Speed issues

[ffutures]

OK, having played with Ubuntu Linux for a while, I like quite a lot about it - but for some reason it seems to be significantly slower than Windows XP, which I really wasn't expecting. For example, using Celestia and rotating the Earth, there is a delay of 2-3 seconds before the rotation occurs. A first-person shooter game was unplayably slow to respond to the mouse and keys. And so forth.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I suspect that something is giving speed a hammering, and I have no idea what. It's a 2.8ghz processor with 1gb RAM and a 128mb graphics card.

I really want to try Linux, so any suggestions on go-faster stripes would be appreciated.

Later - now sorted thanks to turol and pengshui_master

Comments

[turol.livejournal.com]

It's possible that you don't actually have hardware acceleration. Saying "128mb graphics card" is pretty damn useless. Try glxinfo. Does it say "direct rendering: yes"?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

yes, it does.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

You probably haven't got 3D acceleration enabled. All those tasks you mention are 3D graphics based.

Hardware 3D is a bit of minefield in Linux. It really only works on ATI Cards - although technically there are a couple of Nvidia drivers - I wouldn't recommend them.

I suspect knowing that Ubuntu normally does it's best - you have got a graphics card which isn't well supported.

Whats the (command line output from)

grep Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and

grep glx /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and also

glxinfo

And that might let us know if there is anything simple you can do.

I just use s/w 3D on my laptop as it nvidia based and I don't no any heavy 3D work.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

marcus@marcus-desktop:~$ grep Driver /etc/X11/xorg.conf
grep: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory
marcus@marcus-desktop:~$ grep glx /etc/X11/xorg.conf
grep: /etc/X11/xorg.conf: No such file or directory
marcus@marcus-desktop:~$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0 screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I had to snip all the numbers etc, for the glxinfo command, livejournal wouldn't let me post a comment that long.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Nevermind, I'm more disappointed that we don't know which driver you using because Ubuntu is different from debian here with regard to where it stores the config...

xdpyinfo
and
xdriinfo
might be useful

as will

lspci |grep VGA

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

xdypyinfo gave me

image byte order: LSBFirst
number of supported pixmap formats: 7
supported pixmap formats:
depth 1, bits_per_pixel 1, scanline_pad 32
depth 4, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 8, bits_per_pixel 8, scanline_pad 32
depth 15, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 16, bits_per_pixel 16, scanline_pad 32
depth 24, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
depth 32, bits_per_pixel 32, scanline_pad 32
keycode range: minimum 8, maximum 255
focus: window 0x1c00004, revert to Parent
number of extensions: 28
BIG-REQUESTS
Composite
DAMAGE
DOUBLE-BUFFER
DPMS
DRI2
GLX
Generic Event Extension
MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
MIT-SHM
RANDR
RECORD
RENDER
SECURITY
SGI-GLX
SHAPE
SYNC
X-Resource
XC-MISC
XFIXES
XFree86-DGA
XFree86-VidModeExtension
XINERAMA
XInputExtension
XKEYBOARD
XTEST
XVideo
XVideo-MotionCompensation
default screen number: 0
number of screens: 1

screen #0:
dimensions: 1024x768 pixels (270x203 millimeters)
resolution: 96x96 dots per inch
depths (7): 24, 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 32
root window id: 0x15e
depth of root window: 24 planes
number of colormaps: minimum 1, maximum 1
default colormap: 0x20
default number of colormap cells: 256
preallocated pixels: black 0, white 16777215
options: backing-store NO, save-unders NO
largest cursor: 64x64
current input event mask: 0xfa8033
KeyPressMask KeyReleaseMask EnterWindowMask
LeaveWindowMask ExposureMask StructureNotifyMask
SubstructureNotifyMask SubstructureRedirectMask FocusChangeMask
PropertyChangeMask ColormapChangeMask
number of visuals: 64
default visual id: 0x21
visual:
visual id: 0x21
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x22
class: DirectColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x120
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:
visual id: 0x121
class: TrueColor
depth: 24 planes
available colormap entries: 256 per subfield
red, green, blue masks: 0xff0000, 0xff00, 0xff
significant bits in color specification: 8 bits
visual:

rest snipped becuse it's all much the same

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

xdriinfo
Screen 0: nouveau

lspci |grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1)

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Right.

So to summarize you've got an Nvidia card running the nouveau drivers, claiming to do 3D.

This means that the 3D support unless you've got a really upto date version of the drivers - in the last month or so - aren't up to much.

This is because Nvidia won't release the programming specs to their cards and the nouveau has had to work them out backwards. They've made some great strides recently though.

Personally I would recommend a ATI radeon instead - but there is a nvidia authored driver for that card elsewhere - but I have heard significant doubts as to it's stability.

Of source YMMV.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The annoying thing is I tried a Radeon first and that was really rotten - I think it may have been defective though.

I really don't want to keep buying graphics cards that don't work properly...

How do I update the drivers?

[turol.livejournal.com]

Install correct packages and reboot. In Debian it would be nvidia-graphics-drivers-legacy-173xx but I think this is one of the places where Debian and Ubuntu differ. It might be called proprietary-drivers or something.

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the most recent nouveau stuff is packaged yet.

But there are some instructions here :- http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/UbuntuPackages

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a shot, though I'm not sure I understand that very well

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It looks like the current Ubuntu build (which this is) has the most recent nouveau drivers.

I'm installing the Nvidia ones, will comment later.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, that did it!

Many thanks to both of you!

[turol.livejournal.com]

If you want to see what your brand spanking new (relatively speaking) 3D-accelerated Linux can do take a look at demos from LGP. (http://demos.linuxgamepublishing.com/?) I recommend Shadowgrounds and Shadowgrounds Survivor. For extra fun, check out the credits.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a try when I have the linux machine running again. Right now I'm working on the Windows box.