Lagging EFFECTS after drivers, and Fuzzy sound??

[trumansnare]

Hello,
This is my first post in these forums, and I really hope somebody can help me here...

Ive been trying to get my laptop to work with Linux for like 5 months, Ive tried, Ubuntu, Fedora 6, and 8
and no matter what I did, my graphics card wouldn't work properly. Finally I was able to install drivers for my NVIDIA go Geforce 6150 and Everything seemed to work. But when I enable desktop effects or try to use compiz, everything gets super laggy, and slow. And I cannot figure out why, or how to fix this.

It used to be, it wouldn't let me enable desktop effects or use compiz, but now it lets me, so I know the drivers worked, but now its just terribly slow.

I also have been able to finally get my sound to work, but when I play music or anything, its really terribly fuzzy,.

The most frustrating part about this, is that I know its because I have a lap top. At school We installed fedora 6, 8 and 9 on computers with older hardware than mine, and they would run everything perfect with no hassel. Even all the desktop effects.

I know there is a section to go for NVIDIA install problems, but I have gotten mine to work and the drivers installed, its just the lagging issue. So im sorry if this is in the wrong place.

can anyone help me please? thanks in advance :) :rolleyes:

[Hlingler]

Hello,
This is my first post in these forums, and I really hope somebody can help me here...

Ive been trying to get my laptop to work with Linux for like 5 months, Ive tried, Ubuntu, Fedora 6, and 8
and no matter what I did, my graphics card wouldn't work properly. Finally I was able to install drivers for my NVIDIA go Geforce 6150 and Everything seemed to work. But when I enable desktop effects or try to use compiz, everything gets super laggy, and slow. And I cannot figure out why, or how to fix this.

It used to be, it wouldn't let me enable desktop effects or use compiz, but now it lets me, so I know the drivers worked, but now its just terribly slow.

I also have been able to finally get my sound to work, but when I play music or anything, its really terribly fuzzy,.

The most frustrating part about this, is that I know its because I have a lap top. At school We installed fedora 6, 8 and 9 on computers with older hardware than mine, and they would run everything perfect with no hassel. Even all the desktop effects.

I know there is a section to go for NVIDIA install problems, but I have gotten mine to work and the drivers installed, its just the lagging issue. So im sorry if this is in the wrong place.

can anyone help me please? thanks in advance :) :rolleyes:Well, you should double-check to make sure that the nvidia driver is installed and working right:
> cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep -i driver should return: nvidia
> glxinfo | grep render should return: "Direct Rendering: Yes"
> If those are OK, then try setting C-F to 'loose-binding'. Use fusion-icon, it plants itself in system tray, right-click on it=>Compiz Options=>Loose Binding <ON>

I have a similar chipset (6150 LE) on desktop, and I found that there is a problem with these nvidia controllers: the video RAM (VRAM) fills up, and when it's full, everything slows to a crawl. 'Loose Binding' fixed it. Supposedly, it can cause "tearing" (smearing of animation as multiple frames are over-lapped in VRAM), but I have seen no such - this thing isn't fast enough to beat the monitor refresh rate. :D

V

[trumansnare]

Thanks for the help

umm

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep -i returned:
Driver "kbd"
Driver "synaptics"
Driver "nvidia"

glxinfo | grep render should returned : "Direct Rendering: Yes"

How do I set C-F to loose-binding? Im guessing that is compiz fusion right?
I dont have compiz fusion, I have some type of compiz idk, it says GL desktop.
Im going to install compiz fusion righit now

[trumansnare]

well I installed compiz fusion, but I don't see an icon to start it anywhere. Its as if i never installed it.

EDIT: im sorry I didn't realize fusion icon was seperate. I just installed fusion icon and m trying to figure out how to set it like you said

[Hlingler]

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep -i returned:
Driver "nvidia"

glxinfo | grep render should returned : "Direct Rendering: Yes"Yep, looks good - you're good to go there.How do I set C-F to loose-binding? Im guessing that is compiz fusion right?
I dont have compiz fusion, I have some type of compiz idk, it says GL desktop.
Im going to install compiz fusion righit nowAhhhh...no. That's not C-F, that's whatever "compositing" effects the desktop has.

