# Darktable not very responsive



## pbp_jackd (Oct 6, 2018)

Just installed darktable via pkg, wich gives me version 2.4.4.

I'm runnig FreeBSD 11.2 on a i7 8 Core Laptop and wondering why darktable is not really responsive. E.g. simply zoom in/out always takes a couple of seconds to complete. 
On the same laptop I have a recent Ubuntu and just installed darktable their as well. Here everything works butter smooth. The only clear difference is that on Ubuntu it's version 2.2.5.

I haven't managed yet to test with 2.2.5 on FreeBSD or 2.4.4. on Ubuntu.

Does anyone use darktable and have some feedback about the performance ?


----------



## ronaldlees (Oct 7, 2018)

What's the graphics card in your Laptop?  Darktable can easily use OpenCL on Linux, but on FreeBSD there are some limitiations:

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/OpenCL

Here's the info about OpenCL on Darktable:

https://www.darktable.org/usermanual/en/darktable_and_opencl_activation.html

I don't have a video card that FreeBSD supports for OpenCL, so when I tried to use Darktable on FreeBSD, it did what you're saying (it was a little slower).

Here is a quote from the above listed man page:



> You can at any time switch OpenCL support off and on; this will happen immediately. Depending on the type of modules you are using, you will notice the effect as a general speed-up during interactive work and during export


----------



## ronaldlees (Oct 7, 2018)

BTW, welcome to the forum.


----------



## pbp_jackd (Oct 8, 2018)

The Laptop model is Huawei MateBookX Pro, 16GB RAM, i7 Kabylake. Intel 620 + Nvidia MX150 Graphics card.
I do not use OpenCL, also not on Ubuntu. 
While on Ubuntu, I started a Gnome session ( Xorg ) and pressed the application launch button in the top left corner. As I'm usually running i3, I did not notice yet how smooth all the Icons fly over the screen ( no matter if Intel or Nvidia card was active ).
I did the same test on FreeBSD. Start Gnome, klick the button and nothing is flying in. The icons just appear with no animation. Also tested on both cards. The Nvidia card with the latest drivers from ports.

Not sure how to come closer to the cause at this point.


----------



## shkhln (Oct 8, 2018)

Which Xorg driver are you using? Intel? Modesetting? SCFB?


----------



## pbp_jackd (Oct 8, 2018)

Modesetting on boot. If I need the Nvidia Card, I will load the nvidia kernel modules, than start a second X server which uses the nvidia driver and lastly run darktable via vglrun on that one.


----------



## shkhln (Oct 8, 2018)

So, you have _nvidia-driver_ package installed as well? I suggest removing it, it messes with dynamic loader settings (see /usr/local/etc/libmap.d/nvidia.conf) in a way that disables OpenGL with Mesa drivers, which is obviously not what you want to achieve.



pbp_jackd said:


> start a second X server which uses the nvidia driver and lastly run darktable via vglrun on that one.



That procedure only makes sense for 3d applications, it brings no benefits otherwise.


----------



## pbp_jackd (Oct 18, 2018)

shkhln thanks for the hint about Nvidia drivers. I did run in some trouble with that before. However, this time its not related.

Out of curiosity I quickly installed debian in a virtualbox ( including guest additions) on this very PC. Guess what. Darktable runs smooth inside this box, much better than my native installation. Also gnome animates stuff inside the box just fine. It doesn't solve my problem though.

However, I might conclude that the graphic driver isn't the root cause.


----------



## abishai (Nov 10, 2018)

darktable has issues with OpenCL in Linux too with free drivers.
But yes, my experience with darktable on FreeBSD is awful.
1. beignet is blacklisted. Attempt to disable blacklist results crash on startup.
2. clover disabled at darktable startup as it doesn't pass requirement check.

```
abishai@darkstar:~ % darktable -d opencl
0.782576 [opencl_init] opencl related configuration options:
0.782691 [opencl_init]
0.782697 [opencl_init] opencl: 1
0.782702 [opencl_init] opencl_library: ''
0.782708 [opencl_init] opencl_memory_requirement: 768
0.782714 [opencl_init] opencl_memory_headroom: 300
0.782719 [opencl_init] opencl_device_priority: '*/!0,*/*/*'
0.782724 [opencl_init] opencl_mandatory_timeout: 200
0.782729 [opencl_init] opencl_size_roundup: 16
0.782734 [opencl_init] opencl_async_pixelpipe: 0
0.782738 [opencl_init] opencl_synch_cache: 0
0.782743 [opencl_init] opencl_number_event_handles: 25
0.782748 [opencl_init] opencl_micro_nap: 1000
0.782753 [opencl_init] opencl_use_pinned_memory: 0
0.782758 [opencl_init] opencl_use_cpu_devices: 0
0.782763 [opencl_init] opencl_avoid_atomics: 0
0.782767 [opencl_init]
0.785248 [opencl_init] found opencl runtime library 'libOpenCL'
0.785373 [opencl_init] opencl library 'libOpenCL' found on your system and loaded
1.144538 [opencl_init] found 1 platform
1.144568 [opencl_init] found 1 device
1.144769 [opencl_init] discarding device 0 `AMD CAICOS (DRM 2.48.0 / 11.2-RELEASE-p4, LLVM 6.0.1)' due to missing image support.
1.144779 [opencl_init] no suitable devices found.
1.144783 [opencl_init] FINALLY: opencl is NOT AVAILABLE on this system.
1.144787 [opencl_init] initial status of opencl enabled flag is OFF.
```


----------



## pbp_jackd (Nov 12, 2018)

abishai said:


> darktable has issues with OpenCL in Linux too with free drivers.
> But yes, my experience with darktable on FreeBSD is awful.
> 1. beignet is blacklisted. Attempt to disable blacklist results crash on startup.
> 2. clover disabled at darktable startup as it doesn't pass requirement check.
> ...



I can't comment on how the performance is using OpenCL as my laptop doesn't support it.
The issues I face are basically related to the Darktable UI which is not responsive at all.


----------



## Sevendogsbsd (Nov 13, 2018)

Same issue here, also with graphics/rawtherapee although not sure it's related. Both apps become unresponsive and graphics/rawtherapee eventually core dumps. Running the Intel x11/drm-next-kmod driver for my Intel (on chip) 630HD. Can't currently use either app.


----------



## Sevendogsbsd (Dec 13, 2018)

Interesting: I recently upgraded to FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE and revisited this issue. I added `kern.maxfiles=200000` to /etc/sysctl.conf, bounced the machine and now graphics/darktable is actually responsive and usable! It's not lightening fast, but don't think it ever was. Not sure this is related but I didn't have this sysctl knob set in my 11.2 instance and graphics/darktable was unusable on my 11.2 install. 

Curious to try graphics/rawtherapee but it kept core dumping on my 11.2 install. I like graphics/rawtherapee better actually (bit more intuitive), but not sure my change will affect it, or stop the core dumps...


----------



## abishai (Dec 16, 2018)

I upgraded to 12.0 and noticed no changes in darktable behaviour since 11.2. May value of kern.maxfiles is greater than 200000, so I'm in doubt that changing it can improve something for me. I think, only opencl can drastically change speed but it's not available on FreeBSD.


----------



## tingo (Dec 18, 2018)

Aha, so not devel/opencl then?


----------



## Sevendogsbsd (Dec 18, 2018)

Not sure I have devel/opencl installed - is that what you are asking?


----------



## tingo (Dec 18, 2018)

More a comment to the post claiming that OpenCL wasn't available for FreeBSD...


----------

