MarkForUpload: True
Package: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.907-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcKernelCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/username.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash -- keyboard-configuration/layoutcode=de
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.12.0-7.15-generic 3.12.4
Tags: trusty ubuntu regression reproducible compiz-0.9
Uname: Linux 3.12.0-7-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
dmi.bios.date: 03/18/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 786F1 v01.24
dmi.board.asset.tag: CZC8163N0C
dmi.board.name: 0AACh
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CZC8163N0C
dmi.chassis.type: 6
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr786F1v01.24:bd03/18/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaqdc7800pConvertibleMinitower:pvr:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn0AACh:rvr:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct6:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq dc7800p Convertible Minitower
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.10+13.10.20131011-0ubuntu1
version.ia32-libs: ia32-libs N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.50-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 10.0.1-1ubuntu2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental: libgl1-mesa-dri-experimental N/A
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 10.0.1-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.14.5-1ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.8.2-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.2.0-0ubuntu10
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.907-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.10-1ubuntu1
xserver.bootTime: Wed Jan 8 15:34:02 2014
xserver.configfile: default
xserver.errors:

xserver.logfile: /var/log/Xorg.0.log
xserver.outputs:
 product id 26507
 vendor NEC
xserver.version: 2:1.14.5-1ubuntu2

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

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[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

Tested again with Trusty daily-live/current CD image booted from USB stick.

Perceived perfomance is a little better but moving windows is still jerky.

glxgears performance improved compared to my last test.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ glxgears
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh. The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
348 frames in 5.0 seconds = 69.121 FPS
352 frames in 5.0 seconds = 70.342 FPS
362 frames in 5.0 seconds = 72.196 FPS

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ glxgears -fullscreen
Running synchronized to the vertical refresh. The framerate should be
approximately the same as the monitor refresh rate.
76 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15.138 FPS
60 frames in 5.0 seconds = 11.898 FPS
66 frames in 5.1 seconds = 12.931 FPS

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Mark Jones, thank you for your comment. So your hardware and problem may be tracked, could you please file a new report by executing the following in a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

For more on this, please see the official Ubuntu documentation:
Ubuntu X.Org Team, Ubuntu Bug Control, and Ubuntu Bug Squad: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/BestPractices#X.2BAC8-Reporting.Focus_on_One_Issue
Ubuntu Community: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs#Bug_reporting_etiquette

When opening up the new report, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

Please note, not filing a new report will delay your problem being addressed as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

Christopher, I added the duplicate bug report as you wished. I marked it as a duplicate of this one.

I just gave it a try with a 10.04 live CD and there the X performance is at the good level I can remember. In 11.10,12.04 and 14.04-20140108 the performance is reproducably bad.

[Mark Jonas (mark-jonas)]

Bug #1267384 is not a duplicate any more. Although I think it is exactly what is being described here.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]