tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post9049845837131401597..comments2024-03-28T07:30:33.361+00:00Comments on Zack Rusin: Accelerating desktopsZackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16222054590923441165noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-14085270401926245222008-08-13T02:27:00.000+01:002008-08-13T02:27:00.000+01:00GPU Data compaction, expansion and other algorithm...GPU Data compaction, expansion and other algorithm can be transformed into gather-only algorithms - please take a look at <BR/>www.mpii.de/~gziegler<BR/>maybe it helps; let me know if you have further questions :)<BR/><BR/>/Gernot (gz@geofront.eu)Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06835533810185666089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-29759504823656873392008-08-12T17:36:00.000+01:002008-08-12T17:36:00.000+01:00zack can u elaborate why OPengL 3 is cool or not?zack can u elaborate why OPengL 3 is cool or not?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-23820219961059718792008-07-03T16:03:00.000+01:002008-07-03T16:03:00.000+01:00Oh boy!In my personal experiences, NV Quadro cards...Oh boy!<BR/><BR/>In my personal experiences, NV Quadro cards has always performed better. Server-Overlay plays very nice with the Qt/Quadro combo. Wish I could say the same with Gtk ;)<BR/><BR/>Again, solid performance and stability is to be expected for a card that cost minimum 500$. You pay because you want something that works and been able to call up the vendor when it doen't. With the Quadro, Cuda and Telsa products, you do have support! <BR/><BR/><BR/>My 2cents! There are always problems when you mix free-loaders in a commercial and open-souce equation.<BR/><BR/>Zack, you got my vote!MaXX Desktophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03472831070959165735noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-27309462091645658702008-07-03T15:57:00.000+01:002008-07-03T15:57:00.000+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.MaXX Desktophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03472831070959165735noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-35672462096899810342008-07-01T18:36:00.000+01:002008-07-01T18:36:00.000+01:00> For example Qt doesn't use server-side > transfo...> For example Qt doesn't use server-side <BR/>> transformations (they were just <BR/>> pathetically slow and we didn't feel it <BR/>> would be in the best interest of our users<BR/>> to make Qt a lot slower), Cairo does<BR/><BR/>Cairo does not. That's why we've never accelerated server-side gradients in our driver -- nobody uses them. I'm hoping in a few months once we get all this memory manager crap finally finished off that we'll finally get to fixing that on both sides at once.<BR/><BR/>A more apt criticism of XRender would have involved the tricky parts of the spec (source clipping versus transformations, filters versus gradients), which due to not being implemented have forced people to go do client-side implementations.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14286201158644477027noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-72610159494839403312008-06-30T20:16:00.000+01:002008-06-30T20:16:00.000+01:00A bit off topic: Does Qt use XShm?http://www.osnew...A bit off topic: Does Qt use XShm?<BR/>http://www.osnews.com/story/19935/Cairo_Xlib_and_the_Shared_Memory_Extension<BR/>Gtk does according to that posting.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-38501236494210751922008-06-28T11:13:00.000+01:002008-06-28T11:13:00.000+01:00I think a lot of people commenting miss the point ...I think a lot of people commenting miss the point here. As I read it Zack didn't want to solve the whole problem of accelerating X graphics, but advise against drawing wrong conclusions from results of the benchmark he wrote, which is perfectly understandable. So people, please step back and read the post again. Perhaps if we're nice enough, Zack will think about and post a possible path to enhancement. I guess it would qualify as a PhD thesis to solve all problems of graphics acceleration in the X architecture in one post though.<BR/>So, what I learn from this post: <BR/>1. The architecture is complicated and thus you cannot just fix pointXYZ to get fast graphics. Permutations in operations may lead to contradictory or rivaling requirements. <BR/>2. Point 1 implies that the benchmark measuring single operations does not scale linearily (is that the correct word in english?).<BR/>3. The benchmark does not represent real world application workflows. Cairo and Qt resp. use different subsets of the operations in different frequencies. So, do not use the benchmark to measure desktop performance.