3 ms·
Most of the latency you see in modern Linux desktops comes from the tech stack, not the compositor. E.g. Plasma, and lots of other KDE components, are QML-based
by alxlaz 7y ago
Most of the latency you see in modern Linux desktops comes from the tech stack, not the compositor. E.g. Plasma, and lots of other KDE components, are QML-based. You can see ths if you disable compositing. For example, you can run KDE with Openbox, without compositing, and lots of things are still laggy. Same thing with XFCE, where it's possible to disable xfwm4's compositor.
Not picking on KDE specifically -- I'm mentioning it because I use it on a few machines and it's the one that I'm most familiar with.
Compositing will inevitably give you some lag, but there's cap on how much, depending on the Vblank time. Extra lag is entirely self-inflicted :-).
- agumonkey 7y agothanks. I only mentioned composting because that's the only change I know happened since 90s gui engines, so I thought it would have an impact.
- alxlaz 7y agoAnd it does! Even when it's the only form of lag in existence, it's still noticeable -- see http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/dwm_latency.html http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/dwm_latency.html for the notes of someone else who's noticed it. I usually disable it on my work machine, too. I don't use flat themes anywhere, so I don't really need shadows, and I'm more than happy about the reduced latency.