[compiz] reason for bad performance on i915 (AIGLX)

[Toby Smithe]

Hi. I also experience a Compiz slow-down on my i915. However, I can run
most apps fine, and Beryl is very smooth. Compiz always used to be
better for me, but I don't know what has happened.

On Thu, 2006-11-30 at 08:42 +0100, Mirco Müller wrote:
> Greetings everybody!
> 
> 	For about two weeks I'm now a happy owner of an intel-powered laptop
> (chipset, wifi, gfx) and wanted to give it a full test-drive of compiz
> and other GL-intensive programs.
> 
> 	The laptop runs Xorg 7.1.1 and the i810 driver that comes with it
> (stock rpm from FC6). I'm forced to start compiz 0.3.4 with these
> options...
> 
> 	--use-cow
> 	--strict-binding
> 	--indirect-rendering
> 
> ... to merely get compiz to work. I cannot leave out any of those
> options, otherwise I don't see anything rendered by compiz. While I'm a
> bit spoiled regarding performance coming from my desktop-system
> (nvidia-driven, using nvidia's AIGLX), I did not expect the i915 (AIGLX)
> solution to be such a bad performer. At a resolution of 1280x800 I can
> barely use the cube-rotatation, switcher or drag-rotate while moving
> windows to different workspaces. Furthermore GL-apps leave artifacts on
> the screen when dragged around (even if ran under metacity) and I don't
> seem to be able to get transparent GL-apps working (e.g. try
> gl-cairo-cube from people.freedesktop.org/~macslow).
> 
> 	I know that the i915 is an integrated graphics-chip solution using only
> system-memory, but I remember people showcasing screencaptures of such
> systems with much better performance under compiz.
> 
> 	Is all this only a Xorg/driver problem or will I never get any decent
> performance (and feature-parity compared to low-end nvidia-hardware)
> from this laptop when running a composited desktop-environemnt? Also the
> screensaver seems to be to much for this setup as it only display a
> black nothing (only the mouse-cursor is visible and I have a hard time
> entering my password to unlock it again).
> 
> 	What disappoints me also is the lack of support for transparent GL-apps
> under compiz on the i915. I'm not sure if this is a purely a driver
> issue or partly my fault (not selecting the correct visual in e.g.
> gl-cairo-cube). All my transparent cairo-hacks work fine.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your time and kind advice!
> 
> Best regards...
> 
> Mirco "MacSlow" Müller
>