My EOS is significantly slower than Fedora for VM graphics

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

Hello,

I run Linux in a VM using QXL for graphics I use Gnome and RDP (gnome-remote-desktop) and for the most part it is a tolerable experience.

Recently I tried Fedora and noticed that it is significantly snappier. It was so noticeable that I went to the trouble of benchmarking graphics and found that indeed there is a significant difference between the two. I installed a fresh copy of EOS and created a new user (to make sure it was not something I’ve messed up in my configuraiton). I ran glmark2 on both VMs and here is the comparison which quantifies my perception:

# EOS scores
[localuser@eos bmk]$ tail -n2 glmark-*.log
==> glmark-es2.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 322 
=======================================================

==> glmark-es2-wayland.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 360 
=======================================================

==> glmark-wayland.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 418 
=======================================================


# Fedora scores
[localuser@fedora bmk]$ tail -n2 *.log
==> glmark-es2.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 314 
=======================================================

==> glmark-es2-wayland.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 546 
=======================================================

==> glmark-wayland.log <==
                                  glmark2 Score: 639 
=======================================================

Now, I do run Gnome on wayland, and as you can see 360/546 and 418/639 in favor of Fedora which is almost 50% faster.

I noticed that Fedora uses older newer LLVM (16 vs 17) but newer older MESA (23 vs 24):

# EOS
[user@eos bmk]$ head -n 12 glmark-wayland.log 
MESA: error: ZINK: vkCreateInstance failed (VK_ERROR_INCOMPATIBLE_DRIVER)
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen
=======================================================
    glmark2 2023.01
=======================================================
    OpenGL Information
    GL_VENDOR:      Mesa
    GL_RENDERER:    llvmpipe (LLVM 16.0.6, 256 bits)
    GL_VERSION:     4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.0.1-arch1.1
    Surface Config: buf=32 r=8 g=8 b=8 a=8 depth=32 stencil=0 samples=0
    Surface Size:   800x600 windowed
=======================================================

# Fedora
[user@fedora bmk]$ head -n 12 glmark-wayland.log 
MESA: error: ZINK: failed to choose pdev
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen
=======================================================
    glmark2 2023.01
=======================================================
    OpenGL Information
    GL_VENDOR:      Mesa
    GL_RENDERER:    llvmpipe (LLVM 17.0.6, 256 bits)
    GL_VERSION:     4.5 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.3.5
    Surface Config: buf=32 r=8 g=8 b=8 a=8 depth=32 stencil=0 samples=0
    Surface Size:   800x600 windowed
=======================================================

I can only assume that either:

  • there is some significant boost from the newer MESA LLVM
  • there is some significant regression from the new LLVM MESA
  • a combination of both?

Is there any plan to upgrade the mesa LLVM packages in EOS? I plan to re-run as soon as they are released to see if the performance difference disappears.

EDIT: I mixed up the newer/older version comparison for LLVM and MESA.