<BR/><BR/>I don't want to say that this represents Zack's intention or opinion, but at least this is what I understood.scroogiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04742347403285005875noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-58526021941895280732008-06-28T05:21:00.000+01:002008-06-28T05:21:00.000+01:00@Zack: I was trying to put it beyond doubt that I ...@Zack: I was trying to put it beyond doubt that I wasn't serious, but guess I failed.danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12072308000500379765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-49307378735301669622008-06-28T02:44:00.000+01:002008-06-28T02:44:00.000+01:00So just to be clear, Zach, is this what you're say...So just to be clear, Zach, is this what you're saying?<BR/><BR/>Xrender is so broken that NVIDIA shouldn't be expected to fix their drivers to work with it (even though everyone else has managed to) and we should just live with the terrible KDE4 experience for years until a replacement comes out?<BR/><BR/>I'm certainly willing to believe that XRender is bad, but I'm not exactly clear what the point of the post was - unless there wasn't any point and you were just venting. Which is perfectly fine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-44367137463696462482008-06-28T02:43:00.000+01:002008-06-28T02:43:00.000+01:00@Zack: Why are you using the word "crap", it's cer...@Zack: <BR/><BR/><I>Why are you using the word "crap", it's certainly not what I said.</I><BR/><BR/>I'm sorry, that is a little bit difficult sometimes to feel a word strength in foreign language. If you tell what this work is inapplicable there, I'll trust you. I was not intended to offend anyone.<BR/><BR/><I>But xrenderbenchmark clearly shows what…<BR/>A: I'm not sure what does that mean.</I><BR/><BR/>That is about various test results circulating around this days, like this one: http://vizzzion.org/?blogentry=820<BR/><BR/>As far as i have understand you, this is worthless bench results. <BR/><BR/><I>Hopefully that clears it up a bit.</I><BR/><BR/>Yes, thank you very much.<BR/><BR/>P.S. Talking about better overall solution, you mean Glucose? This project seems to be well abandoned now…Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-11829997216170930272008-06-28T02:16:00.000+01:002008-06-28T02:16:00.000+01:00@dmiceman: Why are you using the word "crap", it's...@dmiceman: Why are you using the word "crap", it's certainly not what I said. To answer your questions:<BR/>Does it related to drivers?<BR/>A: Yes, but it's a lot more complicated than that.<BR/><BR/>Why shouldn't we blame developers?<BR/>A: You certainly can, but as I've mentioned I think there's more than just people at one company to blame in this case.<BR/><BR/>So… Why Qt uses XRender at all?<BR/>A: For a number of reasons, the main one is decent support for anti-aliased fonts. The other is alpha-blending, without the need for pushing raw images over the wire all the time. It's an offset between features we needed and performance we wanted to have. <BR/><BR/>But xrenderbenchmark clearly shows what…<BR/>A: I'm not sure what does that mean.<BR/><BR/>Is xrenderbenchmark a crap?<BR/>A: It's certainly lacking tons of features, with the main one being described in the post you've responded to. Adding that feature could potentially help vendors implementing XRender, but, once more, long term I do not think that this is a good solution.<BR/><BR/>Hopefully that clears it up a bit.Zackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16222054590923441165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-12183232290968998462008-06-28T01:47:00.000+01:002008-06-28T01:47:00.000+01:00This is a most strange blog post i seen for a long...This is a most strange blog post i seen for a long time. Author is pretty good at confusing peoples.<BR/><BR/>That is waht i have understand from this post:<BR/><BR/>Does the problem with nvidia cards exists?<BR/><I>Yes.</I><BR/><BR/>Does it related to drivers?<BR/><I>Yes, but no one should blame developers for that.</I><BR/><BR/>For the God's sake, why?<BR/><I>Because they are good guys and XRender is a crap.</I><BR/><BR/>So… Why Qt uses XRender at all?<BR/><I>No, we are good guys too.</I><BR/><BR/>But xrenderbenchmark clearly shows what…<BR/><I>xrenderbenchmark is a crap</I><BR/><BR/>Is xrenderbenchmark a crap?<BR/><I>No, I'm a good guy</I><BR/><BR/>So, what is going on? I think what many peoples just does not understand it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-80422754845352182312008-06-28T01:34:00.000+01:002008-06-28T01:34:00.000+01:00I didn't think this post would be so controversial...I didn't think this post would be so controversial especially since my position about what we should do with our graphics stack has been known for at least two years.