Increase KDE performance

[MyWorld]

I have always been on the lookout for an app or setting to squeeze that extra few milliseconds out of KDE, and I have found a gem.

By default QT is rendered by X11/XRender and that makes it quite sluggish. I have not seen this option before, but check out -> System settings -> Desktop Effects -> Advanced. Is there an option to change QT graphics system?

If there is then your distro has added the patch already and you need to choose "raster" ASAP.

If not, download and install this:
http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/KCM+Qt+Graphics+System?content=129817

Extract, then:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

If you are using Ubuntu you will need:

sudo aptitude install build-essential

Now in System Settings there will be an option "QT Graphics System" under "System Administration", choose raster and log out and log back in.

You should now see a much snappier QT performance boost, nice! OpenGL is experimental and on my Nvidia system it did not work at all, plasma went all wonky, but report back on what GFX drivers you use if it worked for you. If OpenGL works for you you should see an even greater performance boost.

 

[ponder]

Razor-qt

 

[MyWorld]

I have tried Razor-qt just now again, but it just not there yet, still too many little quirks.

I hope more developers join the project, it needs a few more releases before it will be perfect for everyday use.

 

[MyWorld]

Another thing I just read in the Arch Wiki on KDE, create the following dir:

mkdir -p ~/.compose-cache

It should also give you a performance boost.

"For those curious about what is going on here, this enables an optimization which Lubos (of general KDE speediness fame) came up with some time ago and was then rewritten and integrated into libx11. Ordinarily on startup applications read input method information from /usr/share/X11/locale/<your locale>/Compose. This Compose file is quite long (>5000 lines for the en_US.UTF-8 one) and takes some time to process. libX11 can create a cache of the parsed information which is much quicker to read subsequently, but it will only re-use an existing cache or create a new one in ~/.compose-cache if the directory already exists." [Cit. Rob]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/KDE#Tips_and_tricks