https://userbase.kde.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Mgraesslin&feedformat=atomKDE UserBase Wiki - User contributions [en]2024-03-29T15:18:27ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.40.2https://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=294281Desktop Effects Performance2013-02-11T18:46:46Z<p>Mgraesslin: Updated graphics system section</p>
<hr />
<div><languages /><br />
<translate><br />
<br />
== Desktop Effect Performance == <!--T:1--><br />
<br />
<!--T:2--><br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU), it's driver and the ''Compositor'' ([[Special:myLanguage/KWin|Kwin]]). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping '''KWin''' on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver == <!--T:3--><br />
<br />
=== Determining the used driver === <!--T:4--><br />
<br />
<!--T:5--><br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend ''(XRender).''<br />
<br />
<!--T:6--><br />
The information about the used driver is available through [[Special:myLanguage/KInfoCenter|KInfoCenter]]. Click on <menuchoice>Graphical Information -> OpenGL</menuchoice> and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the ''Driver'' section, in particular ''Vendor'', ''Renderer'' and ''OpenGL/ES version''. The information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
<!--T:7--><br />
{|class="vertical-centered"<br />
|[[Image:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|250px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]||If the Renderer says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br /><br /><br />
|}<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers === <!--T:8--><br />
<br />
==== AMD/ATI ==== <!--T:9--><br />
<br />
<!--T:10--><br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary ''fglrx'' or ''Catalyst'' and the free ''Mesa'' drivers (known as ''radeon'', ''r300'', ''r600''). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the OpenGL/ES version, then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
<!--T:11--><br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the Renderer string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ==== <!--T:12--><br />
<br />
<!--T:13--><br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ==== <!--T:14--><br />
<br />
<!--T:15--><br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as ''nouveau''). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says ''NVIDIA'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver === <!--T:16--><br />
<br />
<!--T:17--><br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version == <!--T:18--><br />
<br />
<!--T:19--><br />
'''KWin''' supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default '''KWin''' uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that '''KWin''' uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
<!--T:20--><br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in [[Special:myLanguage/KInfoCenter|KInfoCenter]] as described above. The version is defined by the first two or three digits, e.g. ''2.1''.<br />
<br />
<!--T:21--><br />
It is not trivial to find out whether '''KWin''' uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab</menuchoice>. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut <keycap>Meta + Ctrl + I</keycap>. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
<!--T:22--><br />
It is possible to force '''KWin''' to use OpenGL 1 through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice> and unchecking <menuchoice>Use OpenGL 2 Shaders</menuchoice>. This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely safe to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing).<br />
<br />
<!--T:23--><br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
=== kwin_gles === <!--T:63--><br />
<br />
<!--T:64--><br />
Beginning with '''KWin''' version 4.8 it is possible to use the separately built binary ''kwin_gles'' as a replacement for ''kwin''. It behaves almost the same as the ''kwin'' executable in OpenGL2 mode with the slight difference that it uses ''egl'' instead of ''glx'' as the native platform interface. <br />
<br />
<!--T:65--><br />
{{Warning|This also means that if your normal ''kwin'' does not work in the OpenGL 2 mode it is unlikely that ''kwin_gles'' will.}}<br />
<br />
<!--T:66--><br />
To test ''kwin_gles'' you just have to run <code>kwin_gles --replace</code> in '''Konsole'''. Since this is a rather new feature it is not as thoroughly tested as the normal ''kwin'' and feedback is always welcome. Assuming that the test succeeded and you want to use ''kwin_gles'' on a regular basis you can add an executable script to <code>~/.kde4/env/</code> that exports the <code>KDEWM=kwin_gles</code> environment variable.<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling == <!--T:24--><br />
<br />
<!--T:25--><br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
<!--T:26--><br />
The scaling method can be changed in <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list</menuchoice>. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
<!--T:27--><br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
<!--T:28--><br />
{|class="vertical-centered wikitable"; width="650"<br />
! colspan="2" | Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
! Crisp: <br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
! Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
! Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
<!--T:29--><br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable ''KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS'' is set to ''1''.<br />
<br />
<!--T:30--><br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations == <!--T:31--><br />
<br />
<!--T:32--><br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
<!--T:33--><br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list</menuchoice>. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported having a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System == <!--T:34--><br />
<br />
<!--T:35--><br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system ''raster'' instead of ''native'' (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
<!--T:36--><br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor raster is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used. KWin will always select the best graphics system for your chosen compositor. The following general combinations can be recommended:<br />
* OpenGL with raster<br />
* XRender with native<br />
* No Compositing:<br />
** native in case of remote connections (recommended window decoration: Laptop)<br />
** raster if using fancy window decoration (including Oxygen and Plastik in 4.10 or later)<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations == <!--T:37--><br />
<br />
<!--T:38--><br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
<!--T:39--><br />
The default window decoration ''Oxygen'' provides an option to disable the animations: <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab</menuchoice> Checkbox '''Enable animations'''. Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
<!--T:40--><br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the ''Get New Decorations...'' dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
<!--T:41--><br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration Oxygen provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect == <!--T:42--><br />
<br />
<!--T:43--><br />
The ''Blur Effect'' is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
<!--T:44--><br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect</menuchoice>. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings == <!--T:45--><br />
<br />
<!--T:46--><br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice>. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type === <!--T:47--><br />
<br />
<!--T:48--><br />
The Compositing type allows choice of the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
<!--T:49--><br />
{{Info|1=If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails === <!--T:50--><br />
<br />
<!--T:51--><br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Suspend desktop effects for fullscreen windows === <!--T:52--><br />
<br />
<!--T:53--><br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when closing the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
<!--T:54--><br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut <keycap>Alt + Shift + F12</keycap> or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode === <!--T:55--><br />
<br />
<!--T:56--><br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsolete and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering === <!--T:57--><br />
<br />
<!--T:58--><br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsolete and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}}<br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync === <!--T:59--><br />
<br />
<!--T:60--><br />
''VSync'' allows you to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to change, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
<!--T:61--><br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.<br />
<br />
<!--T:62--><br />
[[Category:System]]<br />
[[Category:Configuration]]<br />
</translate></div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216917Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:55:22Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Desktop Effect Performance */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor ([[KWin]]). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through [[KInfoCenter]]. Click on <menuchoice>Graphical Information -> OpenGL</menuchoice> and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the '''Driver''' section, in particular '''Vendor''', '''Renderer''' and '''OpenGL/ES version'''. These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the '''Renderer''' says ''Software Rasterizer'' no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information ''Mesa'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''', then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word ''Gallium'' in the '''Renderer''' string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says ''NVIDIA'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. ''2.1''.<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut <keycap>Meta + Ctrl + I</keycap>. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice> and unchecking '''Use OpenGL 2 Shaders'''. This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing).<br />
