Google-earth display problems with Compiz

This may well get rejected, as we don't support automatix, or google earth, as it's not in ubuntu, but forwarding across to compiz anyway.

cenora, can you please state which GPU is installed on your system and whether you are running an OpenSource driver or a proprietary driver on it. Thanks in advance!

I have the same problem.

I can reproduce flickering and the last picture cenora attached. (overwritting)

I have an ATI IGP 340M Open Source driver.

Hi,

Yes, I know automatix is unsupported - too bad ubuntu doesn't have it's own
version yet.

I have an IBM T42 laptop, which has a Radeon Mobility LW M7 (7500) GPU.
There is no restricted drivers available for this GPU, so I use the standard
(open) driver which was installed with Ubuntu.

Cenora

On Nov 14, 2007 11:52 AM, Sergio Zanchetta <email address hidden> wrote:

> I have the same problem.
>
> I can reproduce flickering and the last picture cenora attached.
> (overwritting)
>
> I have an ATI IGP 340M Open Source driver.
>
> --
> Google-earth display problems with Compiz
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/162541
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Bug recreated on Gateway Laptop with Gutsy Gibbon.

Disappointing because I really wanted to view the new sky functionality.

you can get a version of google earth from http://www.medibuntu.org/ . maybe that one is working better.

Thanks, I will try this. Awesome!

On Nov 23, 2007 6:12 AM, exactt <email address hidden> wrote:

> you can get a version of google earth from http://www.medibuntu.org/ .
> maybe that one is working better.
>
> --
> Google-earth display problems with Compiz
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/162541
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

This is not an Automatix bug. Automatix simply installed Google Earth app. COMPIZ is the windows manager who flickers the GoogleEarth map accross all workspaces.

It seems that all the people experiencing this bug are using one of the open-source drivers, either ati or intel (or i810). The free drivers do not yet do redirected-direct-rendering, so apps using 3d (such as google earth) interact badly with Compiz. The app using 3d (google earth, in this case) won't be composited correctly; it will simply draw straight to the screen, rather than drawing to an offscreen buffer that Compiz can then combine with the other windows & draw to the screen.

Marking this as WontFix: it's certainly a bug, but it's (a) not a bug in Compiz - it's a limitation of the graphics drivers, and (b) the extensive effort required to fix the drivers is not going to be done in Ubuntu - it'll be done upstream by the Xorg developers.

If anyone can duplicate this using non-free drivers (nvidia) or with google earth running in Xgl (and *not* on the underlying :0 X server) please reopen this bug.

Chris,

Thank you for your very thorough and clear explanation.

While I understand this is not specifically a Ubuntu bug, I would like to
know who can escalate this to the Xorg developers? How can we (I) open this
bug report for them?

My concern is that 1) Ubuntu is shipping with compiz enabled by default (A
very cool feature indeed), and 2) there are a *lot* of people using Google
Earth.
Certainly someone must take a look into this, as it created a very bad
impression to end users.

Best Regards,
Cenora

On Dec 3, 2007 2:50 AM, Chris Halse Rogers <email address hidden> wrote:

> It seems that all the people experiencing this bug are using one of the
> open-source drivers, either ati or intel (or i810). The free drivers do
> not yet do redirected-direct-rendering, so apps using 3d (such as google
> earth) interact badly with Compiz. The app using 3d (google earth, in
> this case) won't be composited correctly; it will simply draw straight
> to the screen, rather than drawing to an offscreen buffer that Compiz
> can then combine with the other windows & draw to the screen.
>
> Marking this as WontFix: it's certainly a bug, but it's (a) not a bug in
> Compiz - it's a limitation of the graphics drivers, and (b) the
> extensive effort required to fix the drivers is not going to be done in
> Ubuntu - it'll be done upstream by the Xorg developers.
>
> If anyone can duplicate this using non-free drivers (nvidia) or with
> google earth running in Xgl (and *not* on the underlying :0 X server)
> please reopen this bug.
>
> ** Changed in: compiz (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => Medium
> Status: Confirmed => Won't Fix
>
> --
> Google-earth display problems with Compiz
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/162541
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

I am still seeing this flickering in Ubuntu intrepid with the latest Google Earth and fglrx driver.

I am also having this flickering problem in Intrepid with Google Earth (the latest one in the Medibuntu repository, version 4.3.7284.3916), using the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX graphics driver.

Chris Halse Rogers: So I guess - since we are two (me and Laurent Bonnaud above) having the problem with the proprietary driver (although I am using ATI) - this qualifies for reopening this bug?

Actually, no. I should have been more precise here.

The only drivers which currently implement redirected direct rendering,
which is what's needed for this to work, are the nvidia-glx drivers.
Still WONTFIX, but this may well change with Jaunty - I'd expect DRI2 to
be sufficiently stable to ship in the next release, and that allows
redirected direct rendering (for drivers that support it).

Okay, many thanks for the response :)

the compiz fglrx opengl/video bug is tracked here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/fglrx-installer/+bug/179042

I have such a problems with my G45 Intel on-board video card. Here lspci:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
And I use standard open-source intel driver...

Every OpenGL-based application running under compiz (and being driven by OpenSource Xorg-drivers or ATI's flgrx) will yield rendering glitches as described, because the drivers in question are all still based on DRI and not DRI2. What DRI lacks and DRI2 introduces - among other things - is hw-accelerated indirect rendering. This affects composited window-managers (like compiz) mostly. Currently with DRI the DRM does not care if the desktop is composited or not and just hands any OpenGL-app, that asks for a rendering-context to draw to, a pointer to the front-buffer. Thus the OpenGL-app happy starts drawing to the front-buffer, ignoring the fact that there might be a compositing manager running and it should rather render to an off-screen area and let the compositing-manager do the work of blitting the OpenGL-apps window-contents to the front-buffer. DRI2 is more intelligent in that regard in fixes this.

All that is overly simplified of course, but should give an idea about what is going on "under the hood".

On nvidia (using the proprietary driver) one does not run into this issue because nvidia does not use any form of DRI but their own infrastructure, which happens to have hw-accelerated indirect rendering for some time now. If one would be so bold to use the OpenSource nouveau-driver, they'd see the same rendering glitches. But nouveau will of course also switch to DRI2.

Over time all OpenSource Xorg-video-driver will switch to DRI2 of course. It will take time. The first driver that is pretty far in development to adapt to DRI2, is the intel-video driver (for i915, i945 and i965 that should work already). Second in line will probalby be the OpenSource radeon-driver (the one without HD in the name).

Mirco, so when do you think Intel i945 drivers will be finally fixed to use DRI2? I'm running Intrepid with all the latest fixes, yet I still can't enjoy GoogleEarth when Compiz is running. In Jaunty on an ATI Radeon 7000 dual head card I don't have any such issues even though it's a much older card than this Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02).

Well, I use now DRI2 and xorg-video-intel v. 2.6! It works great! There are no problems anymore with Compiz+Google-earth and other OpenGL programs!

Ivan, thank you for your input. I agree that some problems are resolved with the DRI2, but the problem with the "Atmosphere" feature in Google Earth still remains. My xorg Intel video driver, which also uses the latest DRI2, still can't paint the atmosphere around the globe without a significant loss of speed and usability.