FWIW, since compositing issues come up frequently, this little bit of shell is useful for troubleshooting compositing issues: (mainly to verify that the latter results from running/active qdbus queries match those you configured in kcmshell/files) ------- for key in Enabled DisableChecks AnimationSpeed Backend GLDirect GLMode GLVSync OpenGLIsUnsafe; do printf "kwinrc::Compositing::%s=%s\n" "${key}" "$(kreadconfig --file kwinrc --group "Compositing" --key "${key}")" done printf "kwin_compositing_active=$(qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin org.kde.KWin.compositingActive | sort | tr '\n' ' ')\n" printf "kwin_listed_effects=\n$(qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin org.kde.KWin.listOfEffects | sed -e 's/kwin4_effect_//' | sort | tr '\n' ' ' | fmt -w72 | sed -e 's/^/ /')\n" printf "kwin_loaded_effects=\n$(qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin org.kde.KWin.loadedEffects | sed -e 's/kwin4_effect_//' | sort | tr '\n' ' ' | fmt -w72 | sed -e 's/^/ /')\n" ------- A lot of these compositing options don't exist past KDE 4.4.5 (where i initially tested this) kwinrc::Compositing::Enabled=true kwinrc::Compositing::DisableChecks=true (this is the bit that keeps Kwin from aborting Compositing) kwinrc::Compositing::AnimationSpeed=0 (instantaneous) kwinrc::Compositing::Backend=OpenGL kwinrc::Compositing::GLDirect=true kwinrc::Compositing::GLMode=TFP kwinrc::Compositing::GLVSync=true kwinrc::Compositing::OpenGLIsUnsafe= (this exists in KDE later than Debian Squeeze i ran this on) kwin_compositing_active=true <--- reflects my file-based pref, so compositing is working as expected kwin_listed_effects= boxswitch coverswitch cube cubeslide desktopgrid dialogparent diminactive dimscreen explosion fade fadedesktop fallapart flipswitch highlightwindow invert login logout lookingglass magiclamp magnifier minimizeanimation mousemark presentwindows resize scalein shadow sharpen sheet showfps showpaint slide slideback slidingpopups snaphelper snow taskbarthumbnail thumbnailaside trackmouse translucency wobblywindows zoom kwin_loaded_effects= desktopgrid dialogparent diminactive logout mousemark presentwindows shadow translucency "loaded" effects appear to be the same as those "enabled" in the "GUI, whereas listed" are those which are known/registered. KDE 4.8 seems to have a new KWin method of "activeEffects", which on my Debian Wheezy laptop shows only 'translucency', only ONE of the list of effects i have enabled. (which is more accurately reflected by the 'loadedEffects' method) Also, tr '\0' '\n' < /proc/$(pgrep kwin)/environ | sort | egrep '(^(KDE|KWIN)|GL)' Will also help figure out if undesireable Environment Variables somehow got into the KWin environment. There's many things that have been thrown around related to poor nVidia performance with KDE/KWin, including the use of these environment variables: KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1 (theres a whole .so devoted just to setting this var in KDE4.4) KDE_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 QT_NO_GLIB=1 KWIN_DIRECT_GL=1 LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 # Pick one of these three sets of rendering options export KWIN_COMPOSE="X" # (Use XRender) graphicssystem="raster" #export KWIN_COMPOSE="O" # (Use OpenGL) #graphicssystem="opengl" #export KWIN_COMPOSE="N" # (Use None) #graphicssystem="native" I've lost track of what each of them did/fixed/broke, and only the first is still set in my environment (again, automatically by /usr/lib/libkwinnvidiahack.so.4.4.0) But give those a try. At one point KWIN_COMPOSE=X, --graphicssystem=raster was much faster, but tended to have some nasty redraw problems. (entire apps would fail to update their windows, re-exposed regions wouldn't repaint, etc) I ended up buying a new nVidia card, as the Quadro NVS295 that came with my system just couldn't cut it. I got a GeForce GT440 w/ 2GB Memory. I have found that the 2GB seems to make a big difference in my KDE experience. (firefox seems to be the biggest offender, but then i often have 50-150 windows and 200-400 tabs). I was typically running at 95-100% of memory-usage (as shown by 'nvidia-smi') with 1GB card. --stephen -- Stephen Dowdy - Systems Administrator - NCAR/RAL 303.497.2869 - sdowdy@xxxxxxxx - http://www.ral.ucar.edu/~sdowdy/ ___________________________________________________ This message is from the kde mailing list. Account management: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde. Archives: http://lists.kde.org/. More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.