Bug 371861

Thanks for the bug report.  We have reviewed the information you have provided
above, and there is some additional information we require that will be helpful
in our diagnosis of this issue.

Please attach your X server config file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and X server log
file (/var/log/Xorg.*.log) to the bug report as individual uncompressed file
attachments using the bugzilla file attachment link below.

Could you please also try to run without any /etc/X11/xorg.conf whatsoever and
let X11 autodetect your display and video card? Attach to this bug
/var/log/Xorg.0.log from this attempt as well, please.

We will review this issue again once you've had a chance to attach this information.

Thanks in advance.

Created attachment 255341 [details]
Xorg.conf file for choppy performance, as set up by Fedora 8 install

Created attachment 255351 [details]
/var/log/Xorg.0.log from the original setup

Created attachment 255361 [details]
/var/log/Xorg.0.log when running without /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Also, I notice that no MTRR is being created for the framebuffer:

[me@machine]$ cat /proc/mtrr 
reg00: base=0x00000000 (   0MB), size=2048MB: write-back, count=1
reg01: base=0x7ff00000 (2047MB), size=   1MB: uncachable, count=1
[me@machine]$ lcpci -s 1:00.0 -v
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0429 (rev
a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
        Subsystem: Dell Unknown device 01fe
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at fa000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32M]
        I/O ports at ef00 [size=128]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at fc000000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [68] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0
Enable-
        Capabilities: [78] Express Endpoint IRQ 0


I've also tested switching between EXA and XAA, Composite enabled/disabled, and
acceleration enabled/disabled. Nothing improved the performance, but some made
it much worse.

Which configuration made it much worse?

Sorry, should have specified -- all combinations were roughly the same, except
for when I turned off acceleration, which was the worst performing, as expected.

Oh, and EXA may have even been worse than turning on NoAccel, but I'd have to
try it again to be sure.

Have the same problem with nVidia Quadro VNS 140M (nVidia Corporation Unknown
device 0429 (rev a1)) on ThinkPad T61. All screen redraws are extremely slow
(most visible when moving windows or scrolling content). Mode 1400x1050, depth
16, no special settings in xorg config (driver name given, the rest autodetected).

Wow, G80Sync is expensive.

So what I think is happening here is, you're eventually running out of offscreen
memory, either due to consumption or just because XAA is garbage.  So then
you're spending all your time uploading stuff to the GPU from host memory (which
is the CopyArea bit), and we have to sync before doing that so you get
consistent results when mixing accelerated and CPU-driven rendering.

Not sure offhand how to mitigate that.

I'm going to go with "XAA is garbage" -- I'm not doing graphics intensive work,
so I'm not sure how we've run out of 512MB of video memory....

I've switched to NVidia's drivers for now, as they don't have this slowdown
issue. If you would like for me to test something, let me know -- it is easy to
switch back, and I'd rather be using the open source drivers.

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