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I already posted a question before but I didn't really get any advice/help. I'll be a bit more brief/general in hope it'll help.

I have an MSI HD 7850 with the Catalyst 12.4 drivers installed. I've found that I'm having bad 3D performance for some reason but I'm not entirely sure what. I suspect it may just that the graphics card is new and AMD just need to work on their drivers but it would be nice to get advice and narrow the problem down so that I can be sure rather than wait for driver updates that may not even help.

I ran gxlgears to give some general idea of how bad the performance is. At default size it is averaging around 2000 FPS. The command glxinfo confirms the renderer is using AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series with OpenGL version 4.2.

Edits below:

As asked for others:

lspci -v output is here.
fglrxinfo output is here
xvinfo output is here
glxinfo | grep rendering says yes for direct rendering.

These confirmed that everything was configured correctly.

Within Unity and Gnome Classic:
glxgears had an FPS of around 2000 FPS
fgl_glxgears had an FPS of around 544 FPS

Within LDXE:
glxgears had an FPS of around 4600 FPS
fgl_glxgears had an FPS of around 1600 FPS

In the end it was discovered that Compiz was causing a large performance decrease and solution was simply to change window manager for the time being. Thanks to TechZilla for all his help!

Pandem
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  • Did you run the "Additional Drivers" application? Could you please edit your post with output of this command? lspci -v.Please dont put the output here but use paste.ubuntu.com and give link here. – beeju May 12 '12 at 18:13
  • beeju - I installed them manually using the instructions listed here. Output from the command is here. I ran "Additional Drivers" once just because there was a "post-release updates" listing, but trying to activate that failed and broke compatibility. I ended up uninstalling FGLRX and reinstalling it again manually. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 18:17
  • @Pandem: How did you conclude your card was under performing, was it just from reading FPS scores? Have you noticed poor performance from your usual applications and/or WM/DE? As I stated at comment below my answer, your framerates are lower than expected considering your HD 7850. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 18:58
  • @TechZilla: I was attempting to run two games in Wine. Team Fortress 2, and Guild Wars. I had to force both to run in DX8 as they wouldn't run otherwise. With low settings both gave me usually sub 30 FPS and regular drops in FPS unless no one was on screen. WM/DE is mostly fine, except a couple of unresolved glitches (after a period of time some windows will align themselves with the bottom or top panel, and will keep reverting to that position when I move them). Transitions could be more fluid but otherwise I don't really mind. Note that I'm using Gnome Classic rather than Unity. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 19:09
  • @Pandem: Which WM are you using, Compiz, Mutter, or Metacity? If you just installed Gnome3, over a stock ubuntu, you are likely using Compiz. I highly suggest you try out Mutter, and check your FPS results again. To install/configure Mutter, do this. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 19:16
  • sudo apt-get install mutter, after package is installed, sudo update-alternatives --config x-window-manager choose Mutter. Restart computer, log in gnome again. Then test out your FPS results. Report said results, if they differ up or down. If they remain the same, then report they are ~ the same. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 19:21
  • @TechZilla - It appeared to be using "openbox" previously. I did what you suggested but results are the same. However, I've noticed that when I very first login and use fgl_glxgears I get around 1500 FPS. With glxgears I get around 3000 FPS. These stay consistent until I close it and reopen it where they revert back to the other figures. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 19:40
