speed issues between 8.09 and 8.11

[mdraicch]

Hi to all,

I have noticed that there is a major diff. between 8.09 and 8.11 when running glxgears and fgl_glxgears. I run a 780g mobo with integrated 3200 graphics.

8.09 8.11

glxgears 1806 1018
fgl_glxgears 448 298

I know that one of the senior members of this forum said that glxgears is not a true indication of speed but, this is a major diff. How should this data be interpreted if not on face value?.

regards
muzza

[knutbert]

Hi mdraicch/muzza,

did you check powerstates? 8.11 changes them upon plug/unplug of power on laptops e.g.

Power unplugged:

knutbert:~> aticonfig --lsp
    core/mem      [flags]
-----------------
* 1: 209/135 MHz  [low voltage]
  2: 392/252 MHz
  3: 398/468 MHz  [default state]
knutbert:~> fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
3200 frames in 5.0 seconds = 640.000 FPS
3460 frames in 5.0 seconds = 692.000 FPS

Power replugged:

knutbert:~> aticonfig --lsp
    core/mem      [flags]
-----------------
  1: 209/135 MHz  [low voltage]
  2: 392/252 MHz
* 3: 398/468 MHz  [default state]
knutbert:~> fgl_glxgears
Using GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
8714 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1742.800 FPS
9510 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1902.000 FPS

Cheers,
knutbert

[mdraicch]

Hi knutbert,

No, I run a desktop with ubuntu 8.04.

Reggards
muzza

[spikethehobbitmage]

glxgears and fgl_glxgears slowdown (50% drop) as of 8.10, still present in 8.11
however, CPU isn't buried anymore
-CPU usage is under 10% instead of 100% like with 8.10
-however CPU usage occasionally spikes over 30% for no apparent reason

Neverwinter Nights native Linux version is also slower
-20-30 fps at max settings (vsync off)
-drops to under 10 every few seconds

2D is also much more responsive
-dragging windows is almost back to normal
-redraw is visible, but window moves quickly
-smooth scrolling appears to be fixed - no lag

fullscreen corruption issue with wine and Blender has been fixed

flush_tlb_page bug has finally been fixed

tested using X1250 IGP

will try tomorrow with Radeon HD 4870

[lavinog]

same thing here with my 3200 igp
I have noticed since 8.4 that the fps in glx gears has been dropping almost each time.
8.4 ~ 2200
8.5 & 8.6 were a little higher at 2500, but they were unusable with segfaults on just about anything.
8.7 was very stable for me but fps went down to 1800
8.9 ~ 1600
8.10-beta ~1200 with fullscreen opengl distortion
8.11 ~1200 much more stable now.

Eventually I will get a dedicated card, but I can't make up my mind on what I want to do with all of this driver uncertainty.
I may go with an older card if the open source drivers perform ok, and save me some money.

[mdraicch]

I suppose we are suffering some speed degradation for stability. Perhaps its a little like Microsoft, with each new OPSYS one needs a more powerful machine. Likewise with each new driver release we need to get a more powerful card to overcome the new features.

Regards
Muzza

[spikethehobbitmage]

No, Microsoft gets LESS stable with each major release. It takes 2-3 service packs to get stable again.

If the driver can't handle the old cards anymore, they need to fork the driver for each series of card.

speed data for my HD 4870
glxgears slowdown is much less (5%) compared to 8.10
fgl_glxgears is 5% faster compared to 8.10
Neverwinter Nights native version noticeably slower (about 50% framerate drop)

[mdraicch]

Thanks spikethehobbitmage, your comments are much appreciated. It seems that IGP's maybe the most affected.

Where is LINUX heading for?

There has been a serious speed hit between UBUNTU 7.11 and 8.04 video encoding has dropped from 60-70 fps to 30-40 fps, and I suspect from what I have been reading that other flavors have also been affected in the same way.

Updates have made the system unstable.

Virtualization is a hit and miss affair, sometimes it boots, sometimes it reboots the computer.

Catalyst drivers are always an adventure, with most of the time users sticking to an older version, for me its 8.09.

I wonder if Linus Torvalds had this in mind when he wrote LINUX.

Regards
Muzza