Speeding Up Nvidia And X Server

Since I installed the Nvidia graphics drivers within the first few days of installing the base OS, I noticed that the entire user interface, essentially, the X server, was somewhat sluggish - unacceptable so, in fact. This was unprecedented becuase I have a semi-decent graphics card (GeForce FX 5200) and this should have been more than good enough for KDE.

Then I decided to look through the Nvidia X Server Settings (/usr/bin/nvidia-settings, or in the SuSE Menu) and under X Screen 0 (0 is just the particular screen that the x server is running on on my machine), I unchecked Sync to VBlank under the Video Texture Adapter section. Then I restarted the X server (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace).

Boom! The effect was magical to me. I got an immediate performance increase in terms of the speed of the user interface in general. Everything seemed to load a lost faster, or appeared to at least. Definitely good for people like me who only play games occasionally. Yes, the setting will probably reduce the quality of games but it well worth it to me.

Give it a try and report effects here. I hope this improves somebody's Linux experience.

EDIT: My favorite games (notably AssultCube, an FPS) seem unaffected.

I wish I was savvy enough to understand all this graphics stuff.
But I do at least know how to keep it all working in nix.

What is Sync to VBlank? Anyway I tried it.

I really can't say, certainly not magical. I had no reason to think what I had was slow in any way. Though sometimes when I am running Compiz there was a little delay. I just enabled it now after making your change and it is fine.

I'm AMD 64 x2 5200, GeForce 8500, 2G Ram. Suse 10.3/64 KDE

To find out more about Synch to VBlank, check out these links:

<http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/index.php/Frame_display_timing>

<http://www.intel.com/cd/ids/developer/asmo-na/eng/239118.htm>

The second one may be more than you want to know

I cant say anythig about it as i dont use this server so, I cant tell you any view of mine about that. That will not be rigt.