<br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list</menuchoice>. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable ''KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS'' is set to ''1''.<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list</menuchoice>. It varies from '''Extremely slow''' to '''Instant''' which does not render any animations. By changing from '''Normal''' to '''Fast''' many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system ''raster'' instead of ''native'' (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor ''raster'' is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system ''raster'' (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration '''Oxygen''' provides an option to disable the animations: <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab</menuchoice> Checkbox '''Enable animations'''. Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the '''Get New Decorations...''' dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration '''Oxygen''' provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab '''Shadows''' and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect</menuchoice>. Moving the slider for strength to '''Light''' requires less resources while moving it towards '''Strong''' requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice>. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut <keycap>Alt + Shift + F12</keycap> or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default '''Texture from Pixmap''' is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}}<br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216916Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:54:08Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Determining the used driver */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through [[KInfoCenter]]. Click on <menuchoice>Graphical Information -> OpenGL</menuchoice> and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the '''Driver''' section, in particular '''Vendor''', '''Renderer''' and '''OpenGL/ES version'''. These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the '''Renderer''' says ''Software Rasterizer'' no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information ''Mesa'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''', then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word ''Gallium'' in the '''Renderer''' string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says ''NVIDIA'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. ''2.1''.<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut <keycap>Meta + Ctrl + I</keycap>. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice> and unchecking '''Use OpenGL 2 Shaders'''. This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing).<br />
<br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list</menuchoice>. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable ''KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS'' is set to ''1''.<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list</menuchoice>. It varies from '''Extremely slow''' to '''Instant''' which does not render any animations. By changing from '''Normal''' to '''Fast''' many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system ''raster'' instead of ''native'' (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor ''raster'' is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system ''raster'' (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration '''Oxygen''' provides an option to disable the animations: <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab</menuchoice> Checkbox '''Enable animations'''. Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the '''Get New Decorations...''' dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration '''Oxygen''' provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab '''Shadows''' and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect</menuchoice>. Moving the slider for strength to '''Light''' requires less resources while moving it towards '''Strong''' requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice>. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut <keycap>Alt + Shift + F12</keycap> or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default '''Texture from Pixmap''' is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}}<br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216915Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:52:53Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Desktop Effect Performance */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on <menuchoice>Graphical Information -> OpenGL</menuchoice> and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the '''Driver''' section, in particular '''Vendor''', '''Renderer''' and '''OpenGL/ES version'''. These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the '''Renderer''' says ''Software Rasterizer'' no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information ''Mesa'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''', then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word ''Gallium'' in the '''Renderer''' string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says ''NVIDIA'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. ''2.1''.<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut <keycap>Meta + Ctrl + I</keycap>. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice> and unchecking '''Use OpenGL 2 Shaders'''. This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing).<br />
<br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list</menuchoice>. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable ''KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS'' is set to ''1''.<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list</menuchoice>. It varies from '''Extremely slow''' to '''Instant''' which does not render any animations. By changing from '''Normal''' to '''Fast''' many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system ''raster'' instead of ''native'' (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor ''raster'' is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system ''raster'' (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration '''Oxygen''' provides an option to disable the animations: <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab</menuchoice> Checkbox '''Enable animations'''. Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the '''Get New Decorations...''' dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration '''Oxygen''' provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab '''Shadows''' and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect</menuchoice>. Moving the slider for strength to '''Light''' requires less resources while moving it towards '''Strong''' requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under <menuchoice>Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab</menuchoice>. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut <keycap>Alt + Shift + F12</keycap> or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default '''Texture from Pixmap''' is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}}<br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216914Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:34:25Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Desktop Effect Performance */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the '''Driver''' section, in particular '''Vendor''', '''Renderer''' and '''OpenGL/ES version'''. These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the '''Renderer''' says ''Software Rasterizer'' no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information ''Mesa'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''', then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word ''Gallium'' in the '''Renderer''' string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says ''NVIDIA'' in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the '''OpenGL/ES version''' string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. ''2.1''.<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut <keycap>Meta + Ctrl + I</keycap>. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking '''Use OpenGL 2 Shaders'''. This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing).<br />
<br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable ''KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS'' is set to ''1''.<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from '''Extremely slow''' to '''Instant''' which does not render any animations. By changing from '''Normal''' to '''Fast''' many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system ''raster'' instead of ''native'' (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor ''raster'' is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system ''raster'' (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration '''Oxygen''' provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox '''Enable animations'''. Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the '''Get New Decorations...''' dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration '''Oxygen''' provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab '''Shadows''' and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to '''Light''' requires less resources while moving it towards '''Strong''' requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut <keycap>Alt + Shift + F12</keycap> or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default '''Texture from Pixmap''' is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}}<br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216913Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:25:32Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* OpenGL Version */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). <br />
<br />
{{Tip|For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance.}}<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}} <br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216912Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:23:32Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Compositing type */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
