Unity Compiz doesn't work at optimal settings - huge performance hit

[sabby7890]

Unity is not working with optimal Compiz settings - because of that, there's a huge performance hit on games and desktop experience (eg. window resizing).

You can get a lot faster games, when you go to CCSM (apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager), go to Workarounds disable this plugin completely.

This disables the "Force complete redraw on initial damage" option - that option made resizing in normal (non-outline) mode very slow and useless. Without this option, you can enable normal resize mode and it works as fast as in Windows, Mac OSX, Mutter, Metacity, KWin and XFWM!

What this option did? It forced a COMPLETE REDRAW of whole window when user resized the window. Without it, window resizes smoothly, window contents are updated as fast as it's possible. This is how it works on ALL window managers, except for Unity/Compiz. Deploying MIR won't help here, as window resizing will still be slow.

Actually, I think this option is for debugging purposes only, because there is no sane reason to redraw whole window on initial damage event.

The second option is "Dont wait for video sync" - this improved my framerate in WoW from 8 to 29 FPS. Notice that this option is incompatible with NVIDIA's Sync to VBlank - first, the frame waits for VBlank because of compiz, then the frame waits for VBlank because of NVIDIA, and THEN it draws. This is the reason I couldn't get more FPS than 20 - because it waited for VBlank TWICE.

Please disable "Workarounds" by default. These are ancient settings not useful today, only killing performance and battery life.

[sabby7890 (tsalacinski)]

When you test it, remember to relogin or launch "unity --replace". These settings are not applied immediately.

[sabby7890 (tsalacinski)]

And, remember, that because these settings are made for ancient version of Compiz, they aren't required for newer versions of Compiz. They just kill performance and give nothing - no better visual experience, choppy resize animations, bad 3D performance in apps managed by Compiz (SDL2 or WINE apps, for example. SDL is using exclusive mode, it bypasses compiz).

[madbiologist (me-again)]

What version of Ubuntu is this occurring on?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for Unity because there has been no activity for 60 days.]