[Xorg] really slow X performance with Radeon 7200

[Anthony DiSante]

Jaymz Julian wrote:
>>>My point is, the question "is my desktyop responsive" is far more important 
>>>than "how fast can I blit",. and that the two questions are usually not even
>>>vaugely related (no, they're not. 
>>
>>Actually, the proper question is "can I run the applications I'd like to." 
>>It would be preposterous to claim FPS and blit rate are "usually not even 
>>vaguely related" to whether a person can run a graphics-intensive 
>>application satisfactorily.  (But since your initial question was different, 
>>perhaps you weren't claiming that.)
> 
> No, of course you can run them.  I can run photoshop under wine under qemu 
> on a 132mhz 603e if I want to.  I suspect you meant "Can I run the 
> applications I'd like to *in a responsive fashion*".

You didn't "suspect" that; you understood from context that that was what 
the statement meant.  In the question "can I run the applications I'd like 
to," it's implied (and understood by any reasonable person) that "run" means 
"run as they are supposed to run" and "run in a usable way."  No reasonable 
person would assume that "run" in that context means "have its instructions 
executed by the CPU without regard to responsiveness or usability."

Anyway... the point I was making (in case it really wasn't clear to anyone, 
which I doubt) is that I can't run the applications I'd like to, because 
they don't run properly on my system.

>>I have several 3D screensavers (mostly from rss-glx), some of which run 
>>smoothly, but some of which are jerky.  I also have problems with jerkyness 
>>and CPU utilization in xawtv/tvtime, and according to the author of tvtime, 
>>my throughput to X is less than half of what it should be.
> 
> I did not say that your specific problem isn't your throughput being fucked.  
> I said that people get hung up on throughput benchmarks, which is completly
> true.

That's probably true of some people sometimes, but it isn't true here.  The 
fact that you said in the first place, in response to my posting of my 
benchmark values, certainly seems to imply that I might in fact be just 
"hung up on benchmarks."

> For all we know, there could be something else chewing up CPU on your system,
> but I assume that you checked that (you're not running something like mldonkey
> or any other p2p app that needs to do periodic hashing, are you?).

My CPU is idle before and after the tests (no other userland apps running, 
and the locate DB only updates at 6am, and it wasn't that time).  When 
glxgears is running at default size, it uses ~30% of my CPU; x11perf uses 100%.

> It could be a priority issue (what is the priority of your X server?

16.

> good, and neither is lower, it's irritatingly system specific.  Yes, I know
> what you all read on slashdot, but that's wrong).  How long is a piece of
> string, anyhow? :).

Sorry, don't read slashdot.

>>I'd say there's a strong correlation between my performance problems and my 
>>throughput to X / FPS / blit rate, and I suspect that if I can get those 
>>specs into their proper ranges, there's a good chance my performance 
>>problems will be fixed.
> 
> I'd say there is something generally wrong with your setup, and low throughput
> is a symptom rather than the problem :)

It depends on your point of view.  If you're an application (tvtime or 
xscreensaver), then low throughput is the problem.  But yes, obviously, the 
fix is not "hit the increase-throughput button," the fix is "figure out 
what's holding the throughput back, and fix that."

-Anthony
http://nodivisions.com/