Compiz and 3D games

[Cobalt60]

Right now, Compiz is my window manager of choice. However, when Compiz is active, my system will freeze upon launch of a 3D game (Urban Terror). So before I go to play, I have to remember to switch back to Metacity. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Maybe I can just change some Nice values or something.

Thanks

-Chris P

[Cobalt60]

Oh, left out important info. OS is LMDE (basically Debian Testing). Video card is Radeon 4850-1GB, w/ fglrx driver and Catalyst Control Center.

[Dapper Dan]

I don't use Compiz Fusion for the very reason that it takes up a lot of resources I would rather use some place else. You could install openbox, IceWM or another minimal window manager and login with it which should help. I've never run Metacity as a straight WM so don't know how it compares with the others I mentioned on resource frugality. You could also run the "top" command and find processes you can kill before playing.

[chadfluegge]

From my experience, this is a common thing with Compiz...

You could write a script that would disable compiz and then launch the game that you are wanting to play. You'd have to write a script for each game that you need compiz turned off for, though. To be user friendly enough, it would need to turn Compiz back on after you exit the game...

Something like this

EDIT: the link is from '07, but it gets you pointed in the right direction.

[Cobalt60]

Im sure Compiz isnt the most streamlined WM, but the most Ive seen out of it is 4% CPU and 15MiB RAM. Im going to start up a new post about alternative WMs, but Ive gotten very used to Compiz. Also, Im using Gnome.

I was kind of hoping it wouldnt come down to writing a script, but this may end up being my best option. Thanks for bringing it up because I was already thinking about it.

However, Ive never written a script under Linux that I can remember. I might have to come back for help on this one.

Thanks

-Chris P

[chadfluegge]

Writing scripts in linux is not hard. Just remember that google is your friend.

Speaking of scripts, my friend discovered - and subsequently shared with me - a script that runs games in a separate Xserver...We tested it with Urban Terror and it improved things considerably...

That being said, this gives me an idea... You could probably write a similar script for any game that you want, and you wouldn't have to worry about turning compiz on and off...

Here are the contents of my script that starts UT in a separate Xserver

#!/bin/bash

DISPLAY=:1.0

xinit ./ioUrbanTerror.x86_64 $* -- :1

Your user will need to be a member of the audio group.

The greatest benefit here is that if you have an IM app running simultaneously, you can just switch between your desktop and game effortlessly using the CTRL + ALT + F7/F8 keys...

[Cobalt60]

Hey I actually got this working by using an option in Compiz itself. Under Utility : Workarounds; I checked off Legacy Fullscreen Support, and Fix Screen updates in XGL with FGLRX. Everything is working great.

-Chris P