{{Info|If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.}}<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}} <br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216911Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:22:27Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* Enable direct rendering */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012).}} <br />
The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216910Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:21:41Z<p>Mgraesslin: /* OpenGL mode */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
{{Warning|The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.}}<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012). The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216909Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:15:00Z<p>Mgraesslin: thumbnail previews</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
{|<br />
|+ Overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings<br />
|-<br />
| Crisp:<br />
| [[File:kwin_crisp.png|Crisp]]<br />
|-<br />
| Smooth:<br />
| [[File:kwin_smooth.png|Smooth]]<br />
|-<br />
| Accurate:<br />
| [[File:kwin_accurate.png|Accurate]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012). The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=File:Kwin_accurate.png&diff=216908File:Kwin accurate.png2011-11-12T11:13:34Z<p>Mgraesslin: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=File:Kwin_smooth.png&diff=216907File:Kwin smooth.png2011-11-12T11:13:19Z<p>Mgraesslin: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=File:Kwin_crisp.png&diff=216906File:Kwin crisp.png2011-11-12T11:12:58Z<p>Mgraesslin: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=File:Kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png&diff=216905File:Kwin kinfocenter opengl.png2011-11-12T11:07:48Z<p>Mgraesslin: </p>
<hr />
<div></div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216904Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:07:11Z<p>Mgraesslin: include image kinfocenter</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
[[File:kwin_kinfocenter_opengl.png|200px|thumb|left|OpenGL information in KInfoCenter]]<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012). The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Desktop_Effects_Performance&diff=216903Desktop Effects Performance2011-11-12T11:04:34Z<p>Mgraesslin: Initial import</p>
<hr />
<div>= Desktop Effect Performance =<br />
<br />
The performance of Desktop Effects in the KDE Plasma Workspaces is mostly determined by the interaction of the graphics hardware (GPU) it's driver and the Compositor (KWin). The Compositor tries to choose the best available settings for your GPU by querying the driver for what the hardware supports. Sometimes helping KWin on what the hardware really supports can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
== Selecting the correct driver ==<br />
=== Determining the used driver ===<br />
It is important to have the correct driver installed and used. If no driver or the wrong driver is used the desktop effects fall back to an non-accelerated backend (XRender).<br />
<br />
The information about the used driver is available through KInfoCenter. Click on Graphical Information -> OpenGL and study the information provided in the shown module. The relevant information is found in the "Driver" section, in particular "Vendor", "Renderer" and "OpenGL/ES version". These information is provided by the driver and can be difficult to parse.<br />
<br />
If the "Renderer" says "Software Rasterizer" no driver is installed. For all other drivers please check whether the correct one is used.<br />
<br />
=== Available Drivers ===<br />
==== AMD/ATI ====<br />
For AMD/ATI hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary fglrx or Catalyst and the free Mesa drivers (known as radeon, r300, r600). With the fglrx driver not all functionality is available and the performance in general seems to be better with the Mesa drivers. The recommendation is to always use Mesa drivers with desktop effects. If you find the information "Mesa" in the "OpenGL/ES version", then you are using the free drivers and you do not have to do anything.<br />
<br />
The Mesa drivers exist in an older and newer version. You should make sure to use the newer ones which you can identify by the word "Gallium" in the "Renderer" string.<br />
<br />
==== Intel ====<br />
Intel hardware uses the free Mesa drivers. There are no alternatives available.<br />
<br />
==== NVIDIA ====<br />
For NVIDIA hardware two drivers are available: the proprietary NVIDIA driver and the free Mesa drivers (known as nouveau). The free drivers are still under heavy development and are not available on all distributions and for all hardware. In general it is recommended to use the proprietary drivers. You are using the proprietary drivers if it says "NVIDIA" in the "OpenGL/ES version" string.<br />
<br />
=== Installing the Driver ===<br />
Installing the driver is specific to the used distribution. Please consult the documentation of your distribution about that matter.<br />
<br />
== OpenGL Version ==<br />
KWin supports OpenGL 1.x and OpenGL 2.x. By default KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 if they are available. OpenGL 2 allows to use more effects, but requires stronger hardware. It is important to know that even if your driver only supports e.g. OpenGL 1.4 it is possible that KWin uses features of OpenGL 2 which are available through extensions in the driver.<br />
<br />
You can find the OpenGL version provided by your driver in the "OpenGL/ES version" string in KInfoCenter as described above. The version are the first two or three digits, e.g. "2.1".<br />
<br />
It is not trivial to find out whether KWin uses OpenGL 1 or 2 as this is completely determined at runtime. The best available test is to use the Invert effect which can be enabled in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab. After enabling the screen should be inverted when using the shortcut Meta+Ctrl+I. If it inverts OpenGL 2 is used, if it does nothing OpenGL 1 is used.<br />
<br />
It is possible to force KWin to use OpenGL 1 through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab and unchecking "Use OpenGL 2 Shaders". This can improve the performance for older hardware. In general it is completely save to use OpenGL 2 Shaders if the driver reports a version of 3.x (only available with NVIDIA at the time of this writing). For modern hardware the OpenGL 2 Shaders yield a better performance than OpenGL 1. Disabling this option is no receipt for best performance!<br />
<br />
== Thumbnail Scaling ==<br />
The Compositor supports different scaling methods for thumbnails as rendered in the taskbar preview or effects like Present Windows. It is tried to render the thumbnails as accurate as possible which of course requires more resources.<br />
<br />
The scaling method can be changed in Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab -> Scale method selection list. The following settings are available:<br />
* Crisp<br />
* Smooth<br />
* Accurate<br />
<br />
The table provides an overview of how the thumbnails are rendered with the different settings.<br />
<br />
By default Accurate is used. On Intel hardware Accurate is never used and cannot be enabled unless the environment variable KWIN_FORCE_LANCZOS is set to "1".<br />
<br />
Switching from Accurate to Smooth can significantly improve the performance of effects like Present Windows.<br />
<br />
== General Speed of Animations ==<br />
Animations take some time and the length of an animations is what makes people think that this is a snappy interface or that it lags. This is a very subjective feeling and the difference between too fast and too slow can be milliseconds. It is impossible to have a perfect value for all users.<br />
<br />
The global animation duration level can be changed through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> General Tab -> Animation speed selection list. It varies from "Extremely slow" to "Instant" which does not render any animations. By changing from "Normal" to "Fast" many users reported to have a more snappy interface.<br />
<br />
== Qt Graphics System ==<br />
Since 4.7 (Released July 2011) the Compositor can use the Qt graphics system "raster" instead of "native" (X11). This is only relevant for rendering the window decorations and is not related to the compositing backends (OpenGL/XRender).<br />
<br />
Which graphics system is used depends on the distribution defaults. For the Compositor "raster" is recommended especially if the NVIDIA driver is used.<br />
<br />
== Window Decorations ==<br />
Some Window Decorations perform animations when a window gets activated. This influences the performance of effects if during an animation the active window changes. The performance impact can be reduced by using the graphics system "raster" (see above).<br />
<br />
The default window decoration "Oxygen" provides an option to disable the animations: Systemsettings -> Workspaces Appearance -> Window Decorations -> Configure Decoration... -> General tab -> Checkbox "Enable animations". Disabling the animations can improve the performance.<br />
<br />
All window decorations which can be downloaded through the "Get New Decorations..." dialog use such animations, but it is not possible to disable them. If there is an performance impact due to the theme, it is recommended to use a different one. In general the themed decorations are not optimized and provided to look good and not to be fast.<br />
<br />
Another area of window decorations which can impact the performance are shadows. Again the default decoration "Oxygen" provides a setting to disable them in the same configuration dialog as described above in tab "Shadows" and the themed decorations do not provide an option to disable shadows.<br />
<br />
== Blur Effect ==<br />
The Blur Effect is one of the most expensive effects provided by the Compositor. By default it gets enabled for all hardware except Intel hardware. The performance impact of the blur effect depends on the number of open and translucent windows. Especially translucent widget styles (e.g. Oxygen Translucent) and translucent window decorations (e.g. Aurorae Themes) have an impact on the performance. If such a theme is used and the performance is bad it is recommended to either change the theme or disable the Blur effect.<br />
<br />
The performance of the Blur effect can be adjusted through Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects tab -> Configuration dialog of Blur effect. Moving the slider for strength to "Light" requires less resources while moving it towards "Strong" requires more resources. Since 4.8 (release January 2012) the intermediate rendering results can be kept (default) which improves the performance even with translucent themes.<br />
