CrunchBang Linux

ehde

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 18

Lag when drawing windows

Hi there,

because a picture is worth a thousand words, I added a link to a screencast of my desktop.

screencast

As you can see there is a big lag,  when I switch between some applications. I used geany and guayadeque as an example, because these both had the worst performance. Xorg is jumping to over 20% of cpu usage when the windows are drawn. Does anybody have an idea, where to start debugging? Another question is relating to thunar, because it also needs a lot of seconds to select multiple files. It's possible to fix it?

cheers, ehde

Shuttle XS35GT-V2
CPU: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU D525 @ 1.80GHz (2x)
RAM: 4GB
Graphic: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [ION] (rev a2)

Unia

#! Octo-portal-pussy

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2010-07-17

Posts: 4,173

Re: Lag when drawing windows

In Conky I can see your CPU cores are all maxing out. Is there something running in the background that takes a lot of resources? Try opening a terminal and running htop, or using gnome-system-monitor.

---

If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres
Github

I am a #! forum moderator. Feel free to send me a PM with any question you have!

ehde

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 18

Re: Lag when drawing windows

Thanks for reply. If you check the top processes section you can see that these peaks belong to kazam. Used it to record my desk.

Unia

#! Octo-portal-pussy

From: The Netherlands

Registered: 2010-07-17

Posts: 4,173

Re: Lag when drawing windows

In that case, I suspect it has to do with your video card and its driver - but as it is an NVIDIA card, and I have no experience with those, I'm afraid I can't help you any further.

---

If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres
Github

I am a #! forum moderator. Feel free to send me a PM with any question you have!

ehde

Member

Registered: 2013-10-08

Posts: 18

Re: Lag when drawing windows

Hi there,

just figured out that these lags seems to be caused by the gtk engine. Renamed ~/.gtkrc-2.0 and the system is so much faster now. But it's ugly too, so any suggestions how to proceed?

cheers, ehde

Update:
As next I checked all themes and separated the gtkrc files to find out the differences between the ones that are slowing down my system and the ones that didn't. But they differ just in the name of the theme. Any other ideas about the difference?

gtkrc-debug/
├── gtkrc-lag
│   ├── Albatross
│   ├── Bluebird
│   ├── Clearlooks
│   ├── greybird
│   ├── Kiwi
│   ├── Loma
│   ├── MurrinaALL
│   ├── Murrine-ALL
│   ├── NOX
│   ├── Orangine
│   ├── Redmine
│   ├── shearwater
│   └── waldorf
├── gtkrc-nolag
│   ├── AbsE
│   ├── BBstyle
│   ├── Cukoo-spit
│   ├── Fog-maths
│   ├── Gelb
│   ├── Light-industry
│   ├── Mist
│   ├── Mist-Ashen
│   ├── Misted
│   ├── Orange-fog
│   ├── Raleigh
│   ├── Simple-ALL
│   ├── Spiffe
│   ├── Spoff
│   ├── ThinIce
│   └── Weightless-industry
└── gtkrc-swlag
    ├── Crux
    ├── Industrial
    ├── Taqua
    └── TropicBomb

(swlag, means that the lag is only there when switching between windows, but not in thunar)

Last edited by ehde (2013-12-08 12:13:39)