Performance Issues with RV280

[Beso]

2009/1/12  <8yRgR4DKpg6w at dyweni.com>:
> Hi,
>
> My debugging consists of the following commands:
>
>  X -verbose -config ./xorg.conf.new > ouput 2>&1  (to start X)
>  synergyc _ipaddress_  (to allow control of test machine)
>  openbox (start the window manager)
>  firefox (start the browser and test scrolling)
>
>
> My system configuration:
>  - Pentium III 550 (512KB cache)
>  - 384MB RAM
>  - Video Card: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)
>      ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (Secondary) (rev 01)
>   (see lspci.txt attached)
>  - OS is Gentoo Linux, using the X11 Portage Overlay
>   (see git-hash.txt attached)
>  - Kernel is 2.6.27  (see kernel-config.txt attached)
>   - Loaded kernel modules: agpgart, intel_agp, drm, radeon
>  - Linux Headers is 2.6.26
>  - Glibc is 2.9_p20081201
>
hmm, why are you using headers 2.6.26 on 2.6.27 kernel?! there are the
2.6.27 ones available. also, have you tried
the new 2.6.28. it seems to improve some performance on my rs690.
i don't seem to see issues with your configs and logs, if not the
kernel built-in drm modules compiled as modules.
for gentoo you should use instead the x11-drm (remember the radeon
video card flag for mesa and ) package from x11 overlay. remove the
radeon drm modules, recompile
the kernel, rebuild the kernel modules and restart. you might be using
the kernel drm instead of the radeon one.
>> from what you're
>> telling it seems
>> that you don't have hw video acceleration enabled and you're using
>> the cpu to accelerate your xorg. you've most likely not using dri for
>> some sort of error while
>> loading it
>
> Yeah, something doesn't seem right.
>
> (with XAA)
> # glxgears
> 3805 frames in 5.0 seconds = 760.863 FPS
> 3820 frames in 5.0 seconds = 763.980 FPS
> 3821 frames in 5.0 seconds = 764.196 FPS
> 3816 frames in 5.0 seconds = 763.128 FPS
>
> (with EXA)
> # glxgears
> 3757 frames in 5.0 seconds = 751.341 FPS
> 3769 frames in 5.0 seconds = 753.744 FPS
> 3771 frames in 5.0 seconds = 754.093 FPS
> 3769 frames in 5.0 seconds = 753.663 FPS
>
> See glxinfo.txt attached, it's the same for XAA and EXA
> (But mainly:  "direct rendering: Yes")
>
you have direct rendering and Xv enabled by default on both xaa and
exa. but i preffer exa since it has more future potential than xaa.

>> or you have some kde4 effects that consume the cpu. in this
>> case also the
>> list of kwin effects would be useful.
>> from the log and the list of kwin4 effects we might be able to give
>> you more help.
>
> I can reproduce the scrolling / window resizing performance problems
> using only X11, Openbox (minimalistic window manager) and Firefox.  No
> KDE involved here (to rule out any thing kde related)
>
this might be the infamous firefox scrolling bug that it's there on
most firefox versions. on kde there is an option to install
a fix in the gtk+ control center. i don't know if something similar
exists on openbox. try disabling the smooth scrolling and the
autoscrolling in the advanced -> browsing options of firefox.

>> also, if you're using radeon then you'd want to really use exa instead
>> of xaa since
>> it's more perfomant than xaa.
>
> Switching to EXA provides no improvement.
>
if it's not a driver problem then it's normal that it should not give
too much improvement.

-- 
dott. ing. beso