<br />
== Advanced Desktop Effects Settings ==<br />
The Compositor provides some advanced settings under Systemsettings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced tab. Some of the settings have already been explained. This section focuses on the remaining settings. Changing these settings in general do not improve the performance but make it worse. The Compositor uses the best possible settings.<br />
<br />
=== Compositing type ===<br />
The Compositing type allows to choose the compositing backend, either XRender or OpenGL. By default OpenGL is used which is hardware accelerated. XRender is available even if no OpenGL driver is installed (e.g. virtual machines) and uses mostly the CPU for rendering. Many effects are not available with XRender.<br />
<br />
If there is no good reason to change, the default OpenGL is the correct choice. If OpenGL is not available there is an automatic fallback to XRender.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window thumbnails ===<br />
This has hardly any influence on performance. It is an option to decide how long thumbnails are kept. Best is to not touch this setting.<br />
<br />
=== Supsend desktop effects for fullscreen windows ===<br />
This setting influences the performance of fullscreen windows such as games. The compositor is suspended as long as there is a fullscreen window. The disadvantage is that it causes flickering when a window appears on top of the fullscreen window (e.g. a context menu) and is too generic. As well on some distributions (e.g. Kubuntu 11.04) the Intel driver causes a crash when ending the fullscreen window.<br />
<br />
If the compositor should be disabled while a fullscreen application such as games or video is used it is better to disable compositing either through the shortcut Alt+Shift+F12 or since 4.7 (Released July 2011) through a window specific rule for the window.<br />
<br />
=== OpenGL mode ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.7 (Released July 2011). Any setting except the default "Texture from Pixmap" is likely to break your desktop.<br />
<br />
=== Enable direct rendering ===<br />
Do not touch! The setting is obsoleted and has been removed in 4.8 (Released January 2012). The compositor determines by itself whether direct rendering can and has to be used. Changing this setting will most likely break functionality.<br />
<br />
=== Use VSync ===<br />
VSync allows to synchronize the rendering with the screen. Unless there is good reason to do so, this setting should be enabled. Even if the setting is disabled the Compositor tries to use the frame rate the screen supports and by default a frame rate of 60 Hz is used.<br />
<br />
For multiple screens it is important to know that the rendering can only be synchronized with one screen. In case the screens have a different frame rate it might be valid to disable this option and to set a manual frame rate.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=User:Mgraesslin/KWin&diff=2428User:Mgraesslin/KWin2009-01-30T13:03:31Z<p>Mgraesslin: Complete the manage window part</p>
<hr />
<div>KWin is the window manager of the KDE workspace. This application is responsible for placing and managing windows, managing virtual desktops and many important actions like the shortcut alt+tab to change the active window.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Shortcuts ==<br />
KWin's global shortcuts can be configured via ''"Systemsettings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts"''. There you have to select '''KWin''' in ''"KDE component"''. The following table lists the most important shortcuts with their default settings.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable sortable" border=1<br />
! Shortcut !! Action<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F1 || Switch to desktop 1 <br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F2 || Switch to desktop 2<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F3 || Switch to desktop 3<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F4 || Switch to desktop 4<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Tab || Walk through windows<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+Tab || Walk through windows (reverse)<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F3 || Window Operations Menu<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F4 || Close window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+Esc || Kill window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+A || Activate window demanding attention<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Print || Desktop screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Print || Window screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+F12 || Suspend compositing<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F8 || Show desktop grid<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F9 || Toggle present windows (current desktop)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F10 || Toggle present windows (all desktops)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F11 || Desktop cube<br />
|}<br />
<br />
== Manage windows ==<br />
The following sections will present many mouse and key combinations. That is always the default configuration. Each of these combination can be changed. That is described in section configuration.<br />
=== Change size ===<br />
The size of a window can be changed most easily with the maximize button. This button is by default the second button from right side in the titel bar. By clicking it with the left mouse button the window will be both horizontally and vertically maximized or the original size is restored. By clicking the button with the middle mouse button the window will be vertically maximized and by clicking with the right mouse button the window will be horizontally maximized. By double clicking the title bar with the left mouse button the window will be maximized as well.<br />
<br />
If the window is not maximized the window size can be changed individually. Therefore you move the mouse to the window border. Now a size-change mouse cursor will be shown. By pressing the left mouse button and simultaneous moving of the mouse (dragging) the size of the window will be changed. If it is difficult to reach one of the borders, you can press the alt-key in combination with the right mouse button to change the size. There is also a option in the useraction menu available.<br />
<br />
=== Move ===<br />
A window can be moved via the title bar. Therefore you have to click with the left mouse button on any place of the title bar and move the mouse while keeping the mouse button pressed. If you cannot reach parts of the window, because the title bar borders to the top of the screen you can use the combination of alt and left mouse button on any place of the window and move the window by moving the mouse. Another possibility is to use the desktop grid effect or the pager to move the window. <br />
<br />
The useraction menu offers the possibility to move the window as well. In that case you can move the window by just moving the mouse without pressing a key or mouse button. The moving ends as soon as there is an event such as a mouse click or enter key.<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Minimizing ===<br />
A window can be hidden by clicking the minimize button. This is by default the third button from the right in the title bar. The window can be minimized as well by clicking the entry in the tasks applet or by using the useraction menu. The window can be unminimized via walk through windows (alt+tab) or via the entry in the tasks applet. If compositing is activated the (un)minimizing will be animated.<br />
<br />
=== Shade ===<br />
The function shade reduces a window to the title bar. By default this function is only available via the useraction menu. Since KDE 4.2 there is a button available which can be added to Oxygen/Ozone window decoration.<br />
<br />
=== Keep window above/below others ===<br />
KWin is able to keep a window always above/below all other windows. That is, there is a window which always covers other windows or is always covered by other windows, no matter which window is the active one. The option can be find in the submenu ''"Advanced"'' of the useraction menu.<br />
<br />
=== Move window to different desktop ===<br />
It is possible to move single windows to different virtual desktops. Therefore there is a submenu ''"To desktop"'' in the useraction menu containing an entry for each desktop and one for keeping the window on all desktops. If active desktop borders are activated the window can be moved to a different desktop by just moving the window to the border of the screen. It is also possible to move a window to a different desktop by moving its pictograph in the pager or using the desktop grid effect.<br />
<br />
=== Walk through windows ===<br />
Via shortcut alt+tab or alt+shift+tab you can walk through the window list. By pressing the tab key again the next entry in the list will be selected. You can even use your mouse to select an item in the list. This is even possible in animated effects like CoverSwitch.<br />
<br />
If compositing is activated by default the boxswitch effect is used to animate walk through windows. This effect displays window thumbnails instead of a window list. There are more effects available and it is also possible to deselect the effect at all.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=User:Mgraesslin/KWin&diff=2427User:Mgraesslin/KWin2009-01-30T12:21:44Z<p>Mgraesslin: Change size and move</p>
<hr />
<div>KWin is the window manager of the KDE workspace. This application is responsible for placing and managing windows, managing virtual desktops and many important actions like the shortcut alt+tab to change the active window.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Shortcuts ==<br />
KWin's global shortcuts can be configured via ''"Systemsettings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts"''. There you have to select '''KWin''' in ''"KDE component"''. The following table lists the most important shortcuts with their default settings.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable sortable" border=1<br />