<BR/>@daniels: Taking something that is obviously a joke and trying to use that? Especially since you've used my email address before and you know that I always respond to questions. <BR/>As to it all being my fault, I think I've used the word "we" which certainly includes me and yea, very likely a lot of the issues that we're having is a direct result of me not spending more time working to solve those problems. And the work that I'm doing right now is not visible at the moment which is unfortunate but it is what is and it certainly doesn't take away anything from this post.Zackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16222054590923441165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-4161225866975106632008-06-28T00:38:00.000+01:002008-06-28T00:38:00.000+01:00OpenGL|ES, OpenGL|ES, OpenGL|ES, .... If I say it ...OpenGL|ES, OpenGL|ES, OpenGL|ES, .... If I say it enough times will it come true? Why do we need to make up our own API?Jon Smirlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07070851719018470603noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-49673811989327762322008-06-28T00:28:00.000+01:002008-06-28T00:28:00.000+01:00@Zack:I think, it's fine to blame the hardware ven...@Zack:<BR/>I think, it's fine to blame the hardware vendors (not their poor developers). Nvidia has bad performance regressions since their 8xxx cards and it doesn't look as it's the fault of a bad XRender API alone. If they had spend more resources on the driver, they wouldn't have to release one with such results: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=29257&d=1196719662 (and it's still unacceptable today). We would have transparency in Qt4: http://trolltech.com/developer/task-tracker/index_html?id=206998&method=entry and probably a smooth video playback, like on their older cards.<BR/>Nvidia does it just too slow and thus has to take the most blame for a bad desktop experience.<BR/><BR/>@DanielW<BR/>"Every single guy with a Geforce 8600(m) has this problems. This fucking card is useless (at the moment) every 10 years old card will to equal good. "<BR/><BR/>Try nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 (mostly good speed improvement, this will be someday the default)<BR/>and in xorg.conf: Option "PixmapCacheSize" "200000" (this may help with pixmap intensive apps)<BR/><BR/>"If this benchmark is useless ok.. What else can I/we do to have something to go do nvidia and say we have a problem?"<BR/><BR/>The Nvidias developer are aware of the problems, unfortunately they can't part themselves... But if you can always report some bugs or send testcases to <BR/>linux-bugs@nvidia.com. Though, an answear may come some weeks later or not at all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-55380446457004604832008-06-28T00:21:00.000+01:002008-06-28T00:21:00.000+01:00Um, I thought the idea was to find out just which ...Um, I thought the idea was to find out just which call(s) was being slow? That seems like a perfectly good use of benchmarking software. Because otherwise, where do you even begin?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-76917280150967492852008-06-27T22:52:00.000+01:002008-06-27T22:52:00.000+01:00nice daniels. you're an everyday troll or just a w...nice daniels. you're an everyday troll or just a weekend one?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-86344379233684747232008-06-27T22:42:00.000+01:002008-06-27T22:42:00.000+01:00Thanks for blogging this Zack.All I can say wrt to...Thanks for blogging this Zack.<BR/>All I can say wrt to this:<BR/>seems like a lot of people reporting performance problems are using 8600s, and other more recent cards. Those same problems usually can't be reproduced on far less capable hardware (e.g. my 7100, i9xx, etc.).<BR/><BR/><BR/>-Maks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-12432273202522291392008-06-27T22:22:00.000+01:002008-06-27T22:22:00.000+01:00Sentence one: I am awesome at ignoring emails.Para...Sentence one: I am awesome at ignoring emails.<BR/><BR/>Paragraph five: OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE PEOPLE DIDN'T EMAIL ME.<BR/><BR/>You are the reason free software graphics are the suck. Hang your head in shame.danielshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12072308000500379765noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-38931629268338238642008-06-27T21:54:00.000+01:002008-06-27T21:54:00.000+01:00@Zack:Well first: I do not blame you or TT for the...@Zack:<BR/><BR/>Well first: I do not blame you or TT for the problems. I am a little angry at nvidia as least because they do not answer on ther bug report mails.<BR/><BR/>The thing I do not know what to do I feel helpless here. <BR/><BR/>The thing is I am trying to figure out the thing a few now (just finding out what cards are the one with problems and so on, not technical things, I do not have the skills for that).