[i965] compiz blur plugin very slow (UXA/EXA)

Maybe it is a hardware issue. I have found this forum entry: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?s=94a6397d6d2d8032f3d29eb219f7c78d&p=4390181&postcount=8 .
Could you please attach the output of lspci -vvnn and your /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?

That forum post pointed out that there is a problem in the driver and not in the hardware

"The reason is not because of a lack of shaders (there is a workaround in the Workaraounds plugin that fixes this), but rather the Mesa drivers do not have an extension required for cropping the blur region properly (or at least it doesn't work. The driver is effectively kicked into software rendering when you try and enable the blur plugin, not a good idea...)"

What can we do for it? Since intel is open-source friendly I thought
that every feature was implemented in their driver

I'll confirm this, too.
/usr/bin/compiz.real (blur) - Warn: No stencil buffer. Region based blur disabled
/usr/bin/compiz.real (blur) - Error: Failed to create framebuffer object

Same hardware as Nicolo.

Same thing here, intel is disapointing me, nvidia drivers works perfect with compiz. What is the point in saying that open source xorg drivers are better, and for users invest in intel gmas when nvidia closed source drivers are a lot better ?!

Don't buy intel gmas like me only for open source source drivers, there a lot of bugs.

I'd like to comment that I'm running Intrepid, and the 4xBilinear blur works, and gives a slight blur, but the Gaussian doesn't, and I think Mipmap crashes Compiz.

I can only use the focus blur, not the alpha blur. Can you use the alpha blur?

Yes, that is the alpha blur behind the Emerald title bar.

I have no blur behind metacity and murrine rgba :(

Is this bug Intel-specific? Blur was working fine for me with Hardy, but now that I upgraded to Intrepid RC, the Alpha Blur no longer works. I'm using an ATI X1300 graphics card, so if this is irrelevant here, I could open a new bug report.

I thought it was intel specific, but maybe it's not. Is focus blur
working for you? if so you could have this bug!
Blur didn't work in hardy for me.
how is blur alpha supposed to work?
does it blur under murrine RGBA windows?
does it blur under the metacity (well gtk-window-decorator) titlebar?

Yes, this bug is Intel specific.
The alpha blur should blur behind transparent title bars like in Emerald. I don't know if it blurs under Murrine or gtk windows.
Is it supposed to blur under Murrine or Gtk? I'll have to look at my Nvidia setup later... I don't remember that ever happening.

Okay, well with my ATI graphics, Alpha Blur behind things like translucent popup and dropdown menus worked fine with Hardy, but it doesn't anymore with Intrepid. I actually played around with this a bit more, and 4xBilinear works fine, but the Gaussian blur stopped working. But if this bug is only related to Intel, then I'll file a new bug report when I have a bit more free time.

[This is an automatic notice.]

We'd like to forward your bug upstream, however upstream requires
that you first test it against their newer driver code.

To save you the effort of building the driver from source, we've built
packages for the driver and its new dependencies.

So you have a couple options:

 1. Download and test .debs for intrepid, from:
     https://edge.launchpad.net/~intel-gfx-testing/+archive

 -or-

 2. Download and test the Jaunty alpha-2 (or newer) Live CD,
     (which includes a beta of the new xserver 1.6 as well).
     See http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/ for ISOs

Thanks ahead of time! You can simply reply to this email to report your
findings.

P.S., if you wish to forward your bug upstream yourself, please follow
these directions to do so:
  http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html

I am sorry however I am unable to do the testing any more since I bought a
new computer with a NV graphic card and the problem does not appear in the
new computer.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

Leo.

On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 10:29 AM, Bryce Harrington <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

>
> [This is an automatic notice.]
>
> We'd like to forward your bug upstream, however upstream requires
> that you first test it against their newer driver code.
>
> To save you the effort of building the driver from source, we've built
> packages for the driver and its new dependencies.
>
> So you have a couple options:
>
> 1. Download and test .debs for intrepid, from:
> https://edge.launchpad.net/~intel-gfx-testing/+archive
>
> -or-
>
> 2. Download and test the Jaunty alpha-2 (or newer) Live CD,
> (which includes a beta of the new xserver 1.6 as well).
> See http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/ for ISOs
>
>
> Thanks ahead of time! You can simply reply to this email to report your
> findings.
>
>
> P.S., if you wish to forward your bug upstream yourself, please follow
> these directions to do so:
> http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html
>
>
> ** Changed in: xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)
> Status: Triaged => Incomplete
>
> --
> compiz blur plugin not working
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/201264
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of a duplicate bug.
>

I can test it, but now I've my laptop on repair. I think it will be
back on January

Nope tested using the PPA on Intrepid, still not working.

I wonder if 158453 is related.

