[Bug 19376] New: Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Summary: Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D
                    application
           Product: Wine
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P2
         Component: -unknown
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]

KDE bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=198744 illustrates that some
graphics card drivers are still not able to support 3D applications in a
composited environment correctly. This seems to be a stronger problem for wine
applications (at least in the bug report).

KWin supports suspending compositing via a dbus interface
(http://websvn.kde.org/*checkout*/trunk/KDE/kdebase/workspace/kwin/org.kde.KW...).
You can basically check if compositing is active, suspend it when the app is
started and resume when the app is closed. This is for example done by KDE's
powermanagement daemon.

As a shell script it looks like that:
composited='qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin compositingActive'
if $composited; then qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin toggleCompositing; fi
wine blablabla
if $composited; then qdbus org.kde.kwin /KWin toggleCompositing; fi

I basically wish with this enhancement report that you add support for
suspending KWin's compositing on an application basis in wine. It shouldn't be
for every app and it shouldn't be activated in general but the user should have
the possibility to just say that one specified app should suspend compositing.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX

--- Comment #1 from Austin English   2009-07-19 15:54:48 ---
If a user wishes to disable 3d compositing with a shell script, there's nothing
stopping them from doing so. Wine, however, has no business doing this for
users.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |CLOSED

--- Comment #2 from Austin English   2009-07-19 15:56:02 ---
Closing.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #3 from Martin Gräßlin   2009-07-19 16:14:30 ---
Perhaps I have not really stated exactly what I wish.

First of all I want to say that I am a kwin developer and not just a user. I
reported this wish as I think it makes sense to add this support to wine and
given the bug reports we have in kwin.

I do not want you to add that pasted scriptlet. I would like you to give the
user the possibility to say that an app should be started with compositing
disabled and that wine will just call the dbus interface.

Of course the user could use an own script. But how many users are able to run
that script or are able to find it. This is definately a case of providing a
good user experience and making the free desktop better. When running an app
with compositing enabled and it is broken how can a user know that it is caused
by the combination of compositing and the OpenGL game and how should he know
that it is possible to script kwin in that way?

If you still have questions please ask. You are also welcome to join us in
#kwin and discuss the problem directly.

//////////////////////////////
OT - personal note:
I am rather disappointed by the speed you just closed that feature request. It
looks like you don't care about requests made by other projects. I opened this
request so that wine can provide a better user experience. If wine is not
interested in a good user experience this might change the way I handle wine
specific bugs reported against kwin :-(

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #4 from Henri Verbeet   2009-07-19 16:16:06 ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> If a user wishes to disable 3d compositing with a shell script, there's nothing
> stopping them from doing so. Wine, however, has no business doing this for
> users.

Not entirely, there's DwmEnableComposition() and DwmIsCompositionEnabled() in
dwmapi. I think it would make sense for Wine to at least properly implement
those.

As for actually disabling compositing for D3D applications, I'm not sure how
this is handled on Windows for pre-Vista applications, but applications that
are aware of it usually disable it themselves.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|CLOSED                      |UNCONFIRMED
         Resolution|WONTFIX                     |

--- Comment #5 from Austin English   2009-07-19 17:41:00 ---
Reopening, per Henri.

Martin, apologies, misunderstood you.

Still not sure how exactly you'd like wine to let users choose this...do other
composition tools have similar capabilities to disable (e.g., compiz)?

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #6 from Vitaliy Margolen   2009-07-19 18:39:57 ---
Since KDE guys says that compositing will break any 3D app, then it makes sense
to just disable compositing on any 3d initialization (read on each Wine start).
Since that's done automatically.

If that's what you want, sure it can be implemented. Of course a better way
would be fixing kwin's compositing...

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Lucas Murray  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #7 from Lucas Murray   2009-07-19 20:57:25 ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> If that's what you want, sure it can be implemented. Of course a better way
> would be fixing kwin's compositing...

