Cinnamon uses a lot of CPU..?

[Shoe Off Head]

Hi,

my son connects to my workstation to use Blender 2.8.x via TurboVNC

My workstation fan really goes crazy. When I look at the CPU usage it isn't the vncserver or blender but the "cinnamon" process my son runs on my workstation.

Is this normal? If not, can I fix it?

[DRC]

How is VirtualGL involved? Are you running Cinnamon using VirtualGL? Do you have a GPU? I have no familiarity with the Cinnamon window manager, but if it is heavily OpenGL-dependent and not well-optimized, then I could envision a high-CPU-usage scenario resulting from either using TurboVNC’s built-in software OpenGL implementation or using VirtualGL incorrectly (for instance, doing something like setting VGL_DISPLAY to the TurboVNC session’s display rather than the 3D X server’s display.) If VirtualGL is not involved, then I don’t know what you expect me to do, since I have no control over Cinnamon and you have confirmed that TurboVNC isn’t the source of the problem.

On May 30, 2021, at 7:55 AM, Shoe Off Head <shoeo...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

my son connects to my workstation to use Blender 2.8.x via TurboVNC

My workstation fan really goes crazy. When I look at the CPU usage it isn't the vncserver or blender but the "cinnamon" process my son runs on my workstation.

Is this normal? If not, can I fix it?

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[Shoe Off Head]

Sorry, I thought VirtualGL is also well suited for TurboVNC questions.
Do you want to delete the question and I ask it again in the TurboVNC
group (just discovered that it exists).

Blender is probably mostly dependent on OpenGL - but the high CPU is
not Blender but Cinnamon. Maybe somehow the Blender OpenGL payload are
somehow displayed as part of Cinnamon in the process list?

I used VirtualGL directly for a while but now I only use TurboVNC.

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[DRC]

> Sorry, I thought VirtualGL is also well suited for TurboVNC questions.
> Do you want to delete the question and I ask it again in the TurboVNC
> group (just discovered that it exists).

No, that’s OK. I was just trying to understand the problem.

> Blender is probably mostly dependent on OpenGL - but the high CPU is
> not Blender but Cinnamon. Maybe somehow the Blender OpenGL payload are
> somehow displayed as part of Cinnamon in the process list?

There’s an easy way to tell. Leave Cinnamon running and exit Blender. If the CPU usage drops, then your hypothesis is correct. I could definitely envision Blender causing the problem, if it is using TurboVNC’s software OpenGL implementation. The software OpenGL implementation is really intended for window managers or other applications that primarily use OpenGL just for image operations. Software OpenGL implementations are limited to OpenGL 2.1, so many modern applications will not work with them. Serious 3D rendering really needs a GPU, which means that you should look into using VirtualGL. If you can get VGL to work, then you can use it with Cinnamon as well, if that proves useful.

All of that aside, I can’t envision why the CPU usage would show up in the WM process rather than the Blender process. But perhaps what you’re seeing is compositing overhead rather than actual rendering overhead, in which case you may need to run Cinnamon using VirtualGL or perhaps figure out how to disable compositing with it. Or maybe try a non-compositing WM such as MATE.

> I used VirtualGL directly for a while but now I only use TurboVNC.
>
>> On Sun, May 30, 2021 at 3:28 PM DRC <d...@virtualgl.org> wrote:
>>
>> How is VirtualGL involved? Are you running Cinnamon using VirtualGL? Do you have a GPU? I have no familiarity with the Cinnamon window manager, but if it is heavily OpenGL-dependent and not well-optimized, then I could envision a high-CPU-usage scenario resulting from either using TurboVNC’s built-in software OpenGL implementation or using VirtualGL incorrectly (for instance, doing something like setting VGL_DISPLAY to the TurboVNC session’s display rather than the 3D X server’s display.) If VirtualGL is not involved, then I don’t know what you expect me to do, since I have no control over Cinnamon and you have confirmed that TurboVNC isn’t the source of the problem.
>>
>> On May 30, 2021, at 7:55 AM, Shoe Off Head <shoeo...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> my son connects to my workstation to use Blender 2.8.x via TurboVNC
>>
>> My workstation fan really goes crazy. When I look at the CPU usage it isn't the vncserver or blender but the "cinnamon" process my son runs on my workstation.
>>
>> Is this normal? If not, can I fix it?
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VirtualGL User Discussion/Support" group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to virtualgl-use...@googlegroups.com.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/virtualgl-users/54746910-a15b-4b44-a298-d4f94131fb6an%40googlegroups.com.
>>
>> --
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>
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[Shoe Off Head]

No rendering is done with Blender. Just modelling. But the UI of Blender probably uses OpenGL to display the 3D models. The strange thing is, if you run Cinnamon+Blender directly on the machine the CPU and GPU (I also see temperatures and fan speeds/noise) doesn't freak out. Only when run via TurboVNC the CPU+GPU spikes. On the other hand maybe this isn't strange at all and Blender sends just a huge amount of image data to the client (compared to other software).

[DRC]

That may explain it, then. Using OpenGL to display the UI is going to require a lot of CPU time with a software OpenGL implementation. You probably need to run either Blender or Cinnamon or both using VirtualGL and use a GPU with good OpenGL rendering performance. Once VGL is configured and working, you should be able to start TurboVNC with -vgl to GPU-accelerate all OpenGL in the session. You can also configure that permanently in /etc/turbovnc-server.conf.

On Jun 3, 2021, at 3:48 PM, Shoe Off Head <shoeo...@gmail.com> wrote:

No rendering is done with Blender. Just modelling. But the UI of Blender probably uses OpenGL to display the 3D models. The strange thing is, if you run Cinnamon+Blender directly on the machine the CPU and GPU (I also see temperatures and fan speeds/noise) doesn't freak out. Only when run via TurboVNC the CPU+GPU spikes. On the other hand maybe this isn't strange at all and Blender sends just a huge amount of image data to the client (compared to other software).

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/virtualgl-users/03b4ef12-86c1-47e9-b7fb-271b6f93d4e1n%40googlegroups.com.