Speed up your Kubuntu with RASTER graphics system!

[schnelle]

Using Raster makes HUGE difference on my system. Everything works much faster. Windows are rendered faster, resizing windows is smooth, desktop effects are more fluid, dolphin is faster etc.

It works very well on my laptop with ati gpu and fglrx driver.

If you want to try it install kde-config-qt-graphicssystem package, then go to System Settings>Qt graphics system and choose raster. Log out, then log back in and test it. I am using raster for about one month now and I had no problems so far.

[Rog132]

Earlier > Topic: A Lighter, Faster (?) Plasma - Regenerated (http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3117230.0):

- the upstream has reported it to cause "havoc" with the intel drivers.
- the Open Office (not the LibreO) might need the "native" setting.
- the raster setting could cause a kernel oops (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel_oops) with the 2.6.38 kernel ( combined effect with the multimedia and net ?).

[woodsmoke]

schnell, even given Rog's comments I'll give it a try.

woodsmoke

[schnelle]

schnell, even given Rog's comments I'll give it a try.

woodsmoke


It works great here. That is why I made this thread.

Raster was turned on in Natty Alphas but it was then turned off because of "regressions with intel driver."

But it works great here (huge performance gain) so you can try it and if you experience any problem you can easily turn it off again ;)

[woodsmoke]

Hi Schnell

Well....the system did not a) blow up or b) melt down! So, I guess that is a good thing!

It went as per your instructions, I installed using Kpackagekit.

The QT app is at the bottom of System Settings under System Administration and it produces what looks EERILY......

like a BLACK TICKING TIME BOMB BALL from the early 1900s anarchists!!!

That might be a thing that the QT people should reconsider! ;D

However, things seem to be functioning well on a:

Gateway 4200 AMD Athlon 64 x 2 with 2 gig DDR and an Nvidia 6600 256 meg card.

I "might" opine that things do seem somewhat "snappier"...I'll report back later after I've used it a while.

Thanks!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

BTW there is also an "open GL" button to use also...any comments on it?

woodsmoke

[stephensetugomes]

works good for me!!! thx ;D

[woodsmoke]

Well, I've got an older Toshiba Lappy that I installed Natty on a few months ago and I was surprised how quick Natty Kubu is on it, faster than many other distros.

Soooo I installed the Raster thing and it went funky at the first boot, trying to find a MAC address for a minute or so and then ...

I will say that the Raster thingy DEFINITELY speeded up Kubu Natty on the lappy, the menu/whatever, positively SNAP open, no more graceful liquid menu for that lappy!

woodsmoke

[schnelle]

OpenGl is experimental and should not be used at the moment because graphic drivers suck at the moment. I tried it on my lappy and it was disaster ;D

Raster should work well with ati and nvidia proprietary drivers. There are some problems with intel drivers so if you have intel card you may have some problems.

Again, on my laptop with ati card and fglrx driver raster works great and overall performance of my system is much much better.

[blackpaw]

Certainly seems to have speed windows up for me, feels much snappier. Note - I am using the intel drivers - i5 CPU Sandy Bridge, but I am using the cutting edge xorg-server (http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu)

Mind you desktop effects are disabled.

[woodsmoke]

Yep! The OpenGL stuff is not ready as of now!
On the desktop above:
a) login screen was correctly presented.
b) splash correctly presented.
c) Several run on start items such as Kopete and a couple of widgets worked.
d) The bottom panel did not present any buttons and was only partly there. A white "line" was above it.
e) the menu panel was totally black. One could click on it and various apps would start but I could not navigate to the settings button to change from OpenGL to raster or normal.
f) A possible "fix" for this for other people, MIGHT be to put a shortcut on the desktop that would take one directly to the settings panel and one might, thereby, be able to change back to a working setting.
f) I could not get at a terminal, and again, if a shortcut was made on the desktop for the terminal and if one knew the correct command to change back, then one might be able to get it working again.
g) failsave mode did not work.

Lotsa FUN!!! ;D

woodsmoke

[Teunis]

Hehe, Schnelle you live up to your name ;D
Yes this works quite well, it's maybe not a magnitude faster but certainly noticeable!

Thanks for the tip!

[schnelle]

Hehe, Schnelle you live up to your name ;D
Yes this works quite well, it's maybe not a magnitude faster but certainly noticeable!

Thanks for the tip!


;D

On my 3,5 years old laptop with both weak, amd processor and graphic card(ok graphic card is not as weak as intel ones) it does feel a lot faster :D

[zebedeeboss]

Hi Complete Linux newb here and I would just like to say thank you Schnelle for posting this.

Thanks again Zeb...

[jbernardo]

Using the ten times damned EMGD drivers on my 1101HA, and raster is very fast - and I can now watch 1080p films using vaapi without having to disable composition, and without frame drops or tearing, which I got before. Looks like raster besides being faster leaves the GPU more free time to process video!

[schnelle]

Using the ten times damned EMGD drivers on my 1101HA, and raster is very fast - and I can now watch 1080p films using vaapi without having to disable composition, and without frame drops or tearing, which I got before. Looks like raster besides being faster leaves the GPU more free time to process video!


Raster is software rendering so it stores everything in ram. So your ram usage should be a little higher. My system uses 50-100 mb of ram more with raster. And yes, GPU is less affected. At least I think so 8)

[personman]

On a somewhat related note, my laptop with a geforce 7000m seems to perform much better when switched from OpenGL to XRender in the KDE system settings. I'm guessing it's just my card's weak 3d?

[Chopstick]

I have an older ATI card (ATI Mobility FireGL V5250) with open source driver and it works fine for me!
I'm not sure if it is that much faster, but it doesn't cause any problems either.
Chopstick