After an evaluation, GNOME has moved from Bugzilla to GitLab. Learn more about GitLab.
No new issues can be reported in GNOME Bugzilla anymore.
To report an issue in a GNOME project, go to GNOME GitLab.
Do not go to GNOME Gitlab for: Bluefish, Doxygen, GnuCash, GStreamer, java-gnome, LDTP, NetworkManager, Tomboy.
Bug 703587 - Slow animations using Gnome Shell 3.8
Slow animations using Gnome Shell 3.8
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: gnome-shell
Classification: Core
Component: general
3.8.x
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: gnome-shell-maint
gnome-shell-maint
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2013-07-04 06:43 UTC by Alessandro Crismani
Modified: 2021-07-05 14:29 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Alessandro Crismani 2013-07-04 06:43:18 UTC
I am seeing rather slow animations after installing Gnome 3.8. The pattern is particularly evident when the overview is activated for the first time after some minutes when it was not activated. It is even more significant when working with external displays.

Such slow down is somewhat unplesant and makes working with the shell less beautiful.

I am using an Intel HD4000 GPU, and the CPU is a i7-3517U.

I tried to see whether these slow downs came from other upgraded packages, or from a mis-configuration. I tried:

- kernel: 3.6.x, 3.7.x, 3.8.x, 3.9.x
- mesa: 9.0.1, 9.1.3, 9.1.4, master as of 02 July 2013
- intel video drivers: 2.20.x, 2.21.x, master as of 02 July 2013, both SNA and UXA
- disabling the GPU RC6 states

and non of these configurations helped.

I used both Arch Linux and Fedora 19, having same results.

I finally tried to jhbuild Gnome Shell (and all the deps) from git, and also there animations are not smooth.

Did 3.8 introduce new animations that may slow down the system. I am also puzzled why the slow down seems to go away when I activated the overview and get out of it some times in a row, and reappers after sometime when I did not activate the overview.

I can provide further details, however at the moment I have no idea where to look at. If somebody can point me in the right direction, or maybe give me an hint about what to look for, I'll be willing to help as much as I can for getting my fast and wonderful Gnome Shell experience back.

Cheers,
Alessandro
Comment 1 drago01 2013-07-04 14:26:02 UTC
Can you try setting

/sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_min_freq to the one in /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_max_freq and /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu<n>/cpufreq/scaling_min_freq to the value of cpuinfo_max_freq ?

to rule out powermanagement?
Comment 2 Alessandro Crismani 2013-07-05 07:56:12 UTC
I tried the performance governor for the CPU, and it does not make a difference (same goes for directly changing the scaling_min_freq, even though I can only go up to 1.9 GHz, while the max value is the Turbo Boost one of 2.4 GHz, but I cannot echo that one to /sys/)

I also tried setting the GPU max frequency, as you suggested, and still no difference. However, I am not sure if setting
/sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_min_freq
really worked, since
cat /sys/kernel/debug/dri/0/i915_cur_delayinfo | grep CAGF
still reported that I was running at 350 MHz even after setting the minimum frequency to 1150 MHz.

I tried asking on IRC at #intel-gfx, but my messages couldn't reach the channel (no idea why), and hence I do not know if changing the min_frequency value did in fact change something.

Still, this slow animations and then fast animations behaviour sounds like some graphic issue, but I have no idea where it belongs to :(
Comment 3 betdomagoj 2013-08-01 11:01:20 UTC
I have found gnome 3.8 to be generally quite stable. I haven't had it crash in Fedora 19 not even once.

Having said that, there is one strange regression since 3.8.0 that occurs in all distros and that's stuttery, laggy and unfluid animations, in particular, the shrinking of windows when entering the overview and opening the workspace sidebar.

Now, these "laggs" did not occur in any previous version on my AMD RADEON HD5470.

Another interesting thing is that even when I succeded in installing the AMD Catalyst drivers the situation got even worse - the exact opposite of what happened in previous versions.

So for now, unfortunately I'm using ubuntu 12.04 with gnome 3.4. At least it's stable and reggesion free.

Plus - I've seen that others have encountered this problem as well - http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-2126731.html
Comment 4 Germán Racca 2013-08-02 03:48:58 UTC
Something similar happens to me. I have a Dell Vostro with Intel graphics. Playing with SuperTuxKart shows slow graphics in Fedora 19 with Gnome 3.8, and I have to switch to some window manager, like PekWM or OpenBox, in order to play with SuperTuxKart. In Fedora 18 with Gnome 3.6, graphics behavior was smooth when playing with SuperTuxKart.
Comment 5 Andy Taylor 2013-09-09 20:21:35 UTC
I am experiencing the same, having moved from Debian stable (Gnome 3.4) to Arch Linux (Gnome 3.8) on my Thinkpad T60, with the following graphics card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

Gnome 3.4 was perfectly smooth, and last time I used Gnome 3 on Arch Linux it was smooth as well. However, 3.8 is very laggy when activating the overview, moving windows around and switching between desktops. Changing the CPU governor makes no difference.

Also, video playback and application performance are completely unaffected, it's just Gnome itself which seems to be slow.
Comment 6 Alex 2015-04-28 10:19:24 UTC
Experiencing the same issue since Gnome 3.8. 3.6 was perfectly smooth but since Gnome 3.8 every version has the same poor performance with this hardware. I've tried almost everything the reporter tried (from Google searching for the solution) but not experiencing any improvement.

My CPU is Core 2 Duo T6400 and GPU Intel GMA 4500.

This performance reduction also affects Pantheon Shell (the freya version) and Cinnamon, which are based on Gnome Shell.

Elementary OS's Pantheon shell from Luna was perfectly smooth as Gnome 3.6, but the new version has the same poor performance as Gnome 3.8,3.10,3.12,3.14,3.16...

I think it may be something from Mutter, as it affects more desktop environments.

For general information, on this hardware, Kde Plasma 4, Plasma 5, Unity all work fine and perform nice. I don't think Gnome Shell should perform so poor, is not so effect featured (personal opinion).

Thank you for your attention.
Comment 7 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2021-07-05 14:29:59 UTC
GNOME is going to shut down bugzilla.gnome.org in favor of  gitlab.gnome.org.
As part of that, we are mass-closing older open tickets in bugzilla.gnome.org
which have not seen updates for a longer time (resources are unfortunately
quite limited so not every ticket can get handled).

If you can still reproduce the situation described in this ticket in a recent
and supported software version, then please follow
  https://wiki.gnome.org/GettingInTouch/BugReportingGuidelines
and create a new ticket at
  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/

Thank you for your understanding and your help.