Yes, fusion-icon is a separate package. It should have a menu entry under "System", and it's a tray icon, right-click the tray icon, select =>Compiz Options=>Loose Binding.

Compiz Fusion is a whole different ball game than those 2D compositing effects that come with the newer desktops. If your GUI was slow before, you may have problems.... 64 MB of VRAM is the recommended minimum, and if you're using the newest nvidia driver, then the card/chipset should be OK. There are some options to help performance of the GUI - search the forum, there's plenty....

Good Luck,
V

[trumansnare]

well I installed fusion icon, and I don't see it anywhere , i looked in every menu, and I dont see an tray icon for it....

do I have to do something to get the tray icon to show up?

[Hlingler]

Wait a few minutes for it to show up on the menus. In the meantime, you can start it from the command line:
[vince@localhost ~]$ fusion-icon &

V

[trumansnare]

Well, I restarted and It showed up in the menus, And i turned loose binding on, and its still super laggy, although the effects "like 3d cube" worked, but really really slow and choppy. Man this sux, could you think of anything else that could cause this lagging? maybe bad or old drivers?

[Hlingler]

Just to make sure: you said that when you ran:
glxinfo|grep render

It returned:
"Direct Rendering: Yes"

Is that correct?

If so, try these changes to xorg.conf:Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 6150 LE"
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
EndSection
Also, find the "NVidia Settings" utility on the menus and set:
Sync to VBlank => off (all cases)
Cursor Shadow => make sure it's off, that's a waste of resources
Allow Flipping => true (on)
Antialiasing, Anisotropic filtering, and Texture Quality => off

Also, try reducing your screen resolution to the minimum tolerable setting - that will buy you some performance.

Check your VRAM:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep -i ram
OR:
cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep -i mem

Note the results: should be >64 MB. Then check your BIOS settings, and see if there's any way to crank up the AGP Aperture (system RAM reserved for video). If so, set it as high as the BIOS will allow (there is no such thing as "too high" on this one).

If those don't help, I don't know what else will.

Good Luck,
V

[trumansnare]

Well adding that line to my xorg.conf file didn't seem to help. Although I did not restart yet or anything. And all the Nvidia settings were already like that......

And here is the results from the command that you suggested that I enter

(II) Loading sub module "ramdac"
(II) LoadModule: "ramdac"(II) Module already built-in
(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(II) Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA
[Nick@localhost ~]$ cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log|grep -i mem
(II) Bus 1 non-prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus 1 prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus 3 non-prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus 7 non-prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus 0 non-prefetchable memory range:
(II) Bus 0 prefetchable memory range:
(--) PCI:*(0:5:0) nVidia Corporation C51 PCI Express Bridge rev 162, Mem @ 0xb2000000/24, 0xc0000000/28, 0xb1000000/24
(--) PCI: (0:10:3) nVidia Corporation MCP51 PMU rev 163, Mem @ 0xb0040000/18
(--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 262144

[Hlingler]

(--) NVIDIA(0): Memory: 262144256 MB VRAM - same as mine, no surprise there.

I have my desktop/display setup as follows:
1280x960 (lower is better on performance)
24/32 bpp color depth ("Millions of colors" = "True Color" = highest, required for the I-Kandi)
50 Hz on the refresh rate (no choice there, it's the only setting); lowest tolerable setting buys a little performance.

On glxgears, I get roughly 1000 FPS (frames-per-second). glxgears is a bad benchmark tool. If you want a real assessment of your machine, install package hardinfo (System Profiler and BenchMark) and run the FBENCH (FPU RayTracing) test, then synchronize with the on-line database - see how it stacks up.

Check that AGP Aperture in the BIOS.

See the following tutorial on turning off unnecessary services to cut resource consumption: http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-services-f9.html

If all that still leaves you feeling like something is wrong, post back with:
> CPU specs, especially clockspeed
> copy of xorg.conf
> attach copy of /var/log/Xorg.0.log

V

[trumansnare]

Well, as soon as I lowered the resolution, everything works perfect, not even a tiny bit of lag, desktop cube works, fire works, rain works.......

