XGame for Linux (example: if you use beryl and you lost FPS)

[Zico]

Hi folks

I don't know if someone is interested in this or if you think it's completely unnecessary, but I just would like to let all Linux users know:

Some days ago I discovered the truly beautiful tool Beryl which adds tons of eyecandy to my desktop.
The negative side-effect for me is, it sucks FPS away from Nexuiz. I use beryl with Xorg, rendered via NVidia driver and even if some can't agree my FPS drop (140FPS -> 100FPS for example).

Since I don't want to disable Beryl or worse loose FPS where I could even really need it I looked a bit around and I found a very interesting (and also old, but who cares) tool:
XGAME.

Of course you can also give it a try if you don't use beryl but some other tools like Superkaramba or something else from what you think it sucks FPS away.

The concept is simple: add your game to that tool (it's a Perl script) and if you run the game it starts a new X-Server to run it. Surely a new X-Server needs more resources, but the "beryl-FPS-drop" is much worse indeed.
So instead of dropping from 140 to 100 it even speeds me up a bit (2-3FPS) . KDE also seems to be hungry as well - even without beryl
The only negative effect with it may be the game needs a bit longer to start (new X needs to start). That takes approx 10 seconds for me.

I really like the tool and I would like to share this idea with everyone not aware of it.
There are two version of XGame - 2.x with GTK-based Frontend and 1.7.x which is shell-based.

If you like the idea, give it a chance.

Here is the URL:
http://xgame.tlhiv.org/

[Dokujisan]

Do you have an idea of how much RAM / Processor the second X-server uses?

[esteel]

I'd say it will be swapped and as for CPU there should not be much difference to only one X server? I hope so

[Workaphobia]

You can also use xgame from a console if you're in a non-GUI runlevel, and save yourself the resources of the first X server altogether. You also don't even need to install xgame you can do something like

Code: Select all

(on console 1)
X
(on console 2)
xterm -display :0.0
(on X session xterm window, run nexuiz via command line)


And you can do this to run other graphical X apps in a minimal environment. If you need a tiny (and ugly) window manager you can run "twm &" in the background.

[kyre]

Beryl has an option "disable redirect for fullscreen windows", which I don't think is enabled by default. With this set there should be no fps difference with or without beryl running.

[Ed]

Beryl has an option "disable redirect for fullscreen windows", which I don't think is enabled by default. With this set there should be no fps difference with or without beryl running.

Does anyone have any experience in this? I just get a black screen which is rather worse.

[dIM]

I get a black screen with mplayer.
Games flicker, but they do so also with the default setting.
I always switch back to Metacity when i am going to play...

[Psychcf]

I seem to have my mouse stuck when I have a window from another desktop sticking out over an edge (and I launch nexuiz from that desktop)

[oz]

I log off X and log in again with blackbox as window manager for gaming.

Thats best for me, because its fast, stable and there are no plug-ins running in the background.