Bug 946911

Created attachment 730083 [details]
syslog /var/log/messages

My closest nVidia machine runs Fedora-19-Alpha-TC3-i686-Live-Desktop just fine.  (Check the specs, it might not be close enough except for rough comparision.)

05:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 3] (rev a2)
05:00.0 0300: 10de:10c3 (rev a2)

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: AuthenticAMD
cpu family	: 15
model		: 47
model name	: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+  [running as i686]
stepping	: 2
cpu MHz		: 2010.523
cache size	: 512 KB
fdiv_bug	: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 1
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm
bogomips	: 4021.04
clflush size	: 64
cache_alignment	: 64
address sizes	: 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

You are likely not using the Radeon adapter in any meaningful way at all. You are using llvmpipe, i.e. CPU-based, rendering.  Your video adapter doesn't really matter except in that it's blacklisted so we're using llvmpipe instead.

I wouldn't expect llvmpipe rendering to be THAT slow on a P4 1.6GHz, though. Slow, but perhaps not THAT slow. Is something else running the CPU heavily?

I have done a regular fresh install of Fedora 19 Gnome Desktop from DVD and run "yum update" and run the daily prelink cron job,  then _removed_ debugging parameters ("drm.debug=14 log_buf_len=16M") from the kernel boot command line, then rebooted.  gdm lets me login but does not start the desktop (bug 955779), so I have installed lightdm and system-switch-displaymanager to lightdm (and rebooted again.)  So I think I have a "normal" installation of Fedora 19 Gnome Desktop except using lightdm.

If I run one gnome-terminal and invoke /usr/bin/top, then I see gnome-shell at 35% to 70% CPU (bug 974342), X at 4.6% to 7%, and everything else at 0.3% or less.  Overall "sy" [system] time is under 3%, "id" [idle] time varies from 58% to 20% (complement to gnome-shell 35% to 70%).  I have not invoked anything except the one gnome-terminal running /usr/bin/top.  "ps axl  |  wc" shows 126 lines, but "nothing is running".  The harddrive activity LED is off, the network is silent, there is nothing in either of the two DVD drives.  Yet I still see lag in echoing characters typed into a gnome-terminal (perhaps a lag of only 1.6 seconds now, with the batches of 12 to 16 characters displayed as before), and video still is impossible (one frame per 3 or 4 seconds.)

OK. Ajax is probably as good an assignee for this as anyone, I don't know how we tell if this is an actual bug somewhere or if llvmpipe just happens to be just that slow on your hardware or what.

Confirming the same problem persists with the final released Fedora-Live-Desktop-i686-19-1 DVD run as Live system (not installed).  Specific packages are:
gnome-shell-3.8.3-2.fc19.i686
gnome-terminal-3.8.3-1.fc19.i686
kernel-3.9.5-301.fc19.i686
llvm-libs-3.3-0.6.rc3.fc19.i686
mesa-dri-drivers-9.2-0.12.20130610.fc19.i686
xorg-x11-drv-ati-7.1.0-5.20130408git6e74aacc5.fc19.i686
xorg-x11-server-Xorg-1.14.1-4.fc19.i686

I'm having a similar problem on older machines, specifically with
Intel 82865G integrated graphics on HP desktop machines and ADM/ATI
RV100/M6 [Rage/Radeon Mobility Series] on a Dell C610 laptop since
upgrading to F19 from F18.  Echoing characters to the terminal lags
keyboard entries quite noticeably.  On the Dell laptop I see that
gnome shell is using about 33% of the CPU most of the time.  On the
HP desktop gnome shell is using about 16% CPU.  On my F18 system
with same hardware the gnome shell doesn't seem to be running at all.

And on another of my machines the graphics hardware is Intel 82915/G/GV/910GL
on this machine gnome-shell runs rarely and uses only a little CPU time, as
shown by top.

gnome-shell doesn't attempt to support rv280 (or any other pre-dx9) hardware anymore.