Performance and display issues

I’ve been having performance and display issues for a while …
This is a setup with three monitors (2 x 1440x900 & 1 x 1360x768), some applications e.g. Thunderbird shows delays when mouseover buttons or when deleting an email or a calendar entry.
With KDE apps Konsole, dolphin, kate etc. in the context menu (right click) the menu flickers or is blacked out. All in all, I see a reduction in performance, e.g. copy speed.
FYI, I use realtime privileges for audio editing.
I cannot observe any new system errors …

Here my xorg configuration nvidia-470-dkms

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 418.113

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
#    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mouse0"
    Option        "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Acer K242HL"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 80.0
    VertRefresh     55.0 - 76.0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 630"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option  "metamodes" "DVI-D-0: 1440x900 +0+768 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}, VGA-0: nvidia-auto-select +40+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}, HDMI-0: 1440x900 +1440+768 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "TripleBuffer"                  "on"
    Option         "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol"      "off"
    Option         "SLI" "off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Operating System: EndeavourOS
KDE Plasma Version: 5.26.1
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.99.0
Qt Version: 5.15.6
Kernel Version: 6.0.2-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × AMD FX™-8350 Eight-Core Processor
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630/PCIe/SSE2
Manufacturer: MSI
Product Name: MS-7641
System Version: 3.0

This could be an issue already… as the GPU is may not support more than 3840x2160 ?

and it is recommended to only use the settings you actually want to get changed to xorg files…

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 630"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option  "metamodes" "DVI-D-0: 1440x900 +0+768 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}, VGA-0: nvidia-auto-select +40+0 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}, HDMI-0: 1440x900 +1440+768 {ForceCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "TripleBuffer"                  "on"
    Option         "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol"      "off"
    Option         "SLI" "off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

and use dropins instead of xorg.conf … like for nvidia:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

i would like to see:

inxi -Ga

1 Like

thanks, the above output is already from xorg.conf.d, sorry missed to add:
cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nvidia.conf

inxi -Ga
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 630 Rev. 2] vendor: Palit Microsystems
    driver: nvidia v: 470.141.03 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm non-free:
    series: 470.xx+ status: legacy-active (EOL~2023/24) arch: Kepler
    code: GKxxx process: TSMC 28nm built: 2012-18 pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s
    lanes: 8 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1284 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.4 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 2880x1668 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 762x441mm (30.00x17.36")
    s-diag: 880mm (34.66")
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 pos: primary,bottom-l res: 1440x900 hz: 60 dpi: 69
    size: 530x300mm (20.87x11.81") diag: 609mm (23.98") modes: N/A
  Monitor-2: HDMI-0 pos: bottom-r res: 1440x900 hz: 60 dpi: 69
    size: 530x300mm (20.87x11.81") diag: 609mm (23.98") modes: N/A
  Monitor-3: VGA-0 pos: top-center res: 1360x768 hz: 60 dpi: 84
    size: 410x230mm (16.14x9.06") diag: 470mm (18.51") modes: N/A
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA
    470.141.03 direct render: Yes

this seems to be a KDE or arch kernel (library) problem, I can see the same issues on my girlfriend’s system (Manjaro KDE Plasma - non nividia)

the current default kernel is causing some issues related to graphics… do you trie dbooting on LTS kernel?

if using nvidia-470xx-dkms you only need to install kernel and headers:
sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers

it will built nvidia modules against the lts kernel when installing it…

i would not say there is a general issue it is not effecting all hardware or even all nvidia devices…

2 Likes

Thank you!
hmm, I don’t think it’s only caused by the current 470-dkms driver …
It’s strange because Manjaro KDE shows same behavior with a onboard radeon GPU (non proprietary driver) I’ll keep an eye on that :wink:

i said kernel not driver… current 6er kernel is the issue, not the driver…

1 Like

@joekamprad Would this be correct?

  1. sudo pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers
  2. sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Thanks.

1 Like

yes I have already installed LTS kernel, the flickering in context menu also occurs here (maybe a KDE issue because of the 3 screens) it seems a little more stable with the LTS kernel.
There are no error messages, I only see this warning (with both linux6 & lts)

tail -n 500 /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep -e WW -e EE
[     6.466] Current Operating System: Linux hounddog 6.0.2-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sat, 15 Oct 2022 14:00:49 +0000 x86_64
        (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[     6.480] (WW) Hotplugging is on, devices using drivers 'kbd', 'mouse' or 'vmmouse' will be disabled.
[     6.480] (WW) Disabling Keyboard0
[     6.480] (WW) Disabling Mouse0
[     7.487] (II) Initializing extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER

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