Bad Linux graphics performance

[vkamenen]

Hi,

I got a RP4/8G with the idea to use it as a desktop machine. I installed a cooler with a fan and a fast SSD on it and everything looked nice except the graphics performance. I don't have much experience with graphics so I decided to ask for an advise here and this is my first post.

My question is: am I running the latest and greatest software on the Pi and is my graphics configuration ok for an optimal performance?

You can see details about my system on the performance chart where I compared it with an old x86 machine.

https://openbenchmarking.org/result/201 ... PI40609065

I have overclocked the cpu to 2000MHz and the V3D to 600MHz. I configured it to use vc4-kms-v3d-pi4. So far the Pi runs under 50 degrees Celsius.

The test I used is old but I also ran glmark2 and I got it under 60.

On the Pi I run nothing more than a web browser and office apps.

-- Thanks in advance

[jamesh]

The KMS driver is still under development so you should really be using the FKMS driver.

But what, specifically, is the problem with the graphics performance?

[kerry_s]

My question is: am I running the latest and greatest software on the Pi and is my graphics configuration ok for an optimal performance?

about as good as it gets. just backup anything important & have fun playing around.
if you got spare sd, you can play with other os's, if you have 3.0 flash drive or adapter+ssd you can gain speed.

[vkamenen]

The KMS driver is still under development so you should really be using the FKMS driver.

But what, specifically, is the problem with the graphics performance?

I understand that the KMS driver is work in progress so I actually started with the FKMS driver and then upgraded the kernel so that I can run the KMS one.

As I said I do not have much experience with graphics so I can not be very specific. The thing is that I compare the Pi with an old Linux machine of mine and although the latter has a slower CPU (AMD X2 1900MHz) it feels faster when manipulating windows. The difference is visible even when moving the mouse - I have bigger latency on the Pi. Window manipulations push the Pi's cores to 100% so it appears to me that the Pi is using the CPU for tasks that are more suitable for the GPU. The performance tests I ran show graphics performance of the Pi 2 to 100 times lower than old Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT. And finally I saw some people reporting glmark2 score above 100 with the Pi so it could be that I just haven't configured it well. I need a desktop machine and if it is a matter of configuration I wouldn't need to buy another one.

[vkamenen]

if you got spare sd, you can play with other os's

I generally need Linux but if you say that Windows runs better on the Pi4 I might try it. I wasted some time with other Linux distributions but IMO this is a matter of configuration and not a matter of distribution.

[fruitoftheloom]

if you got spare sd, you can play with other os's

I generally need Linux but if you say that Windows runs better on the Pi4 I might try it. I wasted some time with other Linux distributions but IMO this is a matter of configuration and not a matter of distribution.

Microsoft have never released a version of Windows on ARM 10 for the Raspberry Pi SBC.


Therefore just run a bog standard install of Raspberry Pi ARM or ARM64 Beta Operating System fully APT updated, that is the best optimisation.


Regards speed tests not a fair comparison as the Raspberry Pi SBC VideoCore based SoC includes the graphics:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VideoCore

[jamesh]

The KMS driver is still under development so you should really be using the FKMS driver.

But what, specifically, is the problem with the graphics performance?

I understand that the KMS driver is work in progress so I actually started with the FKMS driver and then upgraded the kernel so that I can run the KMS one.

As I said I do not have much experience with graphics so I can not be very specific. The thing is that I compare the Pi with an old Linux machine of mine and although the latter has a slower CPU (AMD X2 1900MHz) it feels faster when manipulating windows. The difference is visible even when moving the mouse - I have bigger latency on the Pi. Window manipulations push the Pi's cores to 100% so it appears to me that the Pi is using the CPU for tasks that are more suitable for the GPU. The performance tests I ran show graphics performance of the Pi 2 to 100 times lower than old Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT. And finally I saw some people reporting glmark2 score above 100 with the Pi so it could be that I just haven't configured it well. I need a desktop machine and if it is a matter of configuration I wouldn't need to buy another one.

I wouldn't worry about it, you don't move windows very often, so it really doesn't matter how fast they move. It actual usage that is important - when doing the usual things like browsing, word processing, spreadsheets etc. Do they seem to be badly affected by slow graphics?

[rh73]

You seem to be benchmarking the Raspberri Pi against an older Windows PC - which has a dedicated Geforce GPU? That's not a fair battle imo, no wonder the results are not too great.

The GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 incorporates 1 GB of DDR2 memory, clocked at 400 MHz. It has a 128 bit wide memory interface, which results in 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth. The GPU supports PCI Express 2.0 interface, and requires a single motherboard slot. The maximum power draw of this model is 50 Watt.

How about you compare the performance to something like integrated Intel HD, I suppose this would be closer to reality. Overall, if you consider size factor and power consumption, the performance of the Raspberry Pi is pretty decent. And the OpenGL drivers for the GPU of the Raspberry 4 are still being worked at, I am confident they will become much better with the next updates.

[kerry_s]

if you got spare sd, you can play with other os's

I generally need Linux but if you say that Windows runs better on the Pi4 I might try it. I wasted some time with other Linux distributions but IMO this is a matter of configuration and not a matter of distribution.

no not windows, i'm talking about raspberry 64bit, ubuntu 20.10, kodi, android, retropie, etc....
the 64bit raspberry is pretty good, ubuntu is a bit slow, but this is there first real try.

raspberry 64bit
https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspi ... 020-08-24/
ubuntu
https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-p ... rm64+raspi

i have raspberry 32bit & 64bit & ubnutu

[LTolledo]

is this another case of:

"...expecting Ferrari F1 performance on a minica with stock engine..."?

try increasing GPU memory from 16MB to 192MB...

