Which Linux Graphics Driver Bugs Do You Hate?

[unix_epoch]

What bugs me the most are not the graphics drivers per se, but the audio drivers.

I have to, and far too often, kill X in order to restore the sound. And, logging out and logging in as another user often produce a mute computer.

I have still not understood the pattern but I think the graphics drivers are interlinked to tis issue, in some way. Maybe someone knows better.

I run Debain Sid/Experimental with KDE4 and the latest nvidia drivers on a 8800GT.

Could it be that pulseaudio has control of the sound card, which is preventing normal alsa applications from using it? On cards with hardware mixing (like the SoundBlaster Live-Audigy line), this isn't a problem, but with motherboard audio it is. Try killing pulseaudio, and if that works, disable the sound server in the GNOME settings.

[Jimmy]

What gets me is what people are using to set the bar for drivers.

Compiz: experimental software known to break shit. My shit is broken, NVidia and ATI need to get their act to geather?

KDE4: Known to underperform its predecessor KDE 3.5. KDE 3.5.x works just fine and is lightning fast with the same drivers and hardware. KDE4 does not. Therefore, its NVidia's fault?

Same hardware, same distro, same drivers, same game, same settings (everything turned up), desktop effects disabled:

Prey under KDE 3.5.9
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps

Prey under KDE 4.2.0
  3545 frames rendered in 125.3 seconds = 28.3 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 122.4 seconds = 29.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 122.4 seconds = 29.0 fps

Again, Nvidia or KDE4?

I'm sure Nvidia and ATI could do a lot better but lets be fair. They aren't the only ball players on the field.

[unix_epoch]

Same hardware, same distro, same drivers, same game, same settings (everything turned up), desktop effects disabled:

Prey under KDE 3.5.9
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 101.2 seconds = 35.0 fps

Prey under KDE 4.2.0
  3545 frames rendered in 125.3 seconds = 28.3 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 122.4 seconds = 29.0 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 122.4 seconds = 29.0 fps

Again, Nvidia or KDE4?

I'm curious to know what happens if you use nice or chrt to run Prey with realtime priority (i.e. chrt -f 25 prey or nice -n -20 prey).

[kraftman]

Again, Nvidia or KDE4?

I'm sure Nvidia and ATI could do a lot better but lets be fair. They aren't the only ball players on the field.

Nvidia and Ati. QT4 is rather new and they probably don't fully support it yet.

[uaaquarius]

I don't seem to have as many problems with fglrx as most people. The video tearing is annoying but I can live with it until the open driver supports 3D. The one problem that really bugs me is that logging out or trying to restart X in any way sends the card into a spasm. The display freezes, the graphics fan starts going full pelt and the only thing I can do is hit the power button, which at least shuts down the machine cleanly. If it was a hard lockup then the file corruption probably would have made me chuck my card by now.

I had the same problem on my Ubuntu 8.04. Then I've found a corresponding bug:
http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=992#c26
Bug is still not resolved, but there is a workaround which fixed my problem.

[Jimmy]

I'm curious to know what happens if you use nice or chrt to run Prey with realtime priority (i.e. chrt -f 25 prey or nice -n -20 prey).

KDE 3 still wins.

KDE 3.5.9, nice -n -20
  3545 frames rendered in 100.9 seconds = 35.1 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 100.8 seconds = 35.2 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 100.9 seconds = 35.1 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 100.7 seconds = 35.2 fps

KDE 4.2.0, nice -n 20
  3545 frames rendered in 121.6 seconds = 29.2 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 120.7 seconds = 29.4 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 123.1 seconds = 28.8 fps
  3545 frames rendered in 121.8 seconds = 29.1 fps

[Jimmy]

Nvidia and Ati. QT4 is rather new and they probably don't fully support it yet.

Is there a graphics card and driver set where KDE4 preforms better than KDE3? Or are all the hardware vendors just as inadequate next to the infallible QT?

If KDE 4.5 starts preforming better than 4.2 on the same drivers and hardware then what... you'll eat your socks?

[domicius]

It's of little surprise to me then that I run into installation problems with Debian (Pure) based distributions when the maintainer of the packages or scripts is working on a deliberate fork.

Now, maybe the Debian problems could be solved if Ubuntu developers focused on maintaining Debian compatibility.

However, I'm not sure bringing what amounts to be political and personal issues into a discussion involving whether or not an installed driver functions as expected in an installed enviroment.

Oh, you refer to Debian *based* distributions. Because on Debian unstable, I don't recall ever having problems installing fglrx drivers. I usually compile the modules with module-assistant if there's no matching package for my kernel at the moment in unstable repositories.

I really can't comment on the Ubuntu (not) maintaining Debian compatibility other than I'd like this doesn't stay our problem in future...

Everybody, sorry to get little OT...

[sreyan]

The 180.xx drivers were a lot faster with KDE4 than the 177s and earlier versions, but it was still a pretty slow experience trying to use KDE4 with my 8600GT. I'm sure KDE4(and/or its dependencies) is partly to blame, but Nvidia's blob surely is also.

QT 4.5 is much, much faster IMO. Might be interesting to see some benchmarks there, Michael.