Resolution is a tad upsetting its at 1280 x 800
i didn't have the option for anything else between my before 1440 x 900 to 1280 x 800

Yea everything is a little big, and annoying at first, but then the effects take over and make it sweet.

Is there anything I can do to maybe try a bigger resolution that wouldn't show up?

thanks a lot for the help

[Hlingler]

Well, as soon as I lowered the resolution, everything works perfect, not even a tiny bit of lag, desktop cube works, fire works, rain works....... Yes: as soon as you cross that threshold - going one direction or the other - it works exactly like that. Push the hardware just a wee little too much, and pow!Resolution is a tad upsetting its at 1280 x 800
i didn't have the option for anything else between my before 1440 x 900 to 1280 x 800Well... sorry, it is what it is. I find 1280x960 perfectly acceptable.Yea everything is a little big, and annoying at first, but then the effects take over and make it sweet.You won't find that on the "other" OS.Is there anything I can do to maybe try a bigger resolution that wouldn't show up?Yes: open that nvidia settings utility and find the "Save custom EDID" button. Save it. Copy (as root user) that custom EDID file to folder /etc/X11/. Put this line in xorg.conf:Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 6150 LE"
Option "CustomEDID" "CRT-0:/etc/X11/edid.bin"
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
EndSectionRemember: if it's a different type of monitor, you may need to change that from "CRT-0" to something else - I can't recall the details. IIRC, that gave me one or two more resolution settings, but YMMV.

V

[trumansnare]

Well I couldn't find the 'Save custom EDID'
but thats ok, im good with this resolution. Ive already gotten used to it, and it no longer bothers me.
And effects work, so im happy.

Do you know anything about the fuzzy playback of music? and how to fix that?

Thanks so much for the help, I appreciate it.

[Hlingler]

Well I couldn't find the 'Save custom EDID'
but thats ok, im good with this resolution. Ive already gotten used to it, and it no longer bothers me.
And effects work, so im happy.

Do you know anything about the fuzzy playback of music? and how to fix that?

Thanks so much for the help, I appreciate it.Could be several things:
> Check music/video player settings, adjust for best quality. I also used a slightly different approach on my oldest box: I made the XMMS executable file SUID, meaning that it runs with the rights of the owner (root), and so it gets a higher priority in CPU scheduling.
> Have you installed all the add-on packages for whichever music player you're using? For example: gstreamer-plugins-good, gstreamer-plugins-bad, gstreamer-plugins-ugly, and gstreamer-plugins-ffmpeg? Need to get some from 3rd-party repos like Livna (for the patented stuff)
> Install other A/V codecs? Like the ones they have at mplayerhq.hu
> I used a radical solution to poor sound/no sound: yum remove pulseaudio*. Not everyone will like that solution. It takes out all pulse support, maybe one or two other (unimportant) packages as well. I lost mplayer, but there's many other A/V players (and I got mplayer back later from somewhere else that built it without requirement for pulse).

An excellent tutorial on installing A/V stuff and codecs (and a lot more besides): http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html

Glad the video thing is sorted out OK, good luck with the A/V - follow mjmuranda's guide, and you'll be good to go there too!

V

[Hlingler]

Yet another trick I forgot about:
Check:
cat /proc/interrupts

See what (if anything) is on the same interrupt as the video, and then go into the BIOS and try to re-arrange stuff to get as much off and away from the video interrupt as possible. May or may not be possible/wise to move some stuff - use caution when playing with that stuff.

IIRC, I found about four items on the same interrupt with the video driver, so I manually moved two of them (USB???) away. Could not find room for one of the ethernet adapters, but I believe that getting the other two off helped.

Hope that helps,
V

[trumansnare]

well I followed a tutorial in a topic in this forum about sound problems in fedora with my sound car, but it didn't help....so then i did system-config-soundcard and it was set to conexent analog and I changed it to digital and now my music is crystal clear.
So Now I got my graphics driver working with 3d effects
and my sound works with no fuz

Id say im good to go now, lol

Thanks for all the help Hlingler, I really appreciate it........