I think #10648 is not a good upstream bug for this issue, because that one was reported for the i810 driver which is now deprecated, and it's against the xserver rather than the driver, and because there's been no upstream response on it in some time. So we should re-upstream this as a new bug.

@Nicolo, since you're the original reporter, it would be very valuable if you can reproduce the issue, since upstream will just work with one person per bug. Meanwhile, I'll set this bug to Triaged.

[Removing bug link to fdo #10648]

Focus blur works. but it does not blur under the metacity titlebar

Can you explain what you mean by "does not blur under the metacity titlebar"? A photo or screenshot demonstrating the problem might help...

Here you are.

I'm using UXA accel. and I have to add that blur really really slows
down the windows (in alt-tab and scale)
and it slows down also avant window navigator which has transparencies

I'm using EXA because of this bug... https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-intel/+bug/324854
Here's a screenshot of what 4xBiLinear looks like now. Not even decent anymore.

I should mention that this is for Jaunty.
Here's what Gaussian looks like now.

I re-enabled the blur plugin (gaussian and 4x4 bilinear) and it seems to *work* in the sense that it blurs, and also under notify-osd.
The only problem is that it slows down other things, and also ti can cause xorg usage to 50% in some situations that I haven't yet understood.

4xbilinear worked for me in Intrepid.
I'm using Jaunty now, with UXA, and they all work... sort of.
If you blur it up a bunch, they look fine, but as Nicolo said, it makes it very slow.
If you blur it less, you get artifacts in some places like with the 4xbi screenshot I posted earlier.

Do I understand correctly that currently the issue is that with UXA enabled, high levels of blur cause performance issues?

What is the behavior with EXA enabled?

I think we should focus on UXA since exa is discontinued now

On Sun, May 03, 2009 at 11:13:20AM -0000, Nicol?? Chieffo wrote:
> I think we should focus on UXA since exa is discontinued now

Yes, but it's useful to know whether the issue is a regression in moving
to UXA, or a pre-existing condition.

I've tested it with EXA and UXA with intel x4500hd.
they effects (for instance scale) in both cases are slow, but the
gaussian blur works.

I tested with the 965 with Jaunty UXA. The blur works fine, but is slow.
Setting the radius to 15 crashed Compiz for me (and then X froze).
After rebooting I ended up with a kernel panic. I'm pretty sure
that's related to the blur because that's not normal at all.

On Mon, May 04, 2009 at 04:06:40PM -0000, Nattgew wrote:
> I tested with the 965 with Jaunty UXA. The blur works fine, but is slow.
> Setting the radius to 15 crashed Compiz for me (and then X froze).
> After rebooting I ended up with a kernel panic. I'm pretty sure
> that's related to the blur because that's not normal at all.

You've identified 3 separate problems there. We generally focus each
bug report on a single problem, so you should file the other two
symptoms as new bugs, one against xorg-server and one against the
kernel. Please use 'ubuntu-bug' to do this as it will auto-collect
files you need and save a lot of back and forth time.

Also, for the X crash please see this page for guidance on collecting a
full backtrace, which will be required for troubleshooting that bug:

  http://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Backtracing

I forgot to say my current package versions
linux-image-2.6.30-2-generic 2.6.30-2.3
xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.6.3-0ubuntu11
libdrm-intel1 2.4.5-0ubuntu4
libgl1-mesa-dri 7.4-0ubuntu5

Hrm, I considered upstreaming this bug report, but the thread of comments is very confusing and it is difficult to see what exactly would need reported other than just "it's slow", which is of no help.

So, I would ask that you file your issue upstream yourself, in your own words, and work with upstream towards a fix. They will probably need you to install git versions of all the X components.

Nevermind, seems this is perhaps a dupe of 363174, which has been more clearly written so I've upstreamed that one. This can be a dupe of that.

But I don't see any screen garbage in my setup.
My problem is just that the frame rate drops from 100 to 17 after enabling blur.
Should I file another upstream bug?

I don't think this bug is about garbage, just that it's slow. I
haven't noticed any garbage lately, either.

I agree with Nattgew. A noticable difference even when moving windows, for example. Very snappy without blur... slow and lagging with blur enabled. Gaussian is slower than bilinear (which doesn't provide much blur anyway). No garbage.

Which graphic chip have you got? x4500hd like me?

Sorry for my late reply. No, my chip is x3500.

I also tried 4xBilinear, it's better (faster than Gaussian and Mipmaps).

Another tip is to choose "normal" (instead of "any") in the Alpha Blur Windows setting in Compiz Settings.

I think working on intel video card should be going faster.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/1266/

4xBilinear may be the fastest, but it barely blurs for me. Gaussian is the next fastest, but it isn't as clean as Mipmap. Mipmap is slowest but looks better than the others.
This bug shouldn't be a duplicate of 363174, that one is different and has been fixed.