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[Bug 1487884] [NEW] excessive memory usage (with kwin)

 

Public bug reported:

kwin on open source drivers on a 1GB Radeon HD6870 (BARTS core) starts
off using a lot of memory, and uses more and more until it can't
allocate textures and you get black rectangles instead of windows
sometimes.  kill/restart kwin_x11 gets back to the same state as on
login.

This might be a mesa/drm bug.

I think it's something specific to ati graphics cards, because switching
from radeon to intel cleared up the problem completely.  (I'm running on
Intel right now.  I thought it was prob. a kwin or general mesa bug
until I found out that it wasn't happening on Intel.  I switched because
my ATI card idles at about 80W with open source drivers, maybe since
dual monitor means no VBI to change clocks?  IDK, anyway it's horrible
in the summer.)

On Kubuntu 15.04, running kwin with compositing enabled, memory usage on
login was at least 3 or 4GB.  (free -h, looking at used -
buffers/cache).  "used" memory would increase steadily, and so would
swap.  kwin_x11 never showed up as having a large RSS with top / ps.  I
forget what its VSZ was.  I suspect texture memory leaks would explain
the memory / swap consumption with resident-set growth.

My alt-tab window switcher in kwin is the "grid" effect, that shows
scaled-down copies of all your windows.  I also use the effect that
lowers alpha to 90% on windows without focus.

On Intel drivers, total memory use was under 2GB used on login.  (Now at
2.9G used, with firefox and some other stuff open).  Intel SnB
integrated graphics.

My entire graphics stack is stock Kubuntu 15.04 libraries and kernel.
This is on a fresh install of 15.04, where Catalyst has never been
installed.  In case it matters, the root filesystem is on XFS on a
RAID10.

** Affects: xserver-xorg-video-ati (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1487884

Title:
  excessive memory usage (with kwin)

Status in xserver-xorg-video-ati package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  kwin on open source drivers on a 1GB Radeon HD6870 (BARTS core) starts
  off using a lot of memory, and uses more and more until it can't
  allocate textures and you get black rectangles instead of windows
  sometimes.  kill/restart kwin_x11 gets back to the same state as on
  login.

  This might be a mesa/drm bug.

  I think it's something specific to ati graphics cards, because
  switching from radeon to intel cleared up the problem completely.
  (I'm running on Intel right now.  I thought it was prob. a kwin or
  general mesa bug until I found out that it wasn't happening on Intel.
  I switched because my ATI card idles at about 80W with open source
  drivers, maybe since dual monitor means no VBI to change clocks?  IDK,
  anyway it's horrible in the summer.)

  On Kubuntu 15.04, running kwin with compositing enabled, memory usage
  on login was at least 3 or 4GB.  (free -h, looking at used -
  buffers/cache).  "used" memory would increase steadily, and so would
  swap.  kwin_x11 never showed up as having a large RSS with top / ps.
  I forget what its VSZ was.  I suspect texture memory leaks would
  explain the memory / swap consumption with resident-set growth.

  My alt-tab window switcher in kwin is the "grid" effect, that shows
  scaled-down copies of all your windows.  I also use the effect that
  lowers alpha to 90% on windows without focus.

  On Intel drivers, total memory use was under 2GB used on login.  (Now
  at 2.9G used, with firefox and some other stuff open).  Intel SnB
  integrated graphics.

  My entire graphics stack is stock Kubuntu 15.04 libraries and kernel.
  This is on a fresh install of 15.04, where Catalyst has never been
  installed.  In case it matters, the root filesystem is on XFS on a
  RAID10.

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