Network is really slow

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thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

Network is really slow

#1 Post by thesun »

Both my eth0 and wlan0 are working...I have a BCM43224 for the wifi, using Puppy 6.1.4 on a relatively ancient Dell Latitude E6410.

It works, especially if I'm just using the net, but I can tell it's slow when I'm using vncviewer...it's quite laggy and I often have to wait for it to render the page before typing anything.

I can modify vnc so it's not using 16 bit color but I'd prefer to keep that, as 8 bit just looks ghastly. It works fine when I boot into Windoze and connect via vncviewer there. I just want to connect via Puppy...or connect with the same zip that Windoze has.

Anything I can try? I located a 32-bit and 64-bit .gz Broadcom driver for the wlan card. Haven't put it in because I don't want to mess it up...it DOES work, and out of the box, no less...which isn't bad!

Just looking for tips, advice, and ideally, some switch or setting that I can set to get blazing fast speed...(It's slow on eth0, too, btw.)

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bigpup
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#2 Post by bigpup »

First, lets see how slow or fast it is.

Run this test.
http://www.speedtest.net/

What is your download speed from this test?

A Google search for vncviewer slow linux gives several options to try.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
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thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

It's not the lan speed...

#3 Post by thesun »

So this was very useful. Thanks. I think it's not the Puppy lan speed that's causing the issue. Either it's the graphics card or my home lan.

Results:
On local Puppy, no VNC, it was 200Mbps both upload and download.
On remote home VNC server, it was spotty: 5.80 down/.88up to 30.99down/4.60up.

So probably it's nothing to do with the lan speed here.

Might be the video driver, or maybe the slow connection at home.

Any other ways to sleuth it? Can I test the video display somehow for speed?

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Marv
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Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 13:47
Location: SW Wisconsin

Re: It's not the lan speed...

#4 Post by Marv »

thesun wrote:Can I test the video display somehow for speed?
Not perfect but glxgears is useful for comparison purposes and is in many pups. In a terminal, run

Code: Select all

vblank_mode=0 glxgears
Without the vblank_mode=0, the frames per second is locked to the vertical refresh rate. See if that will run and what FPS it gives.
Pups currently in kennel :D Older LxPupSc and X-slacko-4.4 for my users; LxPupSc, LxPupSc64 and upupEF for me. All good pups indeed, and all running savefiles for look'n'feel only. Browsers, etc. solely from SFS.

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

Glxgears not found

#5 Post by thesun »

I'm getting a bash error that glxgears isn't found. ??

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bigpup
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#6 Post by bigpup »

Puppy 6.1.4
Can you give us the specific version name?
Like Slacko, Tahrpup, etc......

menu->System->Pup-Sysinfo->Sys-Specs->Distro specs will tell you the Puppy version name.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

Quirky

#7 Post by thesun »

Grrr, yes, so sorry: It's Quirky. And perhaps aptly named...

Quirky 6.1.4

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

Same on X-tahr...

#8 Post by thesun »

Alas, I've just tried a fresh install of X-tahr and it is the same...very laggy on VNC. Using the Intel driver though, and GLXGEARS works on this one.

Seems so weird, since VNC works great on the system via windows.

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bigpup
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#9 Post by bigpup »

What is glxgears showing for frame rates?
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

#10 Post by thesun »

About 300-304 frames in 5 seconds = 60FPS

Good? Bad? Ugly?

It looks very smooth, not at all choppy. So strange. Could it be something odd with the way the ssh tunnel is being created? I'm running VNC through a tunnel...not doing anything different than what I normally do but...wondering now if it's in the VNC config.

Or the viewer?

I think I might check the docs on this version of vncviewer and maybe it's doing something weird with compression that I don't need.

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

#11 Post by thesun »

Was sure I thought of what it might be: the server was 16 bit color, the display 24 bit...apparently that conversion is done by VNC and is laggy.

So I started a 24 bit color server...same problem.

Grrr.

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Marv
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Location: SW Wisconsin

#12 Post by Marv »

thesun wrote:About 300-304 frames in 5 seconds = 60FPS

Good? Bad? Ugly?
If you were using the vblank_mode=0 as suggested, that is pretty low, just at the vertical refresh rate. My guess is that you weren't and glxgears was locked to the vertical refresh rate, thus not of much diagnostic use.
Just for context, my Pentium M laptops which I am gradually phasing out as they choke on gvfs show roughly 485 to 500 FPS. My core 2 duos show around 1350 FPS, and my Bay Trail quad core fanless desktops show roughly 2500 FPS IIRC. All these boxes are intel video of various vintages. My rule of thumb for smooth scrolling and general non-laggy performance with newer browsers etc has been to try for 5x the vertical refresh rate with 8x or 10x better.
Pups currently in kennel :D Older LxPupSc and X-slacko-4.4 for my users; LxPupSc, LxPupSc64 and upupEF for me. All good pups indeed, and all running savefiles for look'n'feel only. Browsers, etc. solely from SFS.

thesun
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon 26 Sep 2011, 02:25

Solved

#13 Post by thesun »

So after deciding it was NOT the network and NOT the display, I thought I'd try different VNC options. I played around for two days with various compression levels, etc., from the command line

Code: Select all

xtightvncviewer -blah -blahblah 
and finally opted to try the realvnc binary for 32-bit linux found here: http://www.realvnc.com/download/get/1799/

And the problem is solved.

Lightning fast VNC. So something was going wrong with xtightvncviewer. Either I had something wrong in the server setup or something wrong in the client, but that was the issue. I'd love to know what caused it if someone has any ideas (just in case I can't use RealVNC sometime...) but for now I'm happy. Thank god...this was getting tedious, click....wait wait wait...click...wait wait wait.... :-)

Thanks for all the help, too!

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