! Shortcut !! Action<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F1 || Switch to desktop 1 <br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F2 || Switch to desktop 2<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F3 || Switch to desktop 3<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F4 || Switch to desktop 4<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Tab || Walk through windows<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+Tab || Walk through windows (reverse)<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F3 || Window Operations Menu<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F4 || Close window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+Esc || Kill window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+A || Activate window demanding attention<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Print || Desktop screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Print || Window screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+F12 || Suspend compositing<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F8 || Show desktop grid<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F9 || Toggle present windows (current desktop)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F10 || Toggle present windows (all desktops)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F11 || Desktop cube<br />
|}<br />
<br />
== Manage windows ==<br />
The following sections will present many mouse and key combinations. That is always the default configuration. Each of these combination can be changed. That is described in section configuration.<br />
=== Change size ===<br />
The size of a window can be changed most easily with the maximize button. This button is by default the second button from right side in the titel bar. By clicking it with the left mouse button the window will be both horizontally and vertically maximized or the original size is restored. By clicking the button with the middle mouse button the window will be vertically maximized and by clicking with the right mouse button the window will be horizontally maximized. By double clicking the title bar with the left mouse button the window will be maximized as well.<br />
<br />
If the window is not maximized the window size can be changed individually. Therefore you move the mouse to the window border. Now a size-change mouse cursor will be shown. By pressing the left mouse button and simultaneous moving of the mouse (dragging) the size of the window will be changed. If it is difficult to reach one of the borders, you can press the alt-key in combination with the right mouse button to change the size. There is also a option in the useraction menu available.<br />
<br />
=== Move ===<br />
A window can be moved via the title bar. Therefore you have to click with the left mouse button on any place of the title bar and move the mouse while keeping the mouse button pressed. If you cannot reach parts of the window, because the title bar borders to the top of the screen you can use the combination of alt and left mouse button on any place of the window and move the window by moving the mouse. Another possibility is to use the desktop grid effect or the pager to move the window. <br />
<br />
The useraction menu offers the possibility to move the window as well. In that case you can move the window by just moving the mouse without pressing a key or mouse button. The moving ends as soon as there is an event such as a mouse click or enter key.</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=User:Mgraesslin/KWin&diff=2426User:Mgraesslin/KWin2009-01-30T11:49:30Z<p>Mgraesslin: Introduction and shortcuts</p>
<hr />
<div>KWin is the window manager of the KDE workspace. This application is responsible for placing and managing windows, managing virtual desktops and many important actions like the shortcut alt+tab to change the active window.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Shortcuts ==<br />
KWin's global shortcuts can be configured via ''"Systemsettings -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Global Keyboard Shortcuts"''. There you have to select '''KWin''' in ''"KDE component"''. The following table lists the most important shortcuts with their default settings.<br />
<br />
{| class="wikitable sortable" border=1<br />
! Shortcut !! Action<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F1 || Switch to desktop 1 <br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F2 || Switch to desktop 2<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F3 || Switch to desktop 3<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F4 || Switch to desktop 4<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Tab || Walk through windows<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+Tab || Walk through windows (reverse)<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F3 || Window Operations Menu<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+F4 || Close window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+Esc || Kill window<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Alt+A || Activate window demanding attention<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+Print || Desktop screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Print || Window screenshot to clipboard<br />
|-<br />
| Alt+Shift+F12 || Suspend compositing<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F8 || Show desktop grid<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F9 || Toggle present windows (current desktop)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F10 || Toggle present windows (all desktops)<br />
|-<br />
| Ctrl+F11 || Desktop cube<br />
|}</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Dolphin&diff=1457Dolphin2008-09-29T13:22:19Z<p>Mgraesslin: Panels from ubuntuusers.de Wiki</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Template:I18n/Language_Navigation_Bar|Dolphin}}<br />
== General information ==<br />
Dolphin is the file manager of KDE.<br />
<br />
I'll show how to use dolphin for common file managing tasks, and how to customize it to your needs.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin default.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When we open the dolphin from [[Glossary#Kickoff|Kickoff menu]] it shows starting directory - by default it is your [[Glossary#Home_Directory|Home directory]].<br />
<br />
To open file, or go to folder just click on it. You don't have to double-click. It's KDE, not windows - you can click only once :).<br />
<br />
Selecting files - in KDE, by default when you click once on something, it activates. In Windows you have to couble-click for that effect. So, there is problem, what to do in KDE if you don't want to open folder or file, only select it ? Answer is simple - over any icon in dolphin, when you hover your mose over it, there will be small "+" sign. Like that:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When you click that sign, this file/folder will be added to selection. You can easily select many files in that way (selecting by draging rectangle also works).<br />
<br />
Many selected files looks like this:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered deselect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
We also see here, how we can deselect files - when file is selected, and you place your mouse cursor over it, in place of "+" sign there will be "-". If you click it, file will be deselected.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{KDE3}}<br />
D3lphin is a fork of Dolphin for KDE 3. It lacks some features of Dolphin from KDE 4. It is also less known, because for KDE 3 default file manager was Konqueror. This fork is not supported by KDE and is no longer maintained by its author.<br />
<br />
{{KDE4}}<br />
In KDE 4 Dolphin opens by default, when we click on any folder, it can also be started from [[Glossary#Kickoff|Kickoff menu]].<br />
<br />
== Navigation Bar ==<br />
Dolphin integrates a new concept to use the navigation bar in a faster and more precise way. Therefore a breadcrumb navigation bar is used. Instead of displaying the complete path only the navigation points starting from one of the places are displayed as buttons. By clicking one of these buttons you navigate directly to this folder. So you can reach a parent folder from a sub folder in a very quick way.<br />
<br />
Between the buttons which represent a folder there is a small arrow which is a button as well. By clicking this arrow a list of all sub folders of the folder in front of the arrow is shown. So you can change very fast the selected and displayed sub folder.<br />
<br />
There is also a classical navigation bar which displayes the complete path. To use this style you can select ''"View -> Navigation Bar -> Show Full Location''" or trigger the keyboard shortcut '''Ctrl+L'''. By clicking on the free space next to the last displayed folder in the breadcrumb style you can change to the classical style as well. If the classical style is selected an arrow is displayed at the end of the navigation bar. This arrow is a button which can be used to change back to the breadcrumb style. Of course menu and keyboard shortcut can be used, too.<br />
<br />
== Split View ==<br />
Dolphin offers the possibility to split the current folder view so that two folder views are displayed next to each other as known from [[:wikipedia:Midnight Commander|Midnight Commander]]. This is a very comfortable view to copy or move files from one folder to another.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin split view.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
You can split the view with ''"View -> Split"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F3'''). To change back to only one folder view you can use ''"View -> Close"''. The symbol will show you which view will be closed. Depending on the currently active view the minus sign will be shown in the left or right part of the symbol. In general always the inactive view will be closed. This is important to know if you want to use the keyboard shortcut. There is also a button for splitting and closing the view situated in the toolbar. This button displays the minus symbol as well, so it is easy to know which view would be closed.<br />
<br />
Of course each view has its own navigation bar and each view can use a different view mode.<br />
<br />
== View mode ==<br />