It's not KWin's compositing that's the problem, it's both the compositing idea
in general and the quality of the graphics drivers that are currently available
to us.

When compositing is enabled there will ALWAYS be a speed penalty due to the
extra redirection that needs to be done and it doesn't matter how fast the
graphics card is or how well the driver is optimized it will always be the
case. This is the primary reason why those DWM calls exist.

On Linux we have an extra problem: Our graphics drivers have not been optimized
as far as humanly possible unlike those on other operating systems. Due to this
when compositing is enabled we get both a larger performance hit and
redirection problems such as those found in the KDE/Compiz trackers.

As the window manager has no way of knowing if an application is running a 3D
context and as graphics drivers will take a very long time to fix completely
implementing this in WINE will allow the user to easily get faster applications
without the need of externally writing scripts for every single one.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Michal Svoboda  changed:

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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #8 from Michal Svoboda   2009-07-19 23:25:19 ---
I don't like where this is going.

I certainly wouldn't want any program, including wine, to *automatically* mess
with my desktop settings, which includes, but is not limited to, compositing.
And I wouldn't like a windows application to be able to do it either. I kinda
like the fact that in wine, the windows applications are confined to their own
world and can not dictate anything beyond it in contrast to the "please close
every other application while this is running" principle they are used to.

So if anything please make this optional and/or per-application configurable
but always let the user have the final say. Also note that enabling compositing
is a quite slow operation and might not always succeed.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #9 from Martin Gräßlin   2009-07-20 03:40:59 ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> Since KDE guys says that compositing will break any 3D app, then it makes sense
> to just disable compositing on any 3d initialization (read on each Wine start).
> Since that's done automatically.

Actually it is more complex than that. Lucas mentioned already most of the
problems: drivers. We currently have the situation that for example nvidia
driver works quite good, while fglrx seems to be broken. The free drivers are
more difficult. Some are working, some not. Here we will probably see much
improvements thanks to DRI2 and Gallium.

So the decision to disable compositing automatically whenever a 3D app is
started would be too strict. It really much depends on the use case. Let's say
for a simple 3D application which just rotates a small cube disabling
compositing would be wrong while for a complex 3D game, which is run in
fullscreen it's the right thing to do.

I am not really familiar with Windows APIs so I don't know if you have a way to
recognize if that is a complex game running or a small simple app.
> do other composition tools have similar capabilities to disable (e.g., compiz)?

Compiz currently does not yet support non-composited window management, but
their upcomming release 0.9 will support non-composited window management. I
don't know if they will support a similar functionality.

The third window manager which is probably interesting in this context is
Mutter and I have no idea what exactly they support and what not.
> I certainly wouldn't want any program, including wine, to *automatically* mess with my desktop settings, which includes, but is not limited to, compositing.

This has nothing to do with "messing" around with desktop settings. KWin offers
the dbus methods exactly for that: temporarily suspend compositing for
applications which work better without compositing. When the application ends
it will just resume compositing so everything is fine. Just as a note: kwin
will post a notification that compositing has been suspended by an external app
and the user has the possibility to resume compositing by
 * using the shortcut alt+shift+f12
 * use the button "resume compositing" in effects kcm
 * use the toggle compositing plasmoid (in the state in svn playground, not the
one on kde-look)
 * restarting the session (no setting is stored)

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #10 from Henri Verbeet   2009-07-20 04:15:41 ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> As for actually disabling compositing for D3D applications, I'm not sure how
> this is handled on Windows for pre-Vista applications, but applications that
> are aware of it usually disable it themselves.

