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Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation Cairo-penguins in OpenGL mode causing massive CPU usage by cairo-dock and compiz (well, compiz w/snow)
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Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Cairo-penguins in OpenGL mode causing massive CPU usage by cairo-dock and compiz (well, compiz w/snow)
Guest 3 fabounet [Read]
28 August 2009 à 14:59

Guest, Thursday 27 August 2009 à 10:46

Today was the day I finally got penguins working in my cairo-dock in OpenGL mode. That was a matter of telling them they could go anywhere on the dock (if you don't tell them that they can they don't draw on my computer).

I was shocked to find that while using various animated icons and icon effects, my CPU usage from cairo-dock was now around 20-24% when cairo-dock wasn't doing anything, and compiz (which was snowing) increased from 20-22% to a whopping 35-40%! I ran a debug check but I couldn't decipher it well enough to tell if anything in particular was interesting, and it is way too long to post all of it. If anyone has an idea for what to look for I'd be happy to hear it!

I do not believe this bug has been posted on before, but I'm sorry if it has.

I am using Mandriva One 2009.1 GNOME and an Intel GM965 chipset. My kernel, graphics card driver, and mesa are not the ones in the repositories: I have 2.6.31-desktop586-0.rc7.0.1mnb, xorg intel drivers 2.8.0, and mesa 7.5. Seeing as I never got my cairo-dock working in OpenGL mode with the old settings I can't tell whether this has anything to do with my problem.

Although I have no enlightening debug lines to show you, I did do some investigation which yielded some possibly useful results. The problem is not in Icon Effects; turning them on or off has only a tiny effect on CPU usage at rest. Animated Icons on the other hand decrease cairo-dock down to 8% and compiz to 25-27% when at rest if turned off.

  • VERY *Interestingly, even after a restart, disabling all the check boxes in the Animated Icons only decreased the usage of compiz by ~5% and cairo-dock by ~2%, while unchecking the box outside decreased it drastically as I already described.


I am assuming that the problem is that the penguins somehow trigger the dock to do something like draw itself over and over, because of course 2D penguins would not make a dent in a percentage point of a 2.2GHz C2Duo processor. It is also interesting that it affects compiz.

My experiment regarding compiz was very simple. I turned off the snow and compiz CPU use dropped to near zero when at rest. Cairo-dock CPU usage did not change at all. Another weird result. Turning off all the transparency (while snow was on) had zero impact on the numbers.

Memory usage was not extraordinarily high, just CPU.

I must have my penguins!

fabounet, Thursday 27 August 2009 à 14:11


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
well I've already noticed that when I activate the Penguin, the whole dock is redrawn under Compiz BUT not under Metacity with composite enabled
so the CPU usage is ~5% for both CD and Compiz, whereas it is ~2% for both under Metacity.
that's a bit ennoying but I can live with it, but in your case it seems that GM965 drivers are increasing the CPU usage (I dont' see another explanation)
however your remark about Animated-Icons is indeed very interesting, I'll dig into this ! thanks

PS :
It is also interesting that it affects compiz
I've talked about it on Compiz forums before and apparently redrawing the window triggers plug-ins, increasing the CPU usage.

zorgoth, Thursday 27 August 2009 à 18:43


Subscription date : 27 August 2009
Messages : 18
Incidentally, this is with UXA acceleration.

fabounet, Friday 28 August 2009 à 14:59


Subscription date : 30 November 2007
Messages : 17118
ok, I might have found something that could explain the effect of activating Animated-Icons or not.
still, the high value of CPU is probably a driver issue, since I have noticed the same effect as you, but with a ratio 4 (and I have a GeForce7 with a 2GHz Athlon).

Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation

Subjects Author Language Messages Last message
[Locked] Cairo-penguins in OpenGL mode causing massive CPU usage by cairo-dock and compiz (well, compiz w/snow)
Guest 3 fabounet [Read]
28 August 2009 à 14:59


Glx-Dock / Cairo-Dock List of forums Problems at use | Problèmes à l'utilisation Cairo-penguins in OpenGL mode causing massive CPU usage by cairo-dock and compiz (well, compiz w/snow) Top

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