Dolphin supports three different view modes: ''"Icons"'', ''"Details"'' and ''"Columns"''. These can be changed via the menu ''"View -> View mode"'' or via the keyboard shortcuts '''Ctrl+1''' (Icons), '''Ctrl+2''' (Details) and '''Ctrl+3''' (Columns). There is also a button for each view mode in the toolbar and the context menu of the folder view offers a submenu ''"View mode"'' to change the view mode.<br />
<br />
=== Icons ===<br />
Each file and each folder is represented by an icon in the view mode ''"Icons"''. Instead of displaying an icon a preview of the file can be shown. This behaviour can be turned on/off via the menu ''"View -> Preview"'' or via a toolbar button. There exists a size limit for the file previews. This size limitation can be configured via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> General"'' option ''"File Previews -> Maximum file size"''. There is also an option to use thumbnails embedded in files.<br />
<br />
The files in the currently selected folder are sorted in alphabetical order by default. The way of sorting can be changed via menu ''"View -> Sort by"''. The following sort criteria are available:<br />
<br />
* Name<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Additionally the sorting sequence can be defined by ''"View -> Sort by -> Descending"''.<br />
<br />
There is the possibility to display additional information below the icons. These can be turned on/off via ''"View -> Additional Information"''. In principal the same criteria which are available as search criteria can be selected.<br />
<br />
You can group the icons to achieve a better overview. This is turned on via ''"View -> Show in Groups"''. Now the icons are grouped and the groups are divided by a horizontal line containing the name of the group as caption. The grouping is related to the selected search criterium.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin show in groups effect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
=== Details ===<br />
In view mode ''"Details"'' additional information are displayed by default in contrast to view mode ''"Icons"''. All files are listed in a tabular. The context menu of the table header offers the possibility to add additional columns. The following columns are available:<br />
<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Column ''"Name''" is always displayed. By clicking on the header of one of the columns the table will be sorted by this column. By clicking on the same column header the sorting sequence is reverted. <br />
<br />
Since KDE 4.1 it is possible to display the folders as a tree. In this mode a plus sign is shown next to the folder. By clicking on this sign the folder is expanded and all containing sub folders and files are also shown in the table but they are itenuated. By clicking the sign, which display a minus now, again the expansion is closed again. Of course the tree structure can be used for as many folders as wished. The tree view is disabled by default, but can be activated via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> Details"'' with option ''"Expandable Folders"''.<br />
<br />
=== Columns ===<br />
View mode ''"Columns"'' is inspired by the file manager Finder of Mac OS X. Entering a sub folder does not replace the current folder view but the content of the sub folder is listed in an additional column next to the column of the parent folder. This can be used for several hierarchies, so that you can navigate in an easy and fast way in the file system.<br />
<br />
== Panels ==<br />
Dolphin contains several panels, which can be activated via menu ''"View -> Panels''". Each panel can be placed in the left or right docking area. To move a panel you have to click on the header and Drag&Drop the panel. The area where the panel will be placed on mouse released is highlighted. It is possible to stack panels on top of each other. In this case the panels are placed into tabs.<br />
<br />
In the header of each panel there are two buttons. The button near to the caption undocks the panel. This makes the panel an independent window which "floats" above Dolphin. The window is still combined with Dolphin and cannot be displayed withoud Dolphin and cannot for example be minimized like normal windows. By clicking the button again the panel is docked again. The second button will close the panel.<br />
<br />
=== Places ===<br />
Dolphin contains a kind of bookmarks which are called ''"Places"''. These are displayed in a panel which can be activated via ''"View -> Panels -> Places"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F9'''). The Places are identical to the one shown in the categorie ''"System"'' of the K-MenĂ¼ [[Glossary#Kickoff|Kickoff]].<br />
<br />
By clicking one of these places it will be opened in the current folder view. The context menu offers the possibility to edit the places or to remove them again. It is also possible to hide entries temporarily.<br />
<br />
The context menu of a folder can be used to add this folder an another entry to the Places panel. Therefore there is a menu item ''"Add to Places"''. You can also Drag&Drop a folder to the Places panel.<br />
<br />
The places panel also contains entries to connected removable devices like USB-keys or CDs. A small plug icon indicates if the device is mounted. The context menu offers the possibility to unmount the device.<br />
<br />
The places are used as the basis in the breadcrumb navigation bar. Each address is shown in relation to the nearest parent folder which is one of the places.<br />
<br />
=== Information ===<br />
The information panel can be activated via ''"View -> Panels -> Information"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F11'''). This panel displays a preview or an icon of the currently selected file/folder or of the file/folder below the mouse cursor. Some additional information like change date or size to the file/folder are displayed as well.<br />
<br />
The information panel offers the possibility to rate files, add a comment or tag a file. This is one of the interfaces to the semantic Desktop [[Nepomuk]] which provides the advantages of the semantic web for the desktop. Starting with KDE 4.2 it will be possible to search for the semantic links given by the tags. Currently tagging only offers an outlook to future versions.<br />
<br />
=== Folders ===<br />
A panel providing a tree structure for the file system can be displayed via ''"View -> Panels -> Folders"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F7'''). The tree structur offers the possibility by clicking the + and - signs to expand/collaps sub folders. By clicking on one of the folders the content will be displayed in the current view.<br />
<br />
=== Terminal ===<br />
The terminal emulator [[Konsole]] can be displayed directly in Dolphin via ''"View -> Panels -> Terminal"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F4'''). So it is possible to use shell commands directly in Dolphin. The terminal is opened in the folder which is displayed in the current view.<br />
<br />
== External links ==<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(software) Wikipedia- Dolphin_(software)]<br />
<br />
[http://dot.kde.org/1172721427/ Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror] <br />
<br />
[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070405-afirst-look-at-dolphin-the-kde-4-file-manager.html Ars Technica: A First Look at Dolphin] <br />
<br />
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HS1v0a9Xs Youtube - KDE 4 rev 680445 - Dolphin] <br />
<br />
[http://introducingkde4.blogspot.com/2007/12/dolphin.html Introducing KDE 4 Blog - Dolphin]</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Dolphin&diff=1405Dolphin2008-09-27T13:50:59Z<p>Mgraesslin: Adding view modes details and columns</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Template:I18n/Language_Navigation_Bar|Dolphin}}<br />
== General information ==<br />
Dolphin is the file manager of KDE.<br />
<br />
I'll show how to use dolphin for common file managing tasks, and how to customize it to your needs.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin default.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When we open the dolphin from [[Glossary#Kickoff|Kickoff menu]] it shows starting directory - by default it is your [[Glossary#Home_Directory|Home directory]].<br />
<br />
To open file, or go to folder just click on it. You don't have to double-click. It's KDE, not windows - you can click only once :).<br />
<br />
Selecting files - in KDE, by default when you click once on something, it activates. In Windows you have to couble-click for that effect. So, there is problem, what to do in KDE if you don't want to open folder or file, only select it ? Answer is simple - over any icon in dolphin, when you hover your mose over it, there will be small "+" sign. Like that:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When you click that sign, this file/folder will be added to selection. You can easily select many files in that way (selecting by draging rectangle also works).<br />
<br />
Many selected files looks like this:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered deselect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
We also see here, how we can deselect files - when file is selected, and you place your mouse cursor over it, in place of "+" sign there will be "-". If you click it, file will be deselected.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{KDE3}}<br />
D3lphin is a fork of Dolphin for KDE 3. It lacks some features of Dolphin from KDE 4. It is also less known, because for KDE 3 default file manager was Konqueror. This fork is not supported by KDE and is no longer maintained by its author.<br />
<br />
{{KDE4}}<br />
In KDE 4 Dolphin opens by default, when we click on any folder, it can also be started from [[Glossary#Kickoff|Kickoff menu]].<br />
<br />
== Navigation Bar ==<br />
Dolphin integrates a new concept to use the navigation bar in a faster and more precise way. Therefore a breadcrumb navigation bar is used. Instead of displaying the complete path only the navigation points starting from one of the places are displayed as buttons. By clicking one of these buttons you navigate directly to this folder. So you can reach a parent folder from a sub folder in a very quick way.<br />
<br />
Between the buttons which represent a folder there is a small arrow which is a button as well. By clicking this arrow a list of all sub folders of the folder in front of the arrow is shown. So you can change very fast the selected and displayed sub folder.<br />
<br />
