Fglrx 2d Performance problem

[Wattos]

Hi All,

I am currently running Kubuntu (12.04) on my machine with the following hardware:

Alienware M15x
CPU: Intel 940XM
GPU: ATI 5850M
8GB RAM
250GB SSD

Currently I am running the open source (gallium?) ati graphics drivers which are sufficient for desktop effects and regular usage. Additionally I would like to play games (and finally get rid of windows on my machine). The open source drivers are too slow (and do not support features like texture compression, which are required for some games).

So I switched to the ati propriety drivers (fglrx) and wanted to see how things look with the closed source drivers. While the games run now, I have problems with the 2D performance. Firefox (and chrome) seem to render things slower (e.g. scrolling becomes a lot slower) and my docky is choppy (its not very slow, but its not as smooth as the open source drivers). I have also tried installing the drivers form the amd website (12.3) but these seem to have the same problem. Running gtkperf also showed a substantial difference. While the opensource drivers ran completed the tests at 9 seconds, the closed source drivers needed on average 15 seconds.

Have I misconfigured something? Is there a way to tweak the settings in such a way that the 2d performance of the binary drivers becomes acceptable? Or is this simply the state of the current ati binary drivers?

Thanks!

[RussianNeuroMancer]

and do not support features like texture compression, which are required for some games

Looks like you forgot to install both of i386 and amd64 libtxc-dxtn0 (available ia many PPA's).

[Wattos]

Looks like you forgot to install both of i386 and amd64 libtxc-dxtn0 (available ia many PPA's).

While that enables me start the games, the game performance is not acceptable

[RussianNeuroMancer]

While that enables me start the games, the game performance is not acceptable

Maybe you try this then?

[curaga]

Or is this simply the state of the current ati binary drivers?

Yes. Oh and Nvidialand has that too, the blob loses to nouveau in 2d.

[Wattos]

Thanks for the tips.

Unfortunately, the open source driver is not fast enough for playing games. I was hoping I could do something to tweak the 2d performance of the binary blob. Since that is not possible, I think Ill try to go for a while with switching. (e.g. For a gaming session Ill simply switch to the ati binary driver and for regular usage Ill switch back).

Even though this is sub optimal, switching takes less than 2 minutes, so it is somewhat acceptable

[RussianNeuroMancer]

was hoping I could do something to tweak the 2d performance of the binary blob.

Try Catalyst 12.6 with "amdconfig --set-pcs-u32=DDX,ShadowPrimary,1".

[chronniff]

Try Catalyst 12.6 with "amdconfig --set-pcs-u32=DDX,ShadowPrimary,1".

I haven't tried this yet, but out of curiosity what does that do? also how do change it back if it causes a problem, "--set-pcs-u32=DDX,ShadowPrimary,0" ?

[chronniff]

wow, I have been having frustrating 2d issues for a while too. Thanks so much RussianNeuroMancer for ur suggestion, it sped up 2d dramatically, and also fixed an issue I was having with chrome using the setting to use gpu acceleration for compositing on all pages. Still curious what this does, also does it work only on this beta, or previous releases as well?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Looks like this is new feature, so it won't work on older releases.