Various Peformance issues with 11.1

English Hardware
1

I have had openSUSE 11.1 pretty much since release. I have been pretty faithful with applying necessary patches as well as normal updates. Ever since switching I have experienced various performance issues. At the top of the list is Internet browsing. Its slow and choppy using firefox. Sound plays, its a coin flip if its going to freeze midway into a internet video. Browsing web pages is often times, sluggish, and sometimes even freezes. My connectin is a decent T1 line, my computer isn’t anything fancy, but I am sure the specs are more than enough to handle 11.1. I have 1 GB memory Nvidia 7900 graphics card, Intel(R) Celeron(R) D CPU 3.20GHz. Any ideas on how I can speed up my performance with openSUSE. I have tried the following:

  1. disabling IPv6
    2 disabling smooth scroll
  2. removed desktop effects ( PC acts the same in either mode )

Thanks in advance for any help.

2

You need to install the nvidia driver from here

http://opensuse-community.org/nvidia.ymp

Look at this to for multi-media
Multi-media and Restricted Format Installation Guide - openSUSE Forums

3

Unfortunately I have done those things already, and I went through those steps again just to make sure. At this point I am seriously considering moving to another OS as my experience over the past months has been less than stellar. I really dont want to do that as I have spent quite some time getting to know open SUSE. Any other suggestions? Anyone else experiencing poor performance issues?

4

Did you try removing beagle? Its constant hard drive access (to keep an up-to-date map) can slow down the performance significantly.

5

Did you check here reference choppy sound:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE - a possible fix to choppy sound

…

Reference ipv6, what did you do to disable it ?

6
  1. Beagle has been removed previously.

Did you check here reference choppy sound:
SDB:AudioTroubleshooting - openSUSE - a possible fix to choppy sound

I looked and I do not have the default.pa /etc/pulse/default.pa to edit in the pulse file
3.I also tried the fixes you mentioned here: FireFox go slow on 11.1 - openSUSE Forums
to no avail.

At this point I am not sure if the issue has to do with sound or video. I say that because I can play Internet radio all day long with no interruptions, but as soon as I play a streamed video ( have not tried a DVD) its toast. Chopyy and pointless to watch.

7

Try this for firefox I noticed a speed up when I did it. Make sure it is closed.

cd .mozilla ; find . -name ‘*.sqlite’ -exec sqlite3 ‘{}’ ‘VACUUM;’ ;

You could also try the other bits suggested here if that alone doesn’t help How to speed up Firefox 3 dramatically. - openSUSE Forums

8

Please post output of:
glxinfo | grep direct

Considering the audio: A couple of days ago, somebody asked me to help him remove all pulse-audio, saying it would solve not only his choppy sound, but also streamed video. Spent an hour to achieve that, but the difference was amazing: all solved. Have to admit it was a Milestone 2 - KDE4 - LiveCD install.

9

What application are you using to play streamed video ? How do you know this is not application specific ? What have you done to try tune the application’s output audio module and output video module ?

10

FeatherMonkey-
I have tried the suggestions you have mentioned and have noticed some improved perfomrance. However not enough to say completly solved. Thank you

Knurpht-
That was actually on my mind of things that may be an issue I have remained a bit confused about the many sound options in in openSUSE. Frankly, I am not sure which one I should be using. With that being said here is the output of glxinfo | grep direct:

glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes
    GL_EXT_direct_state_access, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord,
11

The application that I am using to stream videos is Adobe Flash player 10 within Firefox.I do not know that this is application specific. I do know that my sound parameters (ALSA or PULSE) may be incorrect, or just plain not installed correctly. Sound was working fine in 11 however, video performance has always been an issue when Internet based.

12

ice2921 wrote:
> Any other suggestions? Anyone else experiencing poor performance issues?

  1. you didn’t say if you are using Gnome, KDE3, KDE4 or what…but, in
    any case you will find Gnome is generally more snappy than any KDE,
    and Xfce (and others) faster than Gnome…and, if you are running
    KDE4, you need (i hear) to get the latest…read about that elsewhere
    here…

  2. firefox is not the only browser available, and it certainly is not
    the smallest, fastest or smoothest…give Konqueror and/or Opera a
    try…[hey, i’m saying those are better, or that i use them…i use
    firefox every day! but mine runs smooth (usually, except for some
    funky javascript) and videos stream just fine…]

  3. just for grins disable all add-ons and see if that makes a
    difference…

  4. when you get to a site that scrolls with a jerk, try to turn off
    java script and check scrolling then…i’m NOT sure if the jerk is
    bad site scripting OR bad browser actions…

  5. are you running 64 or 32 bit OS and do the plugins (adobe for
    example) match?

–
natural_pilot

13

I am using KDE 3.5 ( yes I know 4.2 is here) I prefer the older KDE series. Second I am using the 32 bit version.