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Projects/KWin/HW
Hardware status and KWin
Introduction
This page contains a list of various graphics cards and how they work with KWin. For every card, please include:
- As section name : Its name.
- Driver: The driver used.
- Date: The last date of the update (i.e. when the entry was valid).
- Glxinfo: 'glxinfo -l' output (as a separate page, put it in <pre></pre>; note the -l argument).
- Glxgears: glxgears fps value (with the default size, without compositing enabled /i.e. suspend compositing using Shift+Alt+F12 before and afterwards/).
- Contact: If you want, some contact (SVN account name, mail), in case more information about your model would be needed (unlikely to happen, though).
- Notes: Various notes, mostly about how well compositing works (TFP and SHM are Texture From Pixmap and Shared Memory sub-types of OpenGL rendering, XRender is XRender-based rendering; as can be selected in advanced compositing options).
Keep the list grouped and sorted by card type, and do not needlessly create duplicates that say the same.
The list is about cards that DO work. Feel free to keep a list of cards that do not work at the end, for people who could be checking this page, but since those often do not work because of X/driver problems, there is not much that can be done from KWin side about this.
ATI/AMD
ATI Mobility Radeon X1300
- Driver: fglrx 8.52.3
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 2288 FPS
- Notes: Works with TFP only.
ATI Mobility Radeon X1400
- Driver: fglrx 8.47.3
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 3900 FPS
- Notes: Works in TFP (others untested)
ATI Mobility Radeon X1800
- Driver: fglrx 8.53
- Date: 20090221
- Glxgears: 4300 FPS
- Notes: Works in TFP (others untested)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700
- Driver: fglrx 8.47.3
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 2740 FPS
- Notes: Works with XRender and TFP. Doesn't work with SHM.
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
- Driver: radeon (compiled for 1.4.0.90, module version = 4.3.0)
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 1376 FPS
- Notes: Works with TFP, performance could be better, but it's usable. Works with XRender, but high CPU usage. Doesn't work with SHM, painting is heavily distorted.
ATI Radeon 9550 (r350)
- Driver: fglrx 8.501 (gentoo)
- Date: 20080917
- glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- glxgears: 2350 FPS
- Notes: Works with XRender and TFP. Doesn't work with SHM.
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (R350 chipset 0x4E48)
- Driver: ati fglrx 8.52.3
- Date: 20080918
- glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- glxgears: 6000 FPS (I'm kinda surprised my 5+ year old card beats a lot of others here..? okay, very synthetic benchmark ;))
- Notes:
- TFP: works well except slow window maximize/restore and slow mouse wheel scrolling (for example a webpage in konqueror).
- XRender: same es TFP but window present is slow and desktop cube somehow gets replaced by a fade effect
- SHM: fails
ATI Radeon HD 4870 (RV770)
- Driver: ati fglrx 8.53.2 (opensuse)
- Date: 20081005
- glxinfo:
- glxgears: 16847 FPS (composite on)
- Contact: kenmays [ @ ] blastwave [ dot ] org
- Notes: KDE 4.1.2, works with XRender, TFP, SHM with great performance.
AMD 780G (almost same as Radeon HD 3200)
- Driver: flgrx 8.47.3 (Kubuntu)
- Date: 20080918
- glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- glxgears: 2985 FPS
- Contact: ahartmetz
- Notes: Works at least with XRender and TFP, good performance.
AMD 780G (Radeon HD 3200)
- Driver: flgrx 9.1 (Kubuntu)
- Date: 20090202
- glxinfo:
- glxgears: about 850 FPS with composite and about 880 FPS without composite
- Contact: rahman.duran
- Notes: On kde 4.2 OpenSuse. Works only with OpenGL and TFP. SHM, fallback and xrender options doesn't work. Performance is not good. Neither with composite nor without composite. Window drawings are slow. With RadeonHD driver plasma is fast enough. I can live without composite so I am going back to radeonhd driver.
Intel
845G
- Driver: Intel 2.3.1
- Date: 20081006
- Glxinfo:
- Glxgears: 487 FPS
- Contact: kenmays [ @ ] blastwave [ dot ] org
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes. Compiz effects work good.
915GM
- Driver: i915/intel (??? I don't think there's any driver called 'i915')
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 585 FPS
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
945GM
- Driver: i810/intel
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 930 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
965G
- Driver: i810/intel
- Date: 20081023
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 1465 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works in TFP, haven't tried others.
