OpenGL and Sub-performance

[Zaileion]

I’ve been successful in getting electric sheep to run on my machine, but I’ve noticed it runs poorly, it jolts, and is choppy. I’ve also noticed other things like RAM in System Monitor is sometimes filled up with light green stacked on top of dark green, which I believe is for cached RAM. Sometimes running video is choppy as well, so are some games. I believe something is causing my system to bog down, or my video card is not performing properly. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.

I guess to narrow it down; focusing on why electric sheep is not fluid would be a good place to start.

Sorry I have no further details to give, as I have no idea where to start.

[Hawks-SOAD]

Has it always been running like this?

you got your GPU details like what driver your using opensource or blob etc?

[Zaileion]

No it doesn’t happen all the time, usually when I first reboot my PC it runs fairly well, but it seems over time it gets worse until electric sheep is like 2 frames a second.

If I switch the visual setting of electric sheep to best I get the attached picture of the yellow text, I also see this text sometimes flash through the sheep when it’s set to any other visual setting.

It’s like something, over time and in Compiz, is slowly consuming what my computer needs to run until it causes it to crash. Not refering to just electric sheep but the visuals from Compiz also run slow and choppy sometimes. Like just now I got home from work, and had to reboot because it froze just after about 5 minutes of use. Now I just did another reboot, and now its working worse than before. It’s almost random.

Next: when I switch from Compiz to Metacity electric sheep works perfectly on any setting other than “Best” where I get the same yellow text. Also when Compiz is off my PC runs like a race horse, fast and precise, (and its no manufactured PC is shouould be able to handle just about anything I can throw at it and then some). but when I switch back to Compiz, its gets all weird and any GL screen saver is choppy.

Let me just say there is no way I’m getting rid of Compiz, it makes it for me man. I love the visual effects and eye candy! I just need to get it working perfectly.

On to my video card info:
It’s an ATI Radion HD 6990 with the latest 12.8 drivers (directly downloaded from amd.com) installed following the instructions on the below link obviously changing the necessary text to match the latest driver version. I followed the instructions for the Manual installation; after I completed the beginning stating to purge existing drivers, than install some dependencies.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI

[pam]

please give more info.
Ultimate Edition 3.4 already comes with an opensource driver for new cards.
But this driver isn't on par with amdccc and its functionality is limited-- ok for those who dont play games nor use HDMI interface.
Have you installed amdccc 12.8 successfully?

[Zaileion]

I certainly have installed it successfully, and it’s working but like described in detail in my above 2 posts it’s sluggish and choppy especially when running any openGL screensavers. The above posts give specific examples in detail of my issues as well as how I installed the ati drivers. like I said above, it’s not that it’s not working, it’s more like it’s not working up to par, it is a 4GB DDR5 video card, and truthfully visual effects should run literally like liquid.

I would be more than glad to provide any additional details that anyone would like. I just don’t know exactly what details to provide. Just let me know and I will get them posted up right away.

You are correct, the open source driver is not up to par with the video card, if you check it out on the amd site, or the xfx site. The model is in my signature; I use HDMI, play Steam and Linux games and am running 3 monitors. Because of the video card, and its capabilities I would like it to be running with the optimum driver and of coarse I would like it to perform, as this level of card should.

But, like I said I really think the issues are with the OpenGL, and Compiz for some reason, the choppy electric sheep is a side effect of an under lying problem, and I figured if we focus on the ill performing electric sheep it would eventually bring us to the fundamental issue, but I could be wrong.

[pam]

press alt+f2

type: amdcccle

GUI catalyst centre will open up ..........

It will give you all info about you card(version number etc) in "information".
go to tear free and see if tear free is enabled.

at terminal type this

# aticonfig --list-adapters

see if your card is listed there.......

to check your card temp type this at terminal

#aticonfig --adapter=0 --od-gettemperature (where 0 is your adapter as listed when you run the above command)................................

[Hawks-SOAD]

if you recently installed updates apparently it caused some opengl slowdowns but i think it was mainly affecting intel gpus

[Zaileion]

I am fully aware of the Catalyst Control Center, and all the settings within. I’ve been through them changing different settings and changing back to defaults all in the name of this screen saver and visual effects on my desktop. I know, it may be a bit unnecessary, but I really enjoy the electric sheep and the Compiz effects, it’s what makes Linux and Ultimate Edition such a customizable and unique OS. Moreover, I greatly dislike when something doesn't work correctly, it drives me crazy till I get it fixed.

Tear Free is enabled and I’ve tried disabled, and all the different 3D settings, at all different levels, but for some reason when I disable Compiz it’s smooth as ice. So my assumption is that, it’s something to do with OpenGL and Compiz, because any OpenGL screensaver has the same very low frame rate issue. I don’t know if that makes any sense or how it’s possible.

What I can tell you is that on other Distro's that I’ve tried and had success getting Compiz installed, customized, (which almost requires a degree to fully understand), and running properly I don’t have the visual issues and electric sheep runs smooth as glass. Maybe that provides some narrowing down of the possible reason for the issue. I’ve tried it on Mint 13, and Ubuntu 12.04, the video on both ran excellent, but had so many different issues like caja in mint (what a joke), no right click "scripts" which is awesome in Ultimate Edition, and several other issues. All of which make Ultimate Edition the best by far, you guys thought of everything!

Anyway, attached is the screenshot of the information page from amdcccle. I hope we can resolve this issue. If somehow we get it fixed, I will run Remastersys, so I have a safe clone of the OS, for future use, and installation on other PC’s.

I do spend quite a bit of time on learning Linux, I’ve read several O’Reilly Linux books, such as Linux in a nutshell, and The Linux Command Line, as well as a few others. I am comfortable executing advanced commands and procedures. Please don’t feel the need to shy away from anything that may be thought of as too complicated.

I’m very pleased with Ultimate Edition 3.4 and have decided to use it as my primary system, (after trying every other distro over 2+ years) and anticipate future releases. This would be one of my final issues with the system, and resolving it will solidify my appreciation of Linux and ultimately, Ultimate Edition. Thanks again for the continued assistance, and everyone’s well thought out attempts at a resolution.

[Hawks-SOAD]

i am not the best in compiz/opengl issues but when i'm at home i will do some tests could be the latest AMD driver, as i have a 5770 it may behave differently though

[pam]

if you recently installed updates apparently it caused some opengl slowdowns but i think it was mainly affecting intel gpus

its probable it could be causing the issue...

I think its mostly a driver problem since you are using a beefy card.
If you have a spare system around try installing it there.

try contacting amd tech from website and leave a query.