In power saving mode, my NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 has these parameters:

  Graphics Clock:  300 MHz
  Memory Clock:    100 MHz
  Processor Clock: 600 MHz

In maximum performance mode it has these parameters:

  Graphics Clock:  675 MHz
  Memory Clock:    900 MHz
  Processor Clock: 1458 MHz

In power saving mode, GNOME Shell is laggy, in maximum performance mode it's smooth. My question is, could Mutter and GNOME Shell be optimized enough run smoothly in power saving mode or it's impossible due to too low GPU performance?

It's usually laggy when a large number of windows are animated.

My ideas are:

  * Use a worse but faster scaling algorithm while animating windows.
  * Do not update window contents while performing short animations.