965GM
- Driver: i810/intel
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 845 FPS
- Contact: Kame2 or [Kame2] (in irc)
- Notes: Works very fast in 4.1.1. Stopped working when the selftest comes to kwin. Since then, it doesn't work with any configuration (TFP, SHM, XRender)
- Update: SVN works like a charme with Xorg 7.4 and current intel-drivers (TFP)
G43 (GMA X4500)
- Driver: intel 2.6.3
- Date: 20090304
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: ~1500 FPS
- Contact: funkyou (also on irc)
- Notes: Works nice and fast in 4.2.1 - OpenGL (TFP|SHM) modes. XRender is bugged. Shadows are slower somehow. If you want some more speed, disable them.
Nvidia
GeForce2 MX
- Driver: nvidia
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 810 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes (decent performance, for such an old card).
GeForce4 4200 Go
- Driver: nvidia
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 2920 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce FX 5500
- Driver: nvidia
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 1110 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce FX Go 5700 (64MB)
- Driver: nvidia 173.14.05
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 3125 FPS (1989 FPS with composite on)
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce 6200
- Driver: nvidia
- Date: 20080917
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 2090 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce 7600 GS
- Driver: nvidia 177.70
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 5685 FPS (2650 with composite on)
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes. I had to lower AGP to 4x to avoid freezes but must be related to bad mobo.
GeForce 7600 GT
- Driver: nvidia 177.70
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 9200 FPS
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce 7800 GT
- Driver: nvidia 173.14.12
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 12100 FPS
- Contact: Lucas Murray
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes. Fallback crashes.
GeForce 8600M GT
- Driver: nvidia 177.70
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 3350 FPS (with compositing)
- Notes: Works in TFP (haven't tried others)
GeForce 8800 GTS
- Driver: NVIDIA 173.14.09
- Date: 20080920
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 6041.753 FPS (with compositing) 9677.546 FPS (without compositing)
- Notes: Works in SHM, TFP works but slower, i must use the
"nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1" Workaround
GeForce 9400
- Driver: nvidia 177.80
- Date: 20081022
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 4750 FPS
- Contact: Lubos Lunak
- Notes: Works, in TFP, SHM, XRender modes.
GeForce 9600GT
- Driver: nvidia 177.70
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 16500 FPS
- Contact: Rivo Laks
- Notes: TFP and SHM work fine, XRender is very slow (few FPS), OpenGL fallback doesn't work (KWin crashes).
GeForce 9800GTX
- Driver: nvidia 177.70
- Date: 20080918
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: 3000 FPS (seams low ?)
- Contact: gaboo [ @ ] gaboo [ dot ] org
- Notes: TFP and SHM very fast, XRender twice as slow. Two screens.
Quadro FX 5500 (G71GL)
- Driver: nvidia 173.14.09 (opensolaris)
- Date: 20081006
- Glxinfo:
- Glxgears: 14127 FPS (composite on)
- Contact: kenmays [ @ ] blastwave [ dot ] org
- Notes: Composite enabled. TFP, SHM, XRender very fast.
GTX 260
- Driver: nvidia 177.82 (Gentoo Linux, amd64)
- Date: 2009-01-13
- Glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- Glxgears: ~ 11330 FPS (compositing off), ~ 4100 FPS (compositing on) - at 1280x1024 screen resolution
- Contact: Christian Parpart, trapni@gentoo.org, (ASUS graphics card)
- Notes: tested TFP only; blur effect bugs when moving cursor to top left (for presentWindows effect, i think); you'll get a whole black screen, and have to restart kwin to get it back. General day-to-day jobs are work quite very acceptable with compositing enabled though.
Cards that work partially
ATI/AMD
AMD X800XL (R430)
- Driver: flgrx 8.552 (Gentoo)
- Driver: radeon 6.9.0 (Gentoo)
- Date: 20080918
- glxinfo: glxinfo.txt
- glxgears: 5734 FPS
- Notes: Prior to KDE 4.1.66: Does not work. When effects are turned on the screen turns black with white windows. Only mouse pointer is normal. As of 4.1.66 effects can be turned on but performance is sluggish with frequent 1-2 sec mouse freezes, especially when moving windows.
Radeon X300 (PCIE) (RV370)
- Driver: xf86-video-ati 6.9.0 (Archlinux)
- Date 20081207
- Contact: Alex Merry (randomguy3)
- glxinfo: output of glxinfo -l
- glxgears: 1500-1570 FPS
- Notes:
- Tested only with KDE trunk as of the above date
- XRender works fine, if slow
- TfP works, but has lots of rendering glitches - the most obvious being that the edges of windows leave trails across the screen when moving windows. Disabling shadows makes this worse.
- SHM renders things all over the place
- Fallback makes everything go green, with only the window shadows displayed (ie: not the window borders or the contents of the windows)
