High temperature with electron apps

[aiguofer]

Platform

Ubuntu Desktop 19.04 amd64

GPU, drivers, and screen setup

Lenovo X1 Carbon (6 gen) with Lenovo UHD Graphics 620, i915, 2 external monitors through thunderbolt dock plus laptop monitor

> glxinfo -B
name of display: :1
display: :1  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
    Vendor: Intel Open Source Technology Center (0x8086)
    Device: Mesa DRI Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (Kabylake GT2)  (0x5917)
    Version: 19.0.2
    Accelerated: yes
    Video memory: 3072MB
    Unified memory: yes
    Preferred profile: core (0x1)
    Max core profile version: 4.5
    Max compat profile version: 3.0
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2
OpenGL vendor string: Intel Open Source Technology Center
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (Kabylake GT2)
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.5 (Core Profile) Mesa 19.0.2
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.50
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none)
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile

OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 19.0.2
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL context flags: (none)

OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 19.0.2
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20

Environment

i3-gaps with compton

Compton version

> compton --diagnostics
**Version:** v6-rc1-168-g5a034ea

### Extensions:

* Shape: Yes
* XRandR: Yes
* Present: Present

### Misc:

* Use Overlay: Yes
* Config file used: /home/aiguofer/.config/compton.conf

### Drivers (inaccurate):

modesetting

Compton configuration:

I removed everything else just to make sure it wasn't a specific setting

backend = "xrender"; # it also happens with "glx"
vsync = false;

Steps of reproduction

1. Log in to i3 session. Open a few windows (including an electron app "Franz"), my temp hovers around 53
2. Start compton with no options

Expected behavior

CPU temperatures should stay around a normal temperature

Current Behavior

CPU temperature shoots up to over 70 (CPU usage doesn't really go up a lot)

Other details

If I close out the electron apps while compton is still running, the temps drop back to ~55. Then if I kill compton it drops back down to ~53

I've tried with and without "hardware acceleration" in the electron app and the effect is the same.

[Ropid]

See what happens if you add a use-damage = true; option to your config. If I understood things right, compton will by default repaint the whole screen for any pixel change made in any window. With that option, it will only repaint the changed area.

[aiguofer]

Awesome!! that alone totally fixes it. I'll re-activate the rest of my settings and see how it goes. Will report back in a few hours to see if I enocounter any other issues.

[yshui]

@aiguofer did you know why the temperature is rising? Is is because of the CPU usage?

[aiguofer]

No clue. CPU usage doesn't change too much... it hovers around 10% at idle with use-damage = true and bumps up to maybe 12% without it. However, when I don't have that flag enabled, I do see random CPU spikes (up to 40-50%) but they're very short lived and with long enough time in between that I wouldn't expect it to be the main cause.

[aiguofer]

Btw, I did see this issue in their github: https://github.com/meetfranz/franz/issues/1317

[yshui]

fixed by use-damage, so i don't think we need to keep this open