GNOME 3.34 performance (Ubuntu 19.10)

The preview cycle (version 3.33) of GNOME 3.34 has started upstream, and already there is good news for performance.

Mutter 3.33.2 brings two major optimizations that practically everyone will benefit from. These are not dependent on the power of your CPU or GPU but instead fix real time scheduling issues in when frames are displayed on screen.

  • Less frame skipping and less stutter, meaning you are more likely to experience a higher smoother framerate. This applies to both Wayland and Xorg sessions, although the NEWS file incorrectly implies just Xorg.

  • One frame lower output latency in Xorg sessions. For a typical 60Hz display, this means you will get visible feedback from your input 16.6ms sooner. Even scrolling a web browser will feel more snappy. This brings Xorg in line with the same latency level already provided by Wayland sessions.

While mutter 3.33.2 is not yet in Ubuntu 19.10, it will be an exciting update when it arrives. Later down the track and after the changes have had some time to mature, we will consider backporting the same performance fixes to older Ubuntu releases.

7 Likes

Great news!

Will you and/or the team be making test builds of mutter available e.g. bileto etc ? … would be very useful for budgie and others to build and test against :wink:

Superb work. Keep it coming!