openGL in xfwm4

[Harold Aling]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:14:38 -0800
"Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> Harold Aling wrote:
> > On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:52:46 +0100, Yves-Alexis Perez
> > <corsac at debian.org> wrote:
>  >
> >> I *really* like xfwm4 look and feel. Compositor is nice, but could
> >> behave faster (I guess) using openGL stuff in my intel card. And
> >> some fancy stuff like bluring the titlebar text is nice. Cube
> >> effect, wobbly windows etc. dont really attract me. I really
> >> prefer xfwm4 for all window management stuff.
> [snip]
> > That's exectly how I would see it: using the power of OpenGL to draw
> > exactly the same as the non-rocket-fueled Xfwm4.
> > 
> > I don't want any other effects than Xfwm4 offers at the moment
> > (transparency and shadows) but then drawn by OpenGL for a
> > performance boost and less CPU usage. If I really want all kinds of
> > fancy stuff I'll use Compiz.
> 
> Has anyone actually done any reasonable benchmarking of opengl-based
> vs. xrender-based compositing/rendering, and run it on a variety of
> cards with different drivers?

No I haven't, but I can tell you that with an intel onboard card at
work and my NVidia at home, everyting is just 'snappier'.

Moving windows around doesn't cost any CPU power, whilst moving
non-OpenGL accelerated windows (with shadows) can cause up to
100% cpu usage here (NVidia GeForce 6200/Intel P4 at 3GHz). When the
CPU is already busy, it can even cause a lag/trailing windows.

I don't know if this has to do with the quality of the 2D part of the
Intel and NVidia drivers, but Compiz just 'feels' faster than Xfwm4,
but then of cource, Xfwm4 is by far the better window manager...

-H-