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Kartel
October 13th, 2009, 01:20 AM
This is something I've been noticing for a while and hoped it would be fixed in karmic, though it doesn't seem to be. Anyway, I've noticed that only the first user to login seems to really have access to accelerated graphics (Visual Effects, non-chopping videos, 3d games, etc). I normally have at least two users logged in at a time (myself and my wife), and often a kid or two as well.

For instance, right now my wife and daughter have their users logged in, and now I'm logged in as well. If I try to watch a video (not just flash, local too), it is pretty much unwatchable because it is so choppy, and Visual Effects also can't be enabled. All this stuff DOES work ..but it depends on who is logged in, or more specifically, who logged in first. If I reboot the computer and log in, then this stuff works fine (discounting how my ati x1600 graphics have been screwed since Jaunty).

So if I reboot and login, I will have Visual Effects and decent video performance ..and then my wife won't when she logs back in (and I'd rather not take heat for that). So, I let her keep it and I just don't get to do anything particularly visual.

This really sucks though. This doesn't seem right. I wiped out 9.04 and did a clean install of 9.10 beta. But the issue remains however, and I'm not thrilled about it. I don't remember if it did this in 8.10 and before, maybe I just didn't notice. But I sure notice it now, and my wife notices. I try to discourage her from thinking Windows is better, but things like this don't exactly help the cause.

Anybody know why it's doing this and how I can have equal and consistent video performance for all users?

PrePenguin
October 13th, 2009, 01:22 AM
Have you ruled out a bandwidth problem or is this on fixed video files to that are downloaded?

Kartel
October 13th, 2009, 01:38 AM
Have you ruled out a bandwidth problem or is this on fixed video files to that are downloaded?

"If I try to watch a video (not just flash, local too), it is pretty much unwatchable because it is so choppy"

This includes locally downloaded .avi, games, anything more graphically intensive than browsing this forum, pretty much.

ajarufe
October 28th, 2009, 04:15 AM
same issue here - I can enable visual effects only on one user session. If multiple users are logged in, it will not allow me to enable visual effects on any session besides the first that was logged in.

MORDOCtheGREAT
March 17th, 2010, 12:11 AM
Exact same thing here. Did you ever get this fixed? Its a few months old so hopefully you have. I also have a Raedon x1650. Maybe its the card, since you have a 1600.