There is also a classical navigation bar which displayes the complete path. To use this style you can select ''"View -> Navigation Bar -> Show Full Location''" or trigger the keyboard shortcut '''Ctrl+L'''. By clicking on the free space next to the last displayed folder in the breadcrumb style you can change to the classical style as well. If the classical style is selected an arrow is displayed at the end of the navigation bar. This arrow is a button which can be used to change back to the breadcrumb style. Of course menu and keyboard shortcut can be used, too.<br />
<br />
== Split View ==<br />
Dolphin offers the possibility to split the current folder view so that two folder views are displayed next to each other as known from [[:wikipedia:Midnight Commander|Midnight Commander]]. This is a very comfortable view to copy or move files from one folder to another.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin split view.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
You can split the view with ''"View -> Split"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F3'''). To change back to only one folder view you can use ''"View -> Close"''. The symbol will show you which view will be closed. Depending on the currently active view the minus sign will be shown in the left or right part of the symbol. In general always the inactive view will be closed. This is important to know if you want to use the keyboard shortcut. There is also a button for splitting and closing the view situated in the toolbar. This button displays the minus symbol as well, so it is easy to know which view would be closed.<br />
<br />
Of course each view has its own navigation bar and each view can use a different view mode.<br />
<br />
== View mode ==<br />
Dolphin supports three different view modes: ''"Icons"'', ''"Details"'' and ''"Columns"''. These can be changed via the menu ''"View -> View mode"'' or via the keyboard shortcuts '''Ctrl+1''' (Icons), '''Ctrl+2''' (Details) and '''Ctrl+3''' (Columns). There is also a button for each view mode in the toolbar and the context menu of the folder view offers a submenu ''"View mode"'' to change the view mode.<br />
<br />
=== Icons ===<br />
Each file and each folder is represented by an icon in the view mode ''"Icons"''. Instead of displaying an icon a preview of the file can be shown. This behaviour can be turned on/off via the menu ''"View -> Preview"'' or via a toolbar button. There exists a size limit for the file previews. This size limitation can be configured via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> General"'' option ''"File Previews -> Maximum file size"''. There is also an option to use thumbnails embedded in files.<br />
<br />
The files in the currently selected folder are sorted in alphabetical order by default. The way of sorting can be changed via menu ''"View -> Sort by"''. The following sort criteria are available:<br />
<br />
* Name<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Additionally the sorting sequence can be defined by ''"View -> Sort by -> Descending"''.<br />
<br />
There is the possibility to display additional information below the icons. These can be turned on/off via ''"View -> Additional Information"''. In principal the same criteria which are available as search criteria can be selected.<br />
<br />
You can group the icons to achieve a better overview. This is turned on via ''"View -> Show in Groups"''. Now the icons are grouped and the groups are divided by a horizontal line containing the name of the group as caption. The grouping is related to the selected search criterium.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin show in groups effect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
=== Details ===<br />
In view mode ''"Details"'' additional information are displayed by default in contrast to view mode ''"Icons"''. All files are listed in a tabular. The context menu of the table header offers the possibility to add additional columns. The following columns are available:<br />
<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Column ''"Name''" is always displayed. By clicking on the header of one of the columns the table will be sorted by this column. By clicking on the same column header the sorting sequence is reverted. <br />
<br />
Since KDE 4.1 it is possible to display the folders as a tree. In this mode a plus sign is shown next to the folder. By clicking on this sign the folder is expanded and all containing sub folders and files are also shown in the table but they are itenuated. By clicking the sign, which display a minus now, again the expansion is closed again. Of course the tree structure can be used for as many folders as wished. The tree view is disabled by default, but can be activated via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> Details"'' with option ''"Expandable Folders"''.<br />
<br />
=== Columns ===<br />
View mode ''"Columns"'' is inspired by the file manager Finder of Mac OS X. Entering a sub folder does not replace the current folder view but the content of the sub folder is listed in an additional column next to the column of the parent folder. This can be used for several hierarchies, so that you can navigate in an easy and fast way in the file system.<br />
<br />
<br />
== External links ==<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_(software) Wikipedia- Dolphin_(software)]<br />
<br />
[http://dot.kde.org/1172721427/ Road to KDE 4: Dolphin and Konqueror] <br />
<br />
[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070405-afirst-look-at-dolphin-the-kde-4-file-manager.html Ars Technica: A First Look at Dolphin] <br />
<br />
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4HS1v0a9Xs Youtube - KDE 4 rev 680445 - Dolphin] <br />
<br />
[http://introducingkde4.blogspot.com/2007/12/dolphin.html Introducing KDE 4 Blog - Dolphin]</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Dolphin&diff=1251Dolphin2008-09-23T10:39:51Z<p>Mgraesslin: Moving images where they better fit; removing existing "show in groups" and "split view"</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Template:I18n/Language_Navigation_Bar|Dolphin}}<br />
<br />
Dolphin is the file manager of KDE.<br />
<br />
I'll show how to use dolphin for common file managing tasks, and how to customize it to your needs.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin default.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When we open the dolphin from K-menu it shows starting directory - by default it is your home directory. That's the place in system, where all your files are kept. You can write your files outside of this folder, but all applications are configured to propose this folder as place to write your files to. And this is easier, when you are keeping your things here.<br />
<br />
To open file, or go to folder just click on it. You don't have to double-click. It's KDE, not windows - you can click only once :).<br />
<br />
Selecting files - in KDE, by default when you click once on something, it activates. In Windows you have to couble-click for that effect. So, there is problem, what to do in KDE if you don't want to open folder or file, only select it ? Answer is simple - over any icon in dolphin, when you hover your mose over it, there will be small "+" sign. Like that:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When you click that sign, this file/folder will be added to selection. You can easily select many files in that way (selecting by draging rectangle also works).<br />
<br />
Many selected files looks like this:<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered deselect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
We also see here, how we can deselect files - when file is selected, and you place your mouse cursor over it, in place of "+" sign there will be "-". If you click it, file will be deselected.<br />
<br />
<br />
{{KDE3}}<br />
D3lphin is a fork of Dolphin for KDE 3. It lacks some features of Dolphin from KDE 4. It is also less known, because for KDE 3 default file manager was Konqueror. This fork is not supported by KDE and is no longer maintained by its author.<br />
<br />
{{KDE4}}<br />
In KDE 4 Dolphin opens by default, when we click on any folder, it can also be started from K-menu.<br />
<br />
== Navigation Bar ==<br />
Dolphin integrates a new concept to use the navigation bar in a faster and more precise way. Therefore a breadcrumb navigation bar is used. Instead of displaying the complete path only the navigation points starting from one of the places are displayed as buttons. By clicking one of these buttons you navigate directly to this folder. So you can reach a parent folder from a sub folder in a very quick way.<br />
<br />
Between the buttons which represent a folder there is a small arrow which is a button as well. By clicking this arrow a list of all sub folders of the folder in front of the arrow is shown. So you can change very fast the selected and displayed sub folder.<br />
<br />
There is also a classical navigation bar which displayes the complete path. To use this style you can select ''"View -> Navigation Bar -> Show Full Location''" or trigger the keyboard shortcut '''Ctrl+L'''. By clicking on the free space next to the last displayed folder in the breadcrumb style you can change to the classical style as well. If the classical style is selected an arrow is displayed at the end of the navigation bar. This arrow is a button which can be used to change back to the breadcrumb style. Of course menu and keyboard shortcut can be used, too.<br />
<br />
== Split View ==<br />
Dolphin offers the possibility to split the current folder view so that two folder views are displayed next to each other as known from [[:wikipedia:Midnight Commander|Midnight Commander]]. This is a very comfortable view to copy or move files from one folder to another.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin split view.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
You can split the view with ''"View -> Split"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F3'''). To change back to only one folder view you can use ''"View -> Close"''. The symbol will show you which view will be closed. Depending on the currently active view the minus sign will be shown in the left or right part of the symbol. In general always the inactive view will be closed. This is important to know if you want to use the keyboard shortcut. There is also a button for splitting and closing the view situated in the toolbar. This button displays the minus symbol as well, so it is easy to know which view would be closed.<br />
