From kde-devel  Sat Jul 12 21:51:14 2008
From: Michael Leupold <lemma () confuego ! org>
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:51:14 +0000
To: kde-devel
Subject: KDE4 and the nvidia driver
Message-Id: <200807122351.14428.lemma () confuego ! org>
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-devel&m=121589953704973

Hi there,

so far I've been reluctant to use KDE4 as my main desktop because the 
performance was pretty sloppy due to my nvidia 8600 GTS. Fortunately I've 
stumbled on some instructions on how to improve performance using those cards 
[1]:
1) Install the latest nvidia beta driver (currently 177.13)
2) Set the following options:
$ nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=2 -a GlyphCache=1

(Hint: some users reported it worked with InitialPixmapPlacement=1 for them)

This worked really well for me (plasma really responsive), so I thought I'd 
share it. The settings only stay as long as you don't restart your xserver 
but you can make them permanent by putting them into your xorg.conf:
-----------------
Section "Device"
   ...
   Option "InitialPixmapPlacement" "2"
   Option "GlyphCache" "1"
   ...
EndSection "Device"
-----------------

To make kwin work well with those new settings I had to adjust 
Settings->Desktop->D. Effects / Advanced Options to:
- Compositing type: OpenGL
- OpenGL mode: Shared Memory

I'd like to put together some information on how that works out with different 
cards, so if you'd like to share your experience, please visit the techbase 
page I set up: http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/KDE4-NVIDIA (or just 
reply).

Regards,
Michael

[1] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115916
 
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