3D effects lag in Ubuntu 9.04 guest

[poffy]

The acceleration seem to work, I can move/zoom/etc and play videos in fullscreen GL with mplayer -vo gl but the ghosting problem/lag makes the desktop unusable, which is a shame. Vista SP2 x64 and Ubuntu 9.0.4 64-bit as guest, tried tweaking the settings but it doesn't help.

[Sasquatch]

Disable all animations for close, see how that goes. It looks like that the close animation is the problem.

[no1]

Having the exact same problem here. In VBox 2.2.4 desktop effects in Ubuntu 9.04 were smooth and no ghosting issues at all.

After upgrading to Vbox 3.x I'm experiencing noticable lag and the same ghost windows that others are seeing.

Host:
VBox 3.0.4
Windows 7 x64 RTM
Intel E8500 @3.13
ATI Radeon HD 4800, Catalyst 9.8

Guest:
Ubuntu 9.04
Latest Guest Additions installed

[reydan]

I experienced the exact same issue described here in 3.0.4 as well. Upon upgrading to the 3.0.6 beta release I still experienced the same issues, keyboard input lag and all. Disabling all effects in 3.0.4 and 3.0.6 beta did nothing - the issues persisted. I specified 1 processor to be used in the VM and still no improvement.

I decided to downgrade to 2.2.4 today to see if the issues persisted. Other than recompiling the guest additions for the approriate Vbox version, I used the exact kernel configuration, xserver, compiz version and compiz plugins that I had under 3.0.4 and 3.0.6 beta. Upon downgrading to 2.2.4, the issue went away. Responsiveness under compiz was much improved.

Upgrading back, the lagging issue returned.

Something in the Vbox 3.0.x seems to cause degraded system performance when Compiz is enabled.
Vbox 2.2.4 appears to function fine with Compiz enabled.

Host :
Vbox 3.0.6 beta 1 release (most of the time)
Windows Vista x64 SP2
Intel Q6600 @2.4
NVIDIA 8800 GT

Guest:
Gentoo Linux x64 with KDE 4.3.1
Guest Additions installed

[Sasquatch]

You downgraded the whole VB installation, or only GA? What if you only use the older GA?

[steffan]

Is there a bug about this? If so, does anyone know the number?

For me, turning on any 3D effects under 3.0.x is unusable, mainly due to keyboard lag (see "keyboard acts quirky" thread). Same VM works fine in 2.2.4 with 3D effects.

Steffan

[Sasquatch]

You can use the Google search trick from the Forum Posting Guide for the bug report too. Search with +ticket site:www.virtualbox.org.

[reydan]

I downgraded the whole installation, GA included. I tried using the older GA with the newer versions of Vbox today, but all I got was a black screen once compiz started up.

[levander]

I'm about to try a 64 bit Vista host with a 64 bit Ubuntu Jaunty guest. The only 3D I want is Compiz and maybe a screen saver. But, the screen saver's not necessary. So, I'm fine with downgrading 2.2.

But, I just looked at the changelogs. They say that VirtualBox 3.0 was when OpenGL 2.0 was first supported in guests. So, is Compiz just based on OpenGL 1.0, which is why it works in a guest with VirtualBox 2.2? Just some kind of understanding of what's going on in this area would be good.

Also, if somebody has links for recommended (leaning towards minimal) settings (things like amount of VRAM) for Linux guests where all you want is Compiz and maybe a screen saver, that would be great. I'm looking for that now.

[markedwards]

This problem still exists in 3.0.6 here. This issue is also addressed in another thread, incidentally:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=19352

And bug is here:

http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/4653

[jystic]

I'm getting exactly what silvaran describes.

All of the effects actually work properly as long as I can keep the screen "moving". For example, the wobbly effect works perfectly, but a context menu closing freezes with 5% left in the animation. If I click anywhere else or cause the screen to refresh in some other way then the guest is updated properly.

I'm running the following configuration:
Host - Win7 x64
Guest - Ubuntu 9.04 amd64
Processor - Core i7 920
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 1792MB

[RazorX]

Same issues, including the typing lag making it unusable.

Host: Windows 7 X64 RTM, Q6600, 2GB RAM, HD4870
Guest: Juanty, 800MB RAM, 128MB video RAM

[VB202]

Guys any fix for this? It's one of the nicest things about linux.

Anybody got this to work?

[DaveHCYJ]

So I go to load the appearance preferences window, and it fades into view. Is almost like it gets 95% of the way into view (visible, but a few colors are still off because the window hasn't fully drawn itself yet) and VirtualBox prematurely decides, that's enough, I don't need to track any more display changes for now, and it accepts that mostly-drawn window as the final thing it needs to track and display before it can just sit there waiting for more display changes. After a few seconds of idling, the display gets updated to what it should look like, without actually having used any significant amount of system resources during that waiting period. Or, the display could get updated immediately simply by moving the window (and presumably forcing a display update).

I disabled all the 3D effects and everything looks fine visually. No idea whose bug it is, just thought I'd offer this.

I see the same thing in Win7 x64 RTM. There is a slight lag to all animations and then they all end prematurely. This is for opening and closing windows and everything else. I also get the effect where after a while all of a sudden the window updates to what it should really look like.

If I were to describe it with a timeline with numbers being frames (0-9) of video and x being when I click something, this is what I'm seeing:
|-----x--0123456777777777999999999|
time->

when what I should be seeing is:
|-----x012345678999999999999999999|
time->

Its almost as if VB is correct in timing of when it stops showing changes, but due to the fact that it lagged in starting showing the changes the animation hadn't yet finished.

[cornelius]

I have exactly the same issue (and had it on all Virtualbox 3.0.* versions so far). If I disable things that force a drawing update (like the system monitor applet, blinking cursor, seconds in clock applet, etc.), then the last frame of any animation, text entry, etc. doesn't ever get drawn. When I enable those back, the last frame gets painted late and at the same time with the screen update. When I disable compiz or go back to Virtualbox 2.2.4, the issue goes away.

Virtualbox version: 3.0.10 r54097
Guest: Ubuntu 9.10
Host: OS X 10.6.1 (so it has nothing to do with Windows)