[amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

Hi,

I noticed that when my monitor runs at 60Hz, the cursor motion is really not
smooth, even at low speed (it starts to be smooth at low speed when my monitor
runs at 120/144Hz). Is there a way to improve this at the hardware level or is
this a xserver issue?
(I run everything git no older than 1/2 week/s).

regards,

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-01 02:52 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I noticed that when my monitor runs at 60Hz, the cursor motion is really not
> smooth, even at low speed (it starts to be smooth at low speed when my monitor
> runs at 120/144Hz). Is there a way to improve this at the hardware level or is
> this a xserver issue?
> (I run everything git no older than 1/2 week/s).

If you have DC enabled, does disabling it (amdgpu.dc=0) help?


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-02 11:24 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> On 2018-07-01 02:52 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I noticed that when my monitor runs at 60Hz, the cursor motion is really not
>> smooth, even at low speed (it starts to be smooth at low speed when my monitor
>> runs at 120/144Hz). Is there a way to improve this at the hardware level or is
>> this a xserver issue?
>> (I run everything git no older than 1/2 week/s).
> 
> If you have DC enabled, does disabling it (amdgpu.dc=0) help?

Never mind, I missed that it's about Tahiti, which DC doesn't support.


Please share the corresponding Xorg log file.

What exactly does "not smooth" mean?


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

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On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 11:29:19AM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> On 2018-07-02 11:24 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> > On 2018-07-01 02:52 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I noticed that when my monitor runs at 60Hz, the cursor motion is really not
> >> smooth, even at low speed (it starts to be smooth at low speed when my monitor
> >> runs at 120/144Hz). Is there a way to improve this at the hardware level or is
> >> this a xserver issue?
> >> (I run everything git no older than 1/2 week/s).
> > 
> > If you have DC enabled, does disabling it (amdgpu.dc=0) help?
> 
> Never mind, I missed that it's about Tahiti, which DC doesn't support.
> 
> 
> Please share the corresponding Xorg log file.
> 
> What exactly does "not smooth" mean?

I meant cursor motion is very blury, enough I can loose its location on the
screen. And for instance, while moving the dota2 map with the grab method, at 60Hz
it looks like moving the dota2 map at a sub-30Hz with some lag.

At 120/144Hz, cursor motion is way less blury, and dota2 map motion is smooth
with the grab method.

-- 
Sylvain

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-02 04:04 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 11:29:19AM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
>> On 2018-07-02 11:24 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote:
>>> On 2018-07-01 02:52 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I noticed that when my monitor runs at 60Hz, the cursor motion is really not
>>>> smooth, even at low speed (it starts to be smooth at low speed when my monitor
>>>> runs at 120/144Hz). Is there a way to improve this at the hardware level or is
>>>> this a xserver issue?
>>>> (I run everything git no older than 1/2 week/s).
>>>
>>> If you have DC enabled, does disabling it (amdgpu.dc=0) help?
>>
>> Never mind, I missed that it's about Tahiti, which DC doesn't support.
>>
>>
>> Please share the corresponding Xorg log file.
>>
>> What exactly does "not smooth" mean?
> 
> I meant cursor motion is very blury, enough I can loose its location on the
> screen.

I'm afraid I'm still not sure what "blurry motion" means exactly.

Is the behaviour different with the Xorg modesetting driver and/or the
radeon kernel driver?


> And for instance, while moving the dota2 map with the grab method, at 60Hz
> it looks like moving the dota2 map at a sub-30Hz with some lag.

Sounds like maybe DOTA doesn't use the X11 cursor (which would end up
using the HW cursor), but renders the cursor as part of its scene.


Can you share the corresponding dmesg output and Xorg log file?


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 04:22:47PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> I'm afraid I'm still not sure what "blurry motion" means exactly.

Like the mouse cursor location is updated very slowly, and that, only at 60Hz.
(in dota2, it looks like sub-30Hz with lag).

> Is the behaviour different with the Xorg modesetting driver and/or the
> radeon kernel driver?

I don't know, I would need to setup these and test (my custom distro is made
for amdgpu).

> Sounds like maybe DOTA doesn't use the X11 cursor (which would end up
> using the HW cursor), but renders the cursor as part of its scene.

Probably, but it happens only at 60Hz.

hum... the log was filtered out somewhere... Sending the logs as direct email to
your personal email box.

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 04:22:47PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> Is the behaviour different with the Xorg modesetting driver and/or the
> radeon kernel driver?

Tested both. Same thing than with amdgpu.

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-02 05:28 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 04:22:47PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> 
>> Sounds like maybe DOTA doesn't use the X11 cursor (which would end up
>> using the HW cursor), but renders the cursor as part of its scene.
> 
> Probably, but it happens only at 60Hz.

Unless DOTA runs steadily at >= 60 Hz, there will sometimes be >= 33 ms
between consecutive visible mouse cursor positions. This is
correspondingly lower at higher refresh rate.


