Is Firefox 9.0.1 A Dog? Choppy Scrolling and Other Issues

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by QuantumKnot

Sounds like it might be nouveau. Just another test.

Post the output when you type the following in a terminal: glxinfo | grep render

Also, try running glxgears. What's the FPS?

The output from glxgears is meaningless, gtkperf would be a better test.

su 
yum install gtkperf

[gadgetwiz]

Here's the info...

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI nv18

glxgears avg: 320 fps

GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Fri Jan 13 05:09:44 2012

GtkEntry - time: 0.14
GtkComboBox - time: 2.51
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 1.97
GtkSpinButton - time: 0.80
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.93
GtkToggleButton - time: 0.95
GtkCheckButton - time: 0.29
GtkRadioButton - time: 0.39
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 0.50
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 0.37
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 2.14
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 1.39
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 1.11
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 0.77
---
Total time: 14.27

Just tested Google Chrome and it's lightning fast.

What makes Firefox so different or special -vs- all the other browsers, if the issue is video performance. I don't get that.

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by gadgetwiz

Here's the info...

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI nv18

glxgears avg: 320 fps

GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Fri Jan 13 05:09:44 2012

GtkEntry - time: 0.14
GtkComboBox - time: 2.51
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 1.97
GtkSpinButton - time: 0.80
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.93
GtkToggleButton - time: 0.95
GtkCheckButton - time: 0.29
GtkRadioButton - time: 0.39
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 0.50
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 0.37
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 2.14
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 1.39
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 1.11
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 0.77
---
Total time: 14.27

Just tested Google Chrome and it's lightning fast.

What makes Firefox so different or special -vs- all the other browsers, if the issue is video performance. I don't get that.

The gtkperf times seem ok

GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Fri Jan 13 10:23:05 2012

GtkEntry - time:  0.02
GtkComboBox - time:  1.45
GtkComboBoxEntry - time:  1.03
GtkSpinButton - time:  0.07
GtkProgressBar - time:  0.06
GtkToggleButton - time:  0.14
GtkCheckButton - time:  0.06
GtkRadioButton - time:  0.09
GtkTextView - Add text - time:  0.11
GtkTextView - Scroll - time:  0.14
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time:  0.38
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time:  0.31
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time:  0.13
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time:  0.04
 --- 
Total time:  4.04

As for glxgears, it's meaningless

[leigh@main_pc ~]$ glxgears
64720 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12943.936 FPS
66045 frames in 5.0 seconds = 13208.942 FPS
66095 frames in 5.0 seconds = 13218.949 FPS

[QuantumKnot]

Reason I was mainly interested in glxinfo and glxgears was to see what OpenGL renderer was being used.

Originally Posted by gadgetwiz

Here's the info...

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI nv18

glxgears avg: 320 fps

hmm is that a software renderer? Do other window operations in gnome-shell seem slow or use up a lot of CPU? On my setup, my OpenGL renderer is "Gallium 0.4 on NVAC".

Have you tried installing the legacy nvidia proprietary driver? I think 96.43.19 was the last version that supported you card.

[gadgetwiz]

Ok, I'm posting now from Firefox 3.6.25 and it runs fine. They are still supporting this version but not for much longer.

I noticed there is no option for rendering with this version.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

At this point, I'm assuming that there is some issue with the way the newer versions of Firefox is rendering with the nouveau driver. The CPU hogging is especially bad on sites with the lots of images, Turning off images speeds up FF8, FF9 & FF10 but they 're still not nearly as fast as Chrome, Opera, Konqueror or Firefox 3.6.x in F16.

That being the case, do you all think the issue is with Firefox or with the nouveau driver?

---------- Post added at 06:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 AM ----------

Originally Posted by QuantumKnot

Have you tried installing the legacy nvidia proprietary driver? I think 96.43.19 was the last version that supported you card.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Fedora hasn't supported the 96XX drivers since Fedora 14 and yes, everything else is pretty snappy. The only issue I have is with the later versions of Firefox.

[QuantumKnot]

Originally Posted by gadgetwiz

Ok, I'm posting now from Firefox 3.6.25 and it runs fine. They are still supporting this version but not for much longer.

I noticed there is no option for rendering with this version.

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

At this point, I'm assuming that there is some issue with the way the newer versions of Firefox is rendering with the nouveau driver. The CPU hogging is especially bad on sites with the lots of images, Turning off images speeds up FF8, FF9 & FF10 but they 're still not nearly as fast as Chrome, Opera, Konqueror or Firefox 3.6.x in F16.

That being the case, do you all think the issue is with Firefox or with the nouveau driver?

My guess would be that it is a bit of both. When running the nouveau driver, the newer Firefoxes probably run at their best with newer nvidia cards, since I've seen Firefox 9.0.1 run on nouveau and it worked ok.

---------- Post added at 06:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 AM ----------


As mentioned earlier in the thread, Fedora hasn't supported the 96XX drivers since Fedora 14 and yes, everything else is pretty snappy. The only issue I have is with the later versions of Firefox.

You could install the legacy driver downloaded from the nvidia site though most here would frown upon that. But that would be the ultimate test to determine whether it is nouveau that is the culprit here.

[gadgetwiz]

Originally Posted by QuantumKnot

You could install the legacy driver downloaded from the nvidia site though most here would frown upon that. But that would be the ultimate test to determine whether it is nouveau that is the culprit here.

The version of Xserver used in Fedora 15+ is incompatible with the nVidia's proprietary 96xx driver. If not, I would already be using it.

[QuantumKnot]

Originally Posted by gadgetwiz

The version of Xserver used in Fedora 15+ is incompatible with the nVidia's proprietary 96xx driver. If not, I would already be using it.

Ah ok. That's unfortunate, esp. when the other DEs have the same issue too. Did you try fallback mode?

[gadgetwiz]

Originally Posted by QuantumKnot

Ah ok. That's unfortunate, esp. when the other DEs have the same issue too.

Yep, any distro that uses x server greater than v1.9.x, which is probably most of them. Fedora 16 is using x server v1.11.x.

Originally Posted by QuantumKnot

Did you try fallback mode?

Yes, tried it with no success.

I'm pretty much at the end of my rope with this issue. I think I've answered my original question in the title of this thread, and the answer is yes.

[gadgetwiz]

Just wanted to update the performance stats for my nVidia card when using the proprietary drivers in Fedora 14.

direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce4 MX 4000/AGP/SSE2

GtkPerf 0.40 - Starting testing: Sat Jan 14 00:53:20 2012

GtkEntry - time: 0.07
GtkComboBox - time: 1.96
GtkComboBoxEntry - time: 2.56
GtkSpinButton - time: 0.24
GtkProgressBar - time: 0.21
GtkToggleButton - time: 0.28
GtkCheckButton - time: 0.19
GtkRadioButton - time: 0.27
GtkTextView - Add text - time: 0.47
GtkTextView - Scroll - time: 0.38
GtkDrawingArea - Lines - time: 1.71
GtkDrawingArea - Circles - time: 1.73
GtkDrawingArea - Text - time: 0.67
GtkDrawingArea - Pixbufs - time: 0.52
---
Total time: 11.26

It's better than nouveau but overall, not significantly better.

With F14 and the proprietary nVidia drivers, and running Firefox 8.0 that I downloaded a couple of months ago from Remi repos, FF is lightning fast, with no choppiness or delays of any kind.

Next, I'll try to find this exact version of Firefox (8.0) and test that with F16 + the nouveau drivers.

No, I haven't given up quite yet.