Song bar background blur causes huge GPU usage

[meybonomme]

Affected version
0.7.6

Bug summary
Music playback causing huge GPU usage, the entire desktop will lag strongly.

Relevant logs, screenshots, screencasts, etc.
Screencast from 2024-02-06 19-43-38.webm

Fedora 39
GNOME 45.3
Wayland
Intel UHD Graphics 620

[SeaDve]

This is likely caused by the blur on the player bar, not the playback itself. To confirm, if you are familiar with using the inspector, you can hide it and see if it is still reproducible.

I can reproduce this btw on an Intel laptop, but not in AMD.

[meybonomme]

I can reproduce this btw on an Intel laptop...

So you can reproduce this issue.

Unfortunately I'm not familiar with using inspector. Can you provide more detailed instructions?

[meybonomme]

Now I know how to use GTK Inspector.
Please give me instructions, how to hide player bar blur. I can't find it myself.

[SeaDve]

Here's a quick screencast.

Kooha-2024-02-07-22-05-13.webm

After setting visible to unchecked, hiding SongBar, try reproducing the issue.

[meybonomme]

Thank you!

If songbar is hided, issue is gone and GPU usage is 0%.
Personally I don't like blurring in GNOME apps at all, native GNOME apps doesn't use also blurring.

Can you remove songbar blur and coloring from cover picture completely? It's much more resource friendly and much nicer and cleaner. I like very much simplified and clean look of GNOME native apps.

[SeaDve]

Thanks too for testing and confirming!

Can you remove songbar blur and coloring from cover picture completely? It's much more resource friendly and much nicer and cleaner. I like very much simplified and clean look of GNOME native apps.

I personally have been contemplating about it too a few months ago, regarding aesthetic and performance issues.

On the other hand, the blur issue is a bug in GTK or somewhere deeper down the stack, it is possible to keep it in the future without impacting performance, but I get your point on making the UI cleaner and simpler.

[meybonomme]

On the other hand, the blur issue is a bug in GTK or somewhere deeper down the stack...

I can understand, but you can't wait and hope this upstream issue will be fixed any time soon. And simpler and cleaner UI is in my opinion much nicer anyway, more "gnome-ish".

If you are interested, I have already few other UI improvements in my mind 😉

[SeaDve]

If you are interested, I have already few other UI improvements in my mind 😉

Feel free to open an issue, discussion, or combination, what you think is suitable