  • OK you can uninstall mutter, sudo apt-get purge mutter. You can even clean up unnecessary dependencies with sudo apt-get autoremove --purge Openbox is what I use, it performs great IMO. Do you run Openbox with composting? Use any of these: xcompmgr, cairo-compmgr, or unagi??? I think I might be near the answer... – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 19:56
  • @TechZilla - To be honest I have no idea. I'm mostly a new user so I don't know what any of those things are, so if they are not installed by default I would assume I don't use them. I should say that I'm not sure if Mutter did anything because there didn't appear to be any visual change after setting it and rebooting. Should there have been? – Pandem May 12 '12 at 20:20
  • I assumed you were a new user, with no extras installed... Right up until you told me you were using Openbox. Check for those Installed packages like this, dpkg -l | grep ^ii | awk ' { print $2 }' | egrep \(xcompmgr\|cairo-compmgr\|unagi\) report the results. If the packages are not installed, you should get no output. Regarding Mutter, I was expecting you had the default Compiz, I thought it was possible you would get better FPS. Unfortunately you did not get a better FPS, which is why I want to see if Openbox could be under-performing due to adding composting. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 20:32
  • @TechZilla - There was no output, so I assume they are not installed. I tried using the LXDE and it seems I don't suffer the same problem there. Using fgl_glxgears I get 1600 FPS. Using glxgears I get around 4600 FPS with no change over time. I tried running Guild Wars and Team Fortress 2 and performance was substantially better and smoother as well. TF2 wasn't great but it was still a lot better than previously. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 21:01
  • So it seems that it is something to do with the default Ubuntu DE and the Gnome Classic session I've been using. It might be worth mentioning that it's not just normal Gnome I've been using, but the Gnome Fallback version that gives Ubuntu the old style UI with Ambiance theme. Do you perhaps know the exact thing which is causing it and if there's a fix? – Pandem May 12 '12 at 21:02
  • Yes I fully understood what you meant, when you originally said "Gnome-Classic" ... What did you mean just now when you said "default Ubuntu DE" The default Ubuntu DE is unity, not gnome anything. Did you mean your also slow in unity? or did you mean your also slow in gnome-shell regular? BTW it's very unlikely to be related to FGLRX, as Phoronix just did a report which stated "The outlier to these results though is the AMD Catalyst driver, which for the most part performed the same regardless of desktop environment / window manager." – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 21:22
  • I also want to say, if you are using a regular non composting openbox. You should not have any transitioning effects at all. Not sure what you meant when you said "Transitions could be more fluid", can you fully disable Transitions in Gnome-Classic? Also LXDE uses openbox for its usual WM, when your in Gnome-Classic are you really getting the openbox window decorations? Meaning are you absolutely sure you are using OpenBox in Gnome-Classic. I ask because previously I was trying to get composting OFF, which should theoretically get you that LXDE style performance. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 21:27
  • You threw me a curveball when you said your were using openbox, I assumed then composting was off and went another direction. Specifically trying to see if you had composting with another package, ... If it turns out you actually were not using openbox in gnome, which composting style effects would indicate, Then that is why LXDE performs better than Gnome-Classic. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 21:35
  • @TechZilla - I meant that I get the same performance issues in Unity and Gnome-Classic. Sorry for the wording, it's just on the login screen it says "Ubuntu" rather than "Unity".