<BR/><BR/>One thing I am quite sure: Every single guy with a Geforce 8600(m) has this problems. This fucking card is useless (at the moment) every 10 years old card will to equal good. <BR/><BR/>If this were a desktop I would just get a new cheap card for about 30 - 40 EUR and would be happy. But that is not possible. I paid too much for this useless thing.So I am angry. Not at you, do not get me wrong. <BR/><BR/>But maybe you have some hint what do to. If this benchmark is useless ok.. What else can I/we do to have something to go do nvidia and say we have a problem? <BR/><BR/>Just saying "things are slow" doesn't help. It is fine with windows, but that is not an option. I would rather sell this laptop and get a new one.<BR/><BR/>:-(<BR/><BR/>BTW: It is not only QT. GTK2 is slower too, but not that worse.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-91230651955328979712008-06-27T21:44:00.000+01:002008-06-27T21:44:00.000+01:00So I've limited skills, but I'm *willing* to help ...So I've limited skills, but I'm *willing* to help solving this problem. Personal itch, seeing that this ruins the KDE4 experience for a large part of our user base are the main motivations.<BR/><BR/>Now this "your benchmark is useless because you have no clue" is probably correct, but it's as far as it gets with my limited understanding of this situation.<BR/>And it's absolutely cool that on TT's developer machines Qt runs fine. I don't even know if it's a Qt problem, or if kwin is wonky, or if the stars are just not right (for a couple of months). And that is exactly the thing I want to find out.<BR/><BR/>It'd be helpful to me if you were less defensive, and try to help me finding out what the actual cause of this performance problem is. Maybe it's complicated, maybe it's easy -- but it is an important technical shortcoming right now. Tell me where to look, and I'll do that (within my possibilities).<BR/><BR/>Love.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-582556506844722492008-06-27T21:13:00.000+01:002008-06-27T21:13:00.000+01:00@danielw: unfortunately that means less than nothi...@danielw: unfortunately that means less than nothing. Not only it's useless but misleading. Benchmarking in general only makes sense if you know what you're testing. One can answer the question "why is my graphics slow" just as well as the question "why doesn't my computer work". There's billion of intermediate questions that have to be posed in order to diagnose anything.<BR/><BR/>In your and Sebas' cases the bottom line is this: all Trolltech engineering team is running on machines with NVIDIA cards so Qt is obviously running /very/ well with NVIDIA. <BR/>If that's not the case on your setup then the question of whether you think you'd be better positioned to solve that problem if the driver would be open is a whole different discussion.Zackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16222054590923441165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-34167042023004627782008-06-27T20:20:00.000+01:002008-06-27T20:20:00.000+01:00I have similar problems like sebas.nvidia geforce ...I have similar problems like sebas.<BR/><BR/>nvidia geforce 8600m-gt (so i can not switch...)<BR/><BR/>Terrible slow (not the 3D things but all the normal dekstop things). It really does fell slow. You can see it. <BR/><BR/>It is not that nvidia is not accelerating things it is that the try to do things with acceleration makes everything slower.<BR/><BR/>Using vesa it is a lot faster. OK, I do not know anything about this XRender thing but your benchmark (ok it is not really valid for that) but it is in most test about 5-15 times slower than with vesa driver. <BR/><BR/>Does that mean nothing? Well I see how slow it is. Using Vesa driver is no real solution as I can not have any Hardare OpenGL.<BR/><BR/>DanielWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-40907252097680103332008-06-27T20:03:00.000+01:002008-06-27T20:03:00.000+01:00@Zack: I'm using GL. And the performance problem i...@Zack: I'm using GL. And the performance problem is also there with compositing disabled. KWin is a lot snappier on my other machine with ati driver.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27901662.post-21827400636559956022008-06-27T19:31:00.000+01:002008-06-27T19:31:00.000+01:00I have found that kde 4 is really snappy when I ru...I have found that kde 4 is really snappy when I run it under xgl. Unfortunately to get kwin compositing to work you need to get xgl to use the mesa libGL and not the one given by nvidia. I failed to do this 'cos I suck, but maybe others might have better luck. <BR/><BR/>But it worked fine without compositing last time I tried. Of course then you have to suffer all the crappy things that come with xglAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com