> hum... the log was filtered out somewhere...

FWIW, I think I saw a bounce e-mail mentioning attachments being
filtered due to them having multiple file name extensions.

(BTW, it looks like your mailer gets confused by my name or e-mail
address as well)


> Sending the logs as direct email to your personal email box.

Does using xf86-input-libinput instead of xf86-input-evdev help?


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 06:43:48PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> > Sending the logs as direct email to your personal email box.
> 
> Does using xf86-input-libinput instead of xf86-input-evdev help?

I did plan to switch to libinput in the futur, but:

I did test the xinput events and I get for a reasonable mouse motion speed an
update of coords for each column of the screen (full hd).

It means that the cursor is supposely displayed for nearly all columns of the
screen. For a fast mouse motion, the coord updates jump to a few tens of
pixels.  (1000Hz mouse)

Those numbers does not change from 60Hz to 144Hz, then I can rule out the input
code.

If it's not my eyes or the screen itself, the pb will be in the cursor update
code path from the xserver down to the driver...

The bottom of it is if I happened to see a system which has mouse motion which
looks smooth for my eyes at 60Hz, I would get back to you on this issue.

regards,

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-02 10:10 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 06:43:48PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
>>> Sending the logs as direct email to your personal email box.
>>
>> Does using xf86-input-libinput instead of xf86-input-evdev help?
> 
> I did plan to switch to libinput in the futur, but:
> 
> I did test the xinput events and I get for a reasonable mouse motion speed an
> update of coords for each column of the screen (full hd).
> 
> It means that the cursor is supposely displayed for nearly all columns of the
> screen. For a fast mouse motion, the coord updates jump to a few tens of
> pixels.  (1000Hz mouse)
> 
> Those numbers does not change from 60Hz to 144Hz, then I can rule out the input
> code.
> 
> If it's not my eyes or the screen itself, the pb will be in the cursor update
> code path from the xserver down to the driver...

Unless your xserver build ends up with INPUTTHREAD undefined for some
reason, input events are processed in a separate thread, and the HW
cursor position is updated accordingly ASAP.


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-03 10:54 AM, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> On 2018-07-02 10:10 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Mon, Jul 02, 2018 at 06:43:48PM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
>>>> Sending the logs as direct email to your personal email box.
>>>
>>> Does using xf86-input-libinput instead of xf86-input-evdev help?
>>
>> I did plan to switch to libinput in the futur, but:
>>
>> I did test the xinput events and I get for a reasonable mouse motion speed an
>> update of coords for each column of the screen (full hd).
>>
>> It means that the cursor is supposely displayed for nearly all columns of the
>> screen. For a fast mouse motion, the coord updates jump to a few tens of
>> pixels.  (1000Hz mouse)
>>
>> Those numbers does not change from 60Hz to 144Hz, then I can rule out the input
>> code.
>>
>> If it's not my eyes or the screen itself, the pb will be in the cursor update
>> code path from the xserver down to the driver...
> 
> Unless your xserver build ends up with INPUTTHREAD undefined for some
> reason, input events are processed in a separate thread, and the HW
> cursor position is updated accordingly ASAP.

Also make sure you do not pass -dumbSched on the Xorg command line, and
do not disable Option "SilkenMouse" in xorg.conf.


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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 10:54:15AM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> Unless your xserver build ends up with INPUTTHREAD undefined for some
> reason, input events are processed in a separate thread, and the HW
> cursor position is updated accordingly ASAP.

I did check on that: INPUTTHREAD is properly defined.
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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[sylvain.bertrand]

On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 11:01:46AM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
> Also make sure you do not pass -dumbSched on the Xorg command line, and
> do not disable Option "SilkenMouse" in xorg.conf.

No pb on this side. I tried to enable -dumbSched, I could not see any
difference.

I did run a fast moving game at 60Hz, it was horrible, I ran it at 144Hz,
smooth... the culprit may well be the monitor or my eyes.

Don't bother anyway, I'll wait for a more solid element of comparison. If I get
one which is obvious to my eyes, I will get back to you on this matter.

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Re: [amdgpu][tahiti xt] cursor motion smoothness

[Michel Dänzer]

On 2018-07-03 04:46 PM, sylvain.bertrand@gmail.com wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 03, 2018 at 11:01:46AM +0200, Michel Dänzer wrote:
>> Also make sure you do not pass -dumbSched on the Xorg command line, and
>> do not disable Option "SilkenMouse" in xorg.conf.
> 
> No pb on this side. I tried to enable -dumbSched, I could not see any
> difference.
> 
> I did run a fast moving game at 60Hz, it was horrible, I ran it at 144Hz,
> smooth... the culprit may well be the monitor or my eyes.

Yeah, we've pretty much ruled out any possible software issue at this
point. :)

Regarding the monitor, maybe double-check its settings for anything
(e.g. picture quality / post processing) which might delay its output.


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