Drop shadows.

[phate]

I have an Nvidia card and I installed the drivers... I followed this tut

--------------------------------------------

Software

xorg

Compositing

With FC3t2 compositing can be enabled and used to add shadows to windows and making them transparent. Because it is very slow the practical use at the moment is limited to making pretty screenshots.

Add the following lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

Section "Extensions"

Option "Composite" "Enable"

EndSection

After restarting xorg, compositing will be enabled (you'll know because xorg will be much slower). At the moment Gnome does not support compositing, so you'll need two small applications to demo this:

cvs -d :pserver:[email protected]:/cvs/xapps login

[No password needed, just press return]

cvs -d :pserver:[email protected]:/cvs/xapps co transset

cvs -d :pserver:[email protected]:/cvs/xapps co xcompmgr

cd xcompmgr

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/X11R6/lib/pkgconfig/

./autogen.sh

./configure

make

sudo make install

cd ../transset

make

sudo cp transset /usr/X11R6/bin/

You can now turn on compositing with:

xcompmgr -cfC

Note that with the Bluecurve theme the borders seem to get translucent and only the menus get shadows. To make a window 40% transparent, start:

transset .4

the cursor will change into a cross. Click on the window to which you want to apply the transparency setting.

----------------------------------------------------

and it was being REALLY REALLY slow.. i dont think it should be. and X kept on crashing or somthing. any idea awhats goin on

[Rob2687]

Thats just the state of the program atm afaik.... gotta wait for more development.

[phate]

ah, (forgot this should be in customisation forum for linux). Does it work better for KDE? or what other things can i get other then KDE or Gnome. preferable somthing LIKE gnome.

[rezza Veteran]

ah, (forgot this should be in customisation forum for linux). Does it work better for KDE? or what other things can i get other then KDE or Gnome. preferable somthing LIKE gnome.

585528739[/snapback]

No, this is completely seperate from GNOME and KDE, so it will perform about the same whichever window manager you're using.

Oh, and... moved here.

[ichi]

It shouldn't be that slow if you have a nvidia card with the nvidia drivers installed. Try adding Option "RenderAccel" "on" to your device section (the place where you set Driver "nvidia") in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

I don't see any performance difference when using composite here (besides being likely to crash when using GLX).

[darkz]

It shouldn't be that slow if you have a nvidia card with the nvidia drivers installed. Try adding Option "RenderAccel" "on" to your device section (the place where you set Driver "nvidia") in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

I don't see any performance difference when using composite here (besides being likely to crash when using GLX).

585529377[/snapback]

yeah, you said what I wanted to say.

btw I have no problems at all with that compositing stuff, except a little font weirdness (almost fixed), and no quake3 at all :happy:

Edited February 25, 2005 by darkz

[ichi]

You also can try Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1" along with the Option "Composite" "on" so GLX works when composite is enabled (ie. Quake3 :) ), but don't get surprised if your system crashes (or maybe just the X server).

[hornett]

No, this is completely seperate from GNOME and KDE, so it will perform about the same whichever window manager you're using.

Oh, and... moved here.

585528858[/snapback]

Well on both my systems, Metacity (Gnome's window manager) causes very bad performance, titlebar 'flickering' and almost constant X server crashes. XFCE4's window manager works fine for me with no stability issues. YMMV, of course. :)

[phate]

yeah, you said what I wanted to say.

btw I have no problems at all with that compositing stuff, except a little font weirdness (almost fixed), and no quake3 at all  :happy:

585529961[/snapback]

You also can try Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1" along with the Option "Composite" "on" so GLX works when composite is enabled (ie. Quake3  :)  ), but don't get surprised if your system crashes (or maybe just the X server).

585530053[/snapback]

How exactly do i do these things? I know how to get into my xorg.conf file and edit it but not sure what format them two options should be in when i'm adding them

[rezza Veteran]

How exactly do i do these things? I know how to get into my xorg.conf file and edit it but not sure what format them two options should be in when i'm adding them

585531815[/snapback]

Simply add what is in green as lines in your xorg.conf, in the device section.

[phate]

Okay thanks. Do that when i get back from school :)

edit:

do i add this the same way?

You also can try Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1" along with the Option "Composite" "on" so GLX works when composite is enabled (ie. Quake3 ), but don't get surprised if your system crashes (or maybe just the X server).

and to the same section?

[ichi]

This is how I have it:

Section "Device"

        # no known options

        #BusID

        Identifier  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 (generic)"

        Driver      "nvidia"

        VendorName  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 (generic)"

        BoardName  "NVIDIA GeForce 4 (generic)"

        Option      "TwinView" "false"

#        Option      "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-50"

#        Option      "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60"

#        Option      "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768"

#      Option      "TVStandard" "PAL-B"

#      Option      "TVOutFormat" "RCA"

#      Option      "TwinViewOrientation" "Clone"

#        Option      "UBB" "True"

#        Option      "WindowFlip" "True"

        Option      "NoLogo" "True"

        Option "RenderAccel" "on"

        Option      "NvAGP" "3"

EndSection

Section "Extensions"

        Option "Composite" "on"

        Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1"

EndSection

[phate]

Section "Device"

Identifier "Videocard0"

Driver "nvidia"

VendorName "Videocard vendor"

BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"

EndSection

tjhis is what I have

[phate]

Okay so i got it working... but no shadows... but its fading and stuff.. any ideas?

[phate]

You also can try Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "1" along with the Option "Composite" "on" so GLX works when composite is enabled (ie. Quake3 ), but don't get surprised if your system crashes (or maybe just the X server).

this command didnt work... are you sure its right

[ichi]

The option is correct, only that maybe it goes in the device section instead of under Extensions.

I haven't really checked GLX with composite anyway, I rather disable composite than see how the thing crashes.

[g-n-t]

it goes under device...

[phate]

Thanks. all working nicely now. you guys are teh win!

[Aaron Veteran]

Excuse me while jump in here: Are these extra eye candy tricks supported in most all video cards or are some chipsets not supported? I have seen where xorg is going to work with my laptop's video (i830) but are there restrictions as to what cards are supported?

I swear I am so superficial that this is the biggest thing I am looking forward to upgrading to... :whistle:

[g-n-t]

lol. no this isnt windows longhorn. eyecandy is an equal oppurtunity employer in linux-land.

that said, it will be slow on integrated graphics...

[phate]

Well my friend cant get them working with hit ATI card. doesnt support them

[rezza Veteran]

In theory they will work with any card, but in practice they are pretty much unusable on anything other than an nvidia card, because the nvidia drivers are the only ones which provide hardware acceleration for the render extension.

The effects should work on non-nvidia cards, but they'll probably be fairly slow, and maybe more crash-prone.