The Impact Of KDE On 3D Gaming

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Impact Of KDE On 3D Gaming

Being discussed following the Ubuntu 12.04 Desktops Impact Performance, Power Consumption was the impact that KDE's KWin compositing window manager (and others that don't redirect fullscreen windows by default) has on the OpenGL gaming performance...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTA4NjU

[[Knuckles]]

An alternative is to enable "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows" in the configure desktop effects > advanced tab.
Enabled on all my systems.

[rohcQaH]

Mandatory blog link:

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blo...g-performance/

[GreatEmerald]

One of the reasons why it's not on by default is that it causes annoying screen flickering/corruption when something is being overlayed on fullscreen windows, such as Amarok's On Screen Display. Since I bet more people are using that than playing games, it's probably best to keep it off by default.

[Nevertime]

One of the reasons why it's not on by default is that it causes annoying screen flickering/corruption when something is being overlayed on fullscreen windows, such as Amarok's On Screen Display. Since I bet more people are using that than playing games, it's probably best to keep it off by default.

I'm sure your right, but why is amaroks on screen display on by default? It's completely inconsistent with the kde desktop and amarok works great when using kdes normal notifications

[kraftman]

This result is odd, but thanks for the benchmark. Waiting for more.

[RealNC]

An alternative is to enable "Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows" in the configure desktop effects > advanced tab.
Enabled on all my systems.

This is the default actually. But I guess Ubuntu does their own thing and changed it.

Edit: I just saw KDE 4.7 changed this. It was the default, but not anymore.

[V!NCENT]

Cleaner solution taking performance hit. We all knew that with KDE ages ago. I don't even care as long as it works well; performance optimizations and faster hardware will take care of it.

I realy hated how on Compiz with Ubuntu (what was it... 2008/2009?) was flickering the shit out of fullscreen games. I'd rather have lower FPS than SOSPS (shit on screen per second)

[[Knuckles]]

Yes, you do have to put up with the flickering, unfortunately.
But I mostly see it when using firefox in fullscreen (which is rarely), so it's a good tradeoff I guess.

I once suggested a kind of dynamic blacklist: when kwin has to switch compositing on/off too many times (5? 10?) in a row, ask the user something like:

The current fullscreen application seems to be having trouble with desktop effects. What do you want to do?
[ Enable compatibility mode ] [ Ignore ] [ Turn off desktop effects ] [ ] Remember my choice for this application

(where compatibility mode = stop unredirecting this app, ignore = keep unredirecting, turn off desktop effects = obvious)

For those interested, bug #1337495 (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=177495) is where this issue is normally discussed.