11.10 poor overall performance

[Bucic]

My computer is simply struggling. While some unity animations are smooth most of the desktop experience is unbearable. Scrolling in browser window, moving windows around. Works worse than on a 1.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM computer.

Now, recently I've started a topic where I ask for help with Intel GMA but due to the following I don't think the GMA is the culprit here:
1. After switching from Intel GMA to AMD 3650 it gets even worse.
2. The proprietary AMD drivers from "Additional drivers" didn't make any difference. Same with these http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syste...ers-6719.shtml

Ubuntu 11.10 x64
Lenovo Thinkpad T500

EDIT:
example for the 11.10 (latest; installer says 8.9 for some reason) AMD driver:

$ fglrxinfo
display: :0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
OpenGL version string: 3.3.11161 Compatibility Profile Context

$ glxgears
9721 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1944.040 FPS
9887 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1977.315 FPS
9793 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1958.562 FPS

Chromium BSU game runs poorly in windowed mode but extremely fast in full screen mode.

[Bucic]

Even more weird stuff. Take a look at some of the returns from glxgears (ran few times)

$ glxgears
18005 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3600.900 FPS
18528 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3705.496 FPS
18101 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3620.047 FPS
18514 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3702.641 FPS
9939 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1987.599 FPS
6434 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1286.792 FPS
6444 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1288.757 FPS
6462 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1292.333 FPS
XIO:  fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server ":0"
      after 105210 requests (105210 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
$ glxgears
16464 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3292.800 FPS
11555 frames in 5.0 seconds = 2310.837 FPS
6457 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1291.301 FPS
6485 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1296.856 FPS
XIO:  fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server ":0"
      after 44954 requests (44954 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
$ glxgears
15459 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3091.788 FPS
7116 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1423.178 FPS
6416 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1283.140 FPS
6476 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1295.155 FPS
XIO:  fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server ":0"
      after 37823 requests (37823 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
$ glxgears
9177 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1835.243 FPS
$ glxgears
8991 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1798.131 FPS
XIO:  fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server ":0"
      after 13238 requests (13238 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
$ glxgears
8614 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1722.760 FPS
7041 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1408.068 FPS

At ~3000, there was a squeaky (although silent) sound coming out of my laptop. As soon as the sound stopped the FPS dropped to 2000 (or the other way around - you tell me). I have only SSD in my laptop so it wasn't a HDD. After few trials I couldn't get that ~3000 anymore. It got back after I restarted the computer:

$ glxgears
18488 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3697.573 FPS
18768 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3753.586 FPS
17016 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3403.173 FPS
18025 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3604.873 FPS
18870 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3773.924 FPS
18744 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3748.473 FPS
7204 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1440.637 FPS
7084 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1416.773 FPS
6626 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1325.097 FPS

Again - it goes ~1400 => the squeaky sound goes out.

[TechZilla]

If your having a performance problem, you always want to identify the cause first. It could be almost anything, but based on your hardware description, I would check your load.

What is the output from uptime?

You should also look at your processes (top or ps aux), check if they are badly behaving.

[Bucic]

No process stands out from what I could see...

$ uptime
 00:50:18 up  3:58,  1 user,  load average: 0.06, 0.05, 0.05

New info!
- LiveCD gives me MUCH better performance than the installed version
- glxgears results on LiveCD is ~60 while on the installed version ~1500-3000 (VSync?)

[Bucic]

Recent update:
The best I could achieve was with Catalyst drivers and radeon.modeset=0 boot parameter + disablet Wait for VBlank. With that this happens quite often

altough it happens without the modeset as well.

Wat I achieved is most desktop elements work perfectly smooth, including browser scrolling and all of the Unity effects and animations. What is still wrong is the windows dragging. Just after startup I can jerk it around and it behaves well for a second. Then it starts to stutter/lag. After that all of the systems windows will behave poorly. There will be no recovery to the "just after startup" state. If I "overuse" that windows shaking there's a high probability that the situation from sshot above will occur.

[shokodemon]

i can confirm tbh. ati driver support is just horrible all around. i've a 6310HD, and while not the best card out there, it still shows very strange coloring and artifacts.

gnome shell just crashes.

unity is /stable/ but very sluggish.


it'd be cool to be able to run linux in a snappy environment that is responsive.

windows xp runs smoother on my machine, which is a shame.
i still stick to ubunutu

but let's focus more on performance than making things look pretty, especially since it already looks stunning.

just my 2cents

[MAXieOne]

I also have poor windows performance and a slight almost unnoticeable corruption on the left unity bar.
I have just installed ubuntu (worked fine) and added the Ati driver via Additional Drivers.
Now even tho i deactivate the driver, sill same low performance when moving windows. It's like 5 fps.
I have a Ati Radeon HD 4890. RV790.

What can i do? Kubuntu doesn't have this problem and works very good.

[Bucic]

In my case and most other cases where good unity 3D performance is established but windows drawing is stuttering it's Compiz's (i.e. Ubuntu team's for choosing an unstable version) fault, not ATI drivers!
http://askubuntu.com/questions/79878...-full-install/
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...r/+bug/763005/

[collisionystm]

Well you are sure running better than I am.
7302 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1460.349 FPS
7346 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1468.554 FPS
7598 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1519.492 FPS
7179 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1434.780 FPS
6650 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1329.905 FPS
^C
charles@ubuntu:~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6380G
OpenGL version string: 4.1.11251 Compatibility Profile Context


i can play WoW in wine and get about 25-35 fps on good graphics.
On windows its 60 to 75.

I am using the Catalyst 11.11.

Unity 2D is smoother, although the system is still not as quick as pure debian. I think the version of OpenGL that is being used is incompatible with the radeon drivers.

[collisionystm]

Okay so I did some playing around.

Unity 3D. 1400 FPS Average.
Unity 2D. 300 FPS Average << Strange?

Gnome-Shell 1800 FPS Average
Gnome-Classic No effects, 4500 FPS Average
KDE 4500 FPS Average
KDE Compositing 800 fps average

Installing xfce4 and lxde right now to give those a shot.

I really can't believe unity 2d was sucking that bad

EDIT:

XFCE, no compositing 4500 fps average
Enabled compositing, 900 fps average
LXDE 4500 fps average

So... it would appear unity 2D did the absolute worst.