    No I am not sure if I'm using Openbox. As I said previously when I changed to Mutter with your instructions there was no visual change then either. I have a feeling that the alternative x-window-manager setting just isn't taking effect or is being ignored. I tried checking the running processes and compiz is a running process, so I think that is the WM in effect like you suggested a while ago.

     – Pandem May 12 '12 at 21:43
  • BINGO, That's the reason your performance is shoddy. I was on the right track after all. If the settings are not taking effect, try removing your other WM's. It should fall back to openbox. I'll put commands in my answer – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 21:46
  • Sorry for the confusion, I just didn't know how to check which WM I was using and Compiz did not show when using your instruction sudo update-alternatives --config x-window-manager. It rather indicated Openbox was the current choice, and Compiz wasn't selectable. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 21:46
  • OOO wait, when you turn on your computer and get to the login manger (LighDM).. You should be able to list your session choices, is one of those choices somethings on the lines of "Gnome/Openbox". I might be wrong with the exact wording... But if it exists try it, and check your FPS. You will know if it works, because you will have Openbox window decorations. Not the regular style ones, actually if you right click on the window title you should even get an openbox window menu. ... Were almost a the finish on this problem, just hang in for a tiny bit longer. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 21:51
  • @TechZilla - Yes one of those choices is that. It's odd though. When using that there are no panels. I got the terminal up using a shortcut and found that even in that session Compiz was running so performance was the same. I however did openbox --replace and the windows changed. I still didn't have the panels but fgl_glxgears and glxgears gave the same results as when I was in LDXE. I managed to change the WM in the normal Gnome-Classic session with the same command and got the same results (except with panels). – Pandem May 12 '12 at 22:15
  • So I guess the problem is with Compiz in the end and I'll just need to find an alternative WM. Thanks very much for all your help! – Pandem May 12 '12 at 22:15
  • Though on a final note, it would be nice to know how to change the default WM in the Gnome-Classic session, since your other method didn't seem to work. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 22:20
  • perfect, glad to help out! Take it easy man. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 22:21
  • @Pandem - please summarise all your comments by putting this stuff as an edit of your question before deleting your comments. Its very difficult for others to read through such a length list of comments to understand the problem. This is the way we work - constantly editing the question with new information until there is a satisfactory answer. – fossfreedom May 13 '12 at 04:28
  • @fossfreedom - Apologies. I use the StackExchange websites a lot but I've never had to actually post until now. I'll keep it in mind in future. I originally thought that I didn't need to since I accepted an answer and he updated his answer to say the cause of the problem. Thanks! – Pandem May 13 '12 at 12:19

1 Answers1

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The first thing you need to check is GLX Direct Rendering, You can use the generic mesa-utils, or fglrxinfo which is provided by FGLRX. You already have fglrxinfo installed, so you should try that first.

Run this command in a terminal.

fglrxinfo

Report back what the output shows, which will tell us if the fglrx is configured correctly.

next get glxinfo, which is installed via

sudo apt-get install  mesa-utils

Run this command to get your direct rendering status, it will be a yes or no answer.

glxinfo  | grep rendering

Use xvinfo to check for Video Overlay. Make sure x11-utils package is installed.

sudo apt-get install x11-utils

Run this command to check for Video Overlay, should be a long listing, not an error.

xvinfo

This is just the basics, it doesn't verify the new HD video extensions. It should however, tell you if acceleration is even working.

Update:

Your settings are correct, and composting has been identified as bringing down your performance. Composting often brings down performance, especially when playing games in WINE.

Community
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J. M. Becker
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  • fglrxinfo gives this output. glxinfo says yes for direct rendering. x11-utils is at it's newest version already and this is the output of xvinfo. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 18:39
  • What is your framerate on fgl_glxgears, which is different from regular glxgears and comes with FGLRX. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 18:44
  • It averages out at around 544 FPS at the default window size. – Pandem May 12 '12 at 18:47
  • OK strictly speaking about your configuration, everything checks out correctly. As far as your framerates, they are NOT terrible... but they are lower than than your card would indicate. My HD 5670, run glxgears at ~5300 FPS and fgl_glxgears at ~610 FPS. I also have a comment on the way for your question, so make sure to check and respond. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 18:51
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    I actually have the same problem with a Radeon HD 6750 - and only have 58FPS with the fgl_glxgears and 91 with glxgears. What could that be? – Force May 12 '12 at 19:07
  • @Force, that is very significant and defiantly worth consideration. Open a new question, explaining your setup/situation. I will be on look out for it, and respond with immediateness. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 19:09
  • @Force, I also want to say, You are 100% not experiancing the same problem as Pandem. You might have an incorrect configuration, as your scores are abysmal. Pandem has a correct configuration, his scores are just somewhat less than expected. – J. M. Becker May 12 '12 at 19:25
  • @TechZilla: Thanks :) I posted the answer: http://askubuntu.com/questions/136093/extremely-low-3d-perfomance – Force May 12 '12 at 19:39
  • @TechZilla, I have the same card as you, but I can't seem to get that type of performance out of it. I'd be interested in knowing your setup (what drivers you're using). I've also posted a question related to this issue: http://askubuntu.com/questions/190287/low-framerate-ati-radeon-hd-5670#comment237551_190287 would appreciate it if you took a look. – Brandon Bertelsen Sep 21 '12 at 23:07