<br />
Of course each view has its own navigation bar and each view can use a different view mode.<br />
<br />
== View mode ==<br />
Dolphin supports three different view modes: ''"Icons"'', ''"Details"'' and ''"Columns"''. These can be changed via the menu ''"View -> View mode"'' or via the keyboard shortcuts '''Ctrl+1''' (Icons), '''Ctrl+2''' (Details) and '''Ctrl+3''' (Columns). There is also a button for each view mode in the toolbar and the context menu of the folder view offers a submenu ''"View mode"'' to change the view mode.<br />
<br />
=== Icons ===<br />
Each file and each folder is represented by an icon in the view mode ''"Icons"''. Instead of displaying an icon a preview of the file can be shown. This behaviour can be turned on/off via the menu ''"View -> Preview"'' or via a toolbar button. There exists a size limit for the file previews. This size limitation can be configured via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> General"'' option ''"File Previews -> Maximum file size"''. There is also an option to use thumbnails embedded in files.<br />
<br />
The files in the currently selected folder are sorted in alphabetical order by default. The way of sorting can be changed via menu ''"View -> Sort by"''. The following sort criteria are available:<br />
<br />
* Name<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Additionally the sorting sequence can be defined by ''"View -> Sort by -> Descending"''.<br />
<br />
There is the possibility to display additional information below the icons. These can be turned on/off via ''"View -> Additional Information"''. In principal the same criteria which are available as search criteria can be selected.<br />
<br />
You can group the icons to achieve a better overview. This is turned on via ''"View -> Show in Groups"''. Now the icons are grouped and the groups are divided by a horizontal line containing the name of the group as caption. The grouping is related to the selected search criterium.<br />
[[Image:Dolphin show in groups effect.png|thumb|240px|center]]</div>Mgraesslinhttps://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Dolphin&diff=1250Dolphin2008-09-23T10:35:06Z<p>Mgraesslin: First merge from http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Dolphin - more to follow</p>
<hr />
<div>{{Template:I18n/Language_Navigation_Bar|Dolphin}}<br />
<br />
Dolphin is the file manager of KDE.<br />
<br />
I'll show how to use dolphin for common file managing tasks, and how to customize it to your needs.<br />
<br />
[[Image:Dolphin default.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
<br />
When we open the dolphin from K-menu it shows starting directory - by default it is your home directory. That's the place in system, where all your files are kept. You can write your files outside of this folder, but all applications are configured to propose this folder as place to write your files to. And this is easier, when you are keeping your things here.<br />
<br />
To open file, or go to folder just click on it. You don't have to double-click. It's KDE, not windows - you can click only once :).<br />
<br />
Selecting files - in KDE, by default when you click once on something, it activates. In Windows you have to couble-click for that effect. So, there is problem, what to do in KDE if you don't want to open folder or file, only select it ? Answer is simple - over any icon in dolphin, when you hover your mose over it, there will be small "+" sign. Like that:<br />
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[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
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When you click that sign, this file/folder will be added to selection. You can easily select many files in that way (selecting by draging rectangle also works).<br />
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Many selected files looks like this:<br />
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[[Image:Dolphin folder hovered deselect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
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We also see here, how we can deselect files - when file is selected, and you place your mouse cursor over it, in place of "+" sign there will be "-". If you click it, file will be deselected.<br />
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Customizing Dolphin.<br />
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* Grouping files:<br />
Sometimes there are many files in directory, and you are only interested in text files, or images.<br />
There is a way to separate files of different types in dolphin, without moving it to subdirectories.<br />
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In menu View there is option "Show in groups". Let's enable it.<br />
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[[Image:Dolphin show in groups effect.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
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* Split view:<br />
You can split view in Dolphin, to make it easier to copy between folders, etc.<br />
It will look like in old Norton Commander or Total Commander (or Midnight Commander).<br />
[[Image:Dolphin split view.png|thumb|240px|center]]<br />
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{{KDE3}}<br />
D3lphin is a fork of Dolphin for KDE 3. It lacks some features of Dolphin from KDE 4. It is also less known, because for KDE 3 default file manager was Konqueror. This fork is not supported by KDE and is no longer maintained by its author.<br />
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{{KDE4}}<br />
In KDE 4 Dolphin opens by default, when we click on any folder, it can also be started from K-menu.<br />
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== Navigation Bar ==<br />
Dolphin integrates a new concept to use the navigation bar in a faster and more precise way. Therefore a breadcrumb navigation bar is used. Instead of displaying the complete path only the navigation points starting from one of the places are displayed as buttons. By clicking one of these buttons you navigate directly to this folder. So you can reach a parent folder from a sub folder in a very quick way.<br />
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Between the buttons which represent a folder there is a small arrow which is a button as well. By clicking this arrow a list of all sub folders of the folder in front of the arrow is shown. So you can change very fast the selected and displayed sub folder.<br />
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There is also a classical navigation bar which displayes the complete path. To use this style you can select ''"View -> Navigation Bar -> Show Full Location''" or trigger the keyboard shortcut '''Ctrl+L'''. By clicking on the free space next to the last displayed folder in the breadcrumb style you can change to the classical style as well. If the classical style is selected an arrow is displayed at the end of the navigation bar. This arrow is a button which can be used to change back to the breadcrumb style. Of course menu and keyboard shortcut can be used, too.<br />
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== Split View ==<br />
Dolphin offers the possibility to split the current folder view so that two folder views are displayed next to each other as known from [:wikipedia:Midnight Commander]. This is a very comfortable view to copy or move files from one folder to another.<br />
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You can split the view with ''"View -> Split"'' (keyboard shortcut '''F3'''). To change back to only one folder view you can use ''"View -> Close"''. The symbol will show you which view will be closed. Depending on the currently active view the minus sign will be shown in the left or right part of the symbol. In general always the inactive view will be closed. This is important to know if you want to use the keyboard shortcut. There is also a button for splitting and closing the view situated in the toolbar. This button displays the minus symbol as well, so it is easy to know which view would be closed.<br />
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Of course each view has its own navigation bar and each view can use a different view mode.<br />
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== View mode ==<br />
Dolphin supports three different view modes: ''"Icons"'', ''"Details"'' and ''"Columns"''. These can be changed via the menu ''"View -> View mode"'' or via the keyboard shortcuts '''Ctrl+1''' (Icons), '''Ctrl+2''' (Details) and '''Ctrl+3''' (Columns). There is also a button for each view mode in the toolbar and the context menu of the folder view offers a submenu ''"View mode"'' to change the view mode.<br />
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=== Icons ===<br />
Each file and each folder is represented by an icon in the view mode ''"Icons"''. Instead of displaying an icon a preview of the file can be shown. This behaviour can be turned on/off via the menu ''"View -> Preview"'' or via a toolbar button. There exists a size limit for the file previews. This size limitation can be configured via ''"Settings -> Configure Dolphin -> View Modes -> General"'' option ''"File Previews -> Maximum file size"''. There is also an option to use thumbnails embedded in files.<br />
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The files in the currently selected folder are sorted in alphabetical order by default. The way of sorting can be changed via menu ''"View -> Sort by"''. The following sort criteria are available:<br />
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* Name<br />
* Size<br />
* Date<br />
* Permissions<br />
* Owner<br />
* Group<br />
* Type<br />
Additionally the sorting sequence can be defined by ''"View -> Sort by -> Descending"''.<br />
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There is the possibility to display additional information below the icons. These can be turned on/off via ''"View -> Additional Information"''. In principal the same criteria which are available as search criteria can be selected.<br />
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You can group the icons to achieve a better overview. This is turned on via ''"View -> Show in Groups"''. Now the icons are grouped and the groups are divided by a horizontal line containing the name of the group as caption. The grouping is related to the selected search criterium.</div>Mgraesslin