problem with enabling desktop effects in opensuse 11.3

[aanwar]

Hello!
I am a new user, and installed opensuse 11.3 on my desktop pc about a week ago, now the problem with my computer is this that the graphical performance is very slow, I have Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz processor, with 512 mb ram plus a shared graphic card memory of 32 mb on an IBM thinkcentre. The default graphic driver loaded (as seen through YASt hardware information) is i915 while I read somewhere that default driver for this accelerator is intel. I get about 60 FPS on Glx gears while after applying vesa it goes to about 200 FPS. With default driver the CPU usage is head aching. I created a manual xorg.conf file via Xorg -configure command and set the driver intel and then intellegacy with gaining no boost in performance. The glxinfo says 3D Rendering being enabled while KWIN's desktop effects are too slow and laggy. The CPU keeps working at about 70-100% while movies on youtube and vlc/kaffeine are being played unsmoothly. On the same system, the Kubuntu Live 8.04 gives 500 FPS in glxgears. The output of lsmod is as below:

Module Size Used by
ip6t_LOG 5182 6
xt_tcpudp 2107 2
xt_pkttype 912 3
ipt_LOG 5119 6
xt_limit 1673 12
snd_pcm_oss 47311 0
snd_mixer_oss 16449 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq 57073 0
snd_seq_device 6534 1 snd_seq
edd 8720 0
mperf 1255 0
af_packet 19192 0
ip6t_REJECT 4311 3
nf_conntrack_ipv6 18193 4
ip6table_raw 1187 1
xt_NOTRACK 816 4
ipt_REJECT 2152 3
xt_state 1162 8
iptable_raw 1246 1
iptable_filter 1418 1
ip6table_mangle 1588 0
nf_conntrack_netbios_ns 1318 0
nf_conntrack_ipv4 8691 4
nf_conntrack 73886 5 nf_conntrack_ipv6,xt_NOTRACK,xt_state,nf_conntrack _netbios_ns,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nf_defrag_ipv4 1201 1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
ip_tables 12172 2 iptable_raw,iptable_filter
ip6table_filter 1359 1
ip6_tables 13476 4 ip6t_LOG,ip6table_raw,ip6table_mangle,ip6table_fil ter
x_tables 16414 16 ip6t_LOG,xt_tcpudp,xt_pkttype,ipt_LOG,xt_limit,ip6 t_REJECT,ip6table_raw,xt_NOTRACK,ipt_REJECT,xt_sta te,iptable_raw,iptable_filter,ip6table_mangle,ip_t ables,ip6table_filter,ip6_tables
fuse 65514 7
loop 14417 0
dm_mod 72676 0
ppdev 8412 0
parport_pc 32995 0
parport 33558 2 ppdev,parport_pc
snd_intel8x0 27494 5
floppy 57653 0
snd_ac97_codec 106433 1 snd_intel8x0
ac97_bus 1066 1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm 86832 4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer 21318 3 snd_seq,snd_pcm
sr_mod 14351 0
container 2503 0
e1000 106954 0
snd 64702 16 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,s nd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 7013 1 snd
cdrom 37760 1 sr_mod
sg 27412 0
shpchp 29720 0
i2c_i801 9949 0
snd_page_alloc 7817 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
pcspkr 1614 0
iTCO_wdt 9926 0
iTCO_vendor_support 2570 1 iTCO_wdt
pci_hotplug 27789 1 shpchp
ext4 360485 2
jbd2 78872 1 ext4
crc16 1403 1 ext4
i915 307150 2
uhci_hcd 25788 0
drm_kms_helper 29179 1 i915
ehci_hcd 51733 0
drm 176922 3 i915,drm_kms_helper
i2c_algo_bit 5572 1 i915
rtc_cmos 10902 0
rtc_core 17621 1 rtc_cmos
i2c_core 26632 5 i2c_i801,i915,drm_kms_helper,drm,i2c_algo_bit
rtc_lib 2441 1 rtc_core
video 21141 1 i915
intel_agp 27571 2 i915
sd_mod 36723 7
button 5417 1 i915
usbcore 192259 3 uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
output 2031 1 video
fan 3539 0
processor 40311 0
ata_generic 2711 0
ata_piix 19945 6
ahci 36734 0
libata 185684 3 ata_generic,ata_piix,ahci
scsi_mod 159241 4 sr_mod,sg,sd_mod,libata
thermal 17293 0
thermal_sys 14735 4 video,fan,processor,thermal
hwmon 2060 1 thermal_sys

I also have a laptop Toshiba L300-254 with Intel x4500 VGA.. I installed OpenSuse 11.3 on it and the glxgears reports same FPS on it. while all kwins effects and videos run smoothly without any glitch and the CPU operates normaly at avg 25%. It has loaded the same i915 driver.

The output of lspci is as follows:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:06.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82865G/PE/P Processor to I/O Memory Interface (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
03:0a.0 Communication controller: Conexant Systems, Inc. SoftV92 SpeakerPhone SoftRing Modem with SmartSP (rev 01)
03:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82541EI Gigabit Ethernet Controller

[gogalthorp]

Well the new kernel and Intel driers are just not working well in 11.3. In fact there are video problems pretty much across the board....This appears to be mostly Kernel problems and the .36 kernel promises to fix it maybe.....

My advice is to drop back to 11.2 which works fine with Intel and NVIDIA but has some heart burn with some ATI cards.

Also you have two machines that have Intel drivers but don't necessarily have the same chip sets. So it works ok with one but not with the other.

[aanwar]

First of all thanks a lot for your kind reply, secondly with fedora 13 KDE live cd, I had also the same kind of performance, now what I wanted to ask is that, whether it is the problem with KDE 4.4.4 or the kernel?
Another Question that I wanted to ask was that whether I can install Gnome desktop environment with KDE, through the dvd that I have, or I should download it through Yast?

Thanks
Regards

[gogalthorp]

It appears to be a kernel problem.

[oz]

Another Question that I wanted to ask was that whether I can install Gnome desktop environment with KDE, through the dvd that I have, or I should download it through Yast?

I'm not personally a fan of mixing Gnome and KDE on the same system, but yes, you can install both from the DVD if the files for each reside on the DVD. The better solution (in my opinion) is to use Yast because you should get the most up to date files that way.