Benchmark: wayland-compositor-bench

Tessa was measured with wayland-compositor-bench v0.6.1 on 2026-11-03. The tool measures the running Wayland session rather than a synthetic nested compositor, so the figures include Tessa’s integrated panel, effects, and the live desktop configuration.

No single score is produced. Compare individual axes and treat differences smaller than the reported run-to-run range as noise.

Environment

Compositor	Tessa 0.2.5 development tree, scenefx build, blur on
Session	Live DRM session on card1-eDP-1
Display	1920×1080 @ 59.93 Hz
CPU	Intel Core i5-6300U (2 cores / 4 threads)
GPU	Intel Skylake-U GT2 (HD Graