Nvidia's Poor 2D performance. Was: Re: Slow video[SOLVED]

[Nick Lidakis <nlidakis@verizon.net>]

Ron Johnson wrote:
> On 08/11/08 01:01, Nick Lidakis wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On 07/12/08 02:00, Nick Lidakis wrote:
> > > > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > The "inner" scroll region?  No sluggishness or slowdown.  Noticeable
> > > > > CPU usage by /usr/bin/X11/X when I rapidly jerk the scroll bar up
> > > > > and down, but that's normal.
> > > > >
> > > > > >                                                            Are ya 
> > > > > > using
> > > > > > the NV or Nvidia driver?
> > > > > Sorry.  The nvidia driver.
> > > > I forgot to ask if you were running a high resolution monitor, perhaps
> > > > 1600x1200 or greater? Are you running any of the 3d accelerated 
> > > > desktop,
> > > > or regular 2d window manager?
> > >
> > > A y2k-vintage Gateway VX1120 (Hitachi Diamondtron flat-screen CRT)
> > > at 1280x1024 with GNOME & Metacity.  (I see no reason to waste
> > > resources on eye candy.)
> >
> > Tonight I tried the sluggish website I mentioned in an earlier post 
> > (http://www.tempus-vivit.net/taverne/thema/935), but at a 1280x1024 
> > resolution. Better, still sluggish, but not the molasses that 
> > 1600x1200 was. Dropping down to 1024x768, things were very snappy and 
> > the sluggishness was completely gone.
> >
> > I'm giving up on the Nvdia cards. Seems I'm not the only one having 
> > serious issues with 2D support with their latest driver series. I'm 
> > glad to say that I on;y paid $12 USD for the Quadro card on eBay.
>
> What color depth?
> My card is an air-cooled
>
> *Arrowing* down that page definitely isn't as fast as arrowing down a 
> Slashdot page, but I'd attribute that to the page's extra complexity and 
> the page down or grab the slider bar and not think a 2nd thought about it.
>
> While Googling and reading, I found this app:
> http://gtkperf.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=main
> http://gtkperf.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=download
>
> Here are my results:
> $ gtkperf -c 1000
> GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Mon Aug 11 03:26:13 2008
>
> GtkEntry - time:  0.85
> GtkComboBox - time: 17.38
> GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 16.19
> GtkSpinButton - time:  3.29
> GtkProgressBar - time:  1.05
> GtkToggleButton - time:  6.07
> GtkCheckButton - time:  5.89
> GtkRadioButton - time:  7.17
> GtkTextView - Add text - time: 35.38
> GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 21.56
> GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time:  4.51
> GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time:  5.38
> GtkDrawingArea - Text - time:  6.89
> GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time:  2.07
>  ---
> Total time: 133.68
>
> Hardware
> --------
> Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2GB RAM
> GeForce 7300SE (G72) 128MB, 1280x1024x16
>
> Software
> --------
> X.org        1:7.3
> Nvidia       173.14.05
> libgtk2.0-0  2.12.11-3
> gnome-core   2.22.2~4
> metacity     1:2.22.0-1
>
> Note this screen print from 3.5 years ago.  Even factoring in that it 
> did an order of magnitude fewer test cycles, it still seems faster than 
> my card.
> http://gtkperf.sourceforge.net/images/sc_main.png
>
> > I picked up a lower end ATI 3650 after doing some reading online. 
> > Didn't realize AMD/ATI were releasing specs to the open source 
> > developers, with Novell even writing drivers on AMD's behalf.
>
> I'm loyal to the company that supported Linux when no other video card 
> did.  But their newer cards just don't seem to do so well under Linux.
>
> There's a good possibility that my next card will be ATI.

Thanks for that link. I downloaded the deb.

Hardware:
ASUS A8n-SLI Premium w/ X2 4800+
2GB Ram
Quadro NVS 285 PCIe 1600x1200
eVga 7800GTX 512 PCIe 1600x1200

Software:
Debian Sid
libgtk2.0-0  2.12.11-3
Debian's Nvidia 173.14.09 built w/ module assistant
Xorg 7.3
Openbox  3.4.7.2-3
mxrvt

I normally run 1600x1200 at 24 bit color depth. I ran several tests.

Gtkperf at 1600x1200 and 16 bit color depth:


GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Mon Aug 11 10:44:47 2008

GtkEntry - time:  0.66
GtkComboBox - time: 15.16
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 12.89
GtkSpinButton - time:  2.65
GtkProgressBar - time:  1.57
GtkToggleButton - time:  6.21
GtkCheckButton - time:  5.00
GtkRadioButton - time:  6.43
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 24.04
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 19.70
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time:  3.62
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time:  3.07
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time:  5.22
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time:  3.60
 ---
Total time: 109.83

Gtkperf at 1600x1200 and 24 bit color depth:

GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Mon Aug 11 11:10:52 2008

GtkEntry - time:  0.44
GtkComboBox - time: 14.57
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 14.14
GtkSpinButton - time:  2.19
GtkProgressBar - time:  1.76
GtkToggleButton - time:  6.07
GtkCheckButton - time:  5.01
GtkRadioButton - time:  6.53
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 24.20
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 19.43
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time:  3.74
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time:  3.26
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time:  4.32
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time:  3.60
 ---
Total time: 109.28

I also had to stop using Xfce-Terminal.  Resizing the terminal window 
took at least 3-4 seconds and made X slow to a crawl. No such issues on 
the the Thinkpad with GMA graphics.

I also tried a fresh install of Debian Sid on a spare hard disk, built 
the NVIDIA driver with module assistant, and kept things to a graphical 
minimum, i.e, solid colored root window, simple default GTK theme. Same 
issues. I even took out the Quadro and put in an older Evga 7800GTX 512 
card that I had sitting on a shelf. 2D was actually slightly worse on 
this higher end card.