For the record, I checked, and Vista has a "Disable desktop composition" option
on its compatibility tab for shortcuts. That's probably enough to argue for a
similar option in winecfg. The first step towards implementing this should be
implementing the relevant parts of dwmapi.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #11 from Alexandre Julliard   2009-07-20 04:21:30 ---
This would need some standard API, we can't add window manager specific dbus
messages for every wm out there. Also 'toggle' is clearly not the right
function to export, it would need some sort of suspend/resume with a counter.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #12 from Michal Svoboda   2009-07-20 11:10:28 ---
(In reply to comment #9)
> > I certainly wouldn't want any program, including wine, to *automatically* mess with my desktop settings, which includes, but is not limited to, compositing.
>
> This has nothing to do with "messing" around with desktop settings. KWin offers
> the dbus methods exactly for that: temporarily suspend compositing for
> applications which work better without compositing. When the application ends
> it will just resume compositing so everything is fine. Just as a note: kwin
> will post a notification that compositing has been suspended by an external app
> and the user has the possibility to resume compositing by
> - using the shortcut alt+shift+f12
> - use the button "resume compositing" in effects kcm
> - use the toggle compositing plasmoid (in the state in svn playground, not the
>
> one on kde-look)
> - restarting the session (no setting is stored)

I can already see myself fighting with an app that does not want to give up on
disabling compositing. Please make this option so that it is configurable
whether wine honors such a request or not.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #13 from Martin Gräßlin   2009-07-20 12:20:02 ---
(In reply to comment #12)
> I can already see myself fighting with an app that does not want to give up on
> disabling compositing. Please make this option so that it is configurable
> whether wine honors such a request or not.

I can only speak for kwin, but in the end it's the window manager which decides
to honour a request or not. And in case of kwin it will always be configurable.
I provided several examples when the user's choice would be more powerful than
the applications one.

(In reply to comment #11)
> This would need some standard API, we can't add window manager specific dbus

messages for every wm out there.
We discussed it briefly on IRC and had the idea that a window can set an atom
like for example _NET_WM_DISABLE_CM to indicate that compositing should be
disabled while the window is alive. This has of course to be discussed with the
other parties and "standardized" via freedesktop.org NETWM specification.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #14 from Michal Svoboda   2009-07-20 12:32:10 ---
> I provided several examples when the user's choice would be more powerful than
> the applications one.

You didn't. You only provided examples of how the user can _revert_ the system
to its original state after the application decides to "mess with it". That's
very different.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Keywords|                            |download, source

--- Comment #15 from Austin English   2010-07-23 15:20:23 ---
Still present.

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #16 from Martin Gräßlin  2011-04-04 14:40:45 CDT ---
We finally added proper support to allow applications to block compositing.
This will first become available with KDE Plasma Workspaces in version 4.7 to
be released in summer this year.

We would love to see Wine making use of the new X property to tell KWin (and
hopefully soon other compositors) to completely block compositing. This might
be a good way to implement the existing DWM call from Windows.

We are going to try to get the new property as an addition to the NETWM spec
and to make it cross-desktop.

A reference implementation can be found in KDELibs commit 7cd28e48:

https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kdelibs/repository/revisions/7cd28e48a...

Feel free to copy the code. In case of any question, please do not hesistate to
ask, we are willing to provide you all the help you need.

Cheers
Martin Gräßlin
KWin Maintainer

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #17 from Henri Verbeet  2011-04-22 11:56:37 CDT ---
That should probably work for suspending compositing. I think we can support
that, provided it's standardized. However, as you can probably imagine, dwmapi
involves a bit more than that. Did
http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/compiz/2010-August/003432.html ever go
anywhere?

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Alexandre Julliard  changed:

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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #18 from Alexandre Julliard  2011-12-18 03:56:35 CST ---
*** Bug 29371 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Sven Arvidsson  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

--- Comment #19 from Ken Sharp  ---
Is this still an issue in Wine 1.7.45 or later?

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

[e-mail] changed:

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                 CC|                            |[e-mail],
                   |                            |[e-mail]

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Stefan Dösinger  changed:

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                 CC|[e-mail]      |[e-mail]

[Bug 19376] Suspend kwin's compositing when starting a 3D application

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19376

Sven Arvidsson  changed:

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