[kerry_s]

is this another case of:

"...expecting Ferrari F1 performance on a minica with stock engine..."?

try increasing GPU memory from 16MB to 192MB...

yeap, apples & oranges

[vkamenen]

you don't move windows very often, so it really doesn't matter how fast they move. It actual usage that is important - when doing the usual things like browsing, word processing, spreadsheets etc. Do they seem to be badly affected by slow graphics?

I believe so. Opening tabs in a browser is something quite common. Then opening documents like PDFs and so on. Even text scrolling hits the CPU more than it should (IMO).

[vkamenen]

try increasing GPU memory from 16MB to 192MB...

I read that the default for RP4 is 76M. In fact this is what they say about amount of memory and the performance:

Unlike GPU's found on x86 machines, where increasing memory can improve 3D performance, the architecture of the VideoCore means there is no performance advantage from specifying values larger than is necessary, and in fact it can harm performance.

More information can be found here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... /memory.md.

[kerry_s]

you don't move windows very often, so it really doesn't matter how fast they move. It actual usage that is important - when doing the usual things like browsing, word processing, spreadsheets etc. Do they seem to be badly affected by slow graphics?

I believe so. Opening tabs in a browser is something quite common. Then opening documents like PDFs and so on. Even text scrolling hits the CPU more than it should (IMO).

don't forget to enable acceleration in the browser.
chromium chrome://flags
Override software rendering list enable
chrome://gpu to check

firefox-esr about:config
gfx.webrender.all true
about:support to check

[LTolledo]

the 192MB (well actually its 196MB) value is recommended if one wants to run Kodi...

even on desktop setups that I dont run Kodi... I always set GPU memory to 196MB (already set as my default)

even on a RPi3B+ I did this:

RPi3B+Desktop_vnc_RPi3B.jpg (233.25 KiB) Viewed 505 times

reading about something is ok..... trying it out for yourself is another thing....

[vkamenen]

How about you compare the performance to something like integrated Intel HD, I suppose this would be closer to reality.

In fact it is not hard to find such comparison:

https://openbenchmarking.org/result/201 ... HINKPADG74

[vkamenen]

firefox-esr about:config
gfx.webrender.all true
about:support to check

That's interesting as I haven't heard about it. Does it work for you? I get: "unavailable by runtime: WebRender initialization failed" in about:support.

[kerry_s]

firefox-esr about:config
gfx.webrender.all true
about:support to check

That's interesting as I haven't heard about it. Does it work for you? I get: "unavailable by runtime: WebRender initialization failed" in about:support.

linux is only partially supported, but the parts that work are good. you can ignore the errors.

Does it work for you?

yes

this is the important part, try it off than on.

Code: Select all

HW_COMPOSITING	available by default
OPENGL_COMPOSITING	available by default
GPU_PROCESS	available by default

[vkamenen]

linux is only partially supported, but the parts that work are good. you can ignore the errors.

This is misleading information. With that option enabled the benchmark results are the same (a bit worse). The error can not be ignored.

this is the important part, try it off than on.

Code: Select all

HW_COMPOSITING	available by default
OPENGL_COMPOSITING	available by default
GPU_PROCESS	available by default

These are not settings that can be turned off or on by itself. These are actually "decision log" settings that are controlled by certain variables. Which are these variables is not obvious.

[vkamenen]

The MotionMark benchmark https://browserbench.org/MotionMark1.1 confirms my feeling. On the Pi I get score of 1.13, while on the aforementioned old Linux machine I get four times better graphics performance (both in Firefox). On OnePlus 5T I get more than 30 times better performance, although the results have quite a big deviation.

The idea of this post was not to criticize the Pi, but to check with the community if I am using it with its optimal for highest performance software configuration on Linux. The purpose was to see if it is usable as a desktop machine or not within the requirements I have.

[kerry_s]

that scores a typo right?

[fruitoftheloom]

The MotionMark benchmark https://browserbench.org/MotionMark1.1 confirms my feeling. On the Pi I get score of 1.13, while on the aforementioned old Linux machine I get four times better graphics performance (both in Firefox). On OnePlus 5T I get more than 30 times better performance, although the results have quite a big deviation.

The idea of this post was not to criticize the Pi, but to check with the community if I am using it with its optimal for highest performance software configuration on Linux. The purpose was to see if it is usable as a desktop machine or not within the requirements I have.

Benchmarks are just a guide, why do users get so hung up on this ? The only way to see if it meets ones expectations is to actually use it. You are still comparing completely differing Architecture....

[vkamenen]

that scores a typo right?

Actually no - it is not a typo. Could you please describe your environment (OS, kernel version, config.txt, browser version)?

[jamesh]

We don't try to gain benchmarks by tweaking things that are detrimental to real world experience (which is what almost everyone else does), so you need to take that in account.

But as fruit says above, does it work in real life? And what would you expect us to do about it if it's not good enough - if you have reached the limit of the HW there isn't any thing we can do. Remember you are using a device that costs $35. Comparing to a devices that cost $200 or more doesn't seem that fair. I'm using a Pi4 here, standard clocking, seems to work fine for me. But then, I use it, rather than just run benchmarks.

Also note, the 3D drivers are under constant development. That may result in more speed, or it may not.

[dom]

Actually no - it is not a typo. Could you please describe your environment (OS, kernel version, config.txt, browser version)?

I just ran MotionMark1.1 and got 37.90.
I'm running a fresh "Raspberry Pi OS with desktop" "August 20th 2020" 32-bit image, allowing the setup wizard to updating system.
I happen to be on 5.10 kernel with kms enabled (but I doubt that is making a difference).
I'm using hdmi at 1280x720@60. Using a Pi4, 4GB.
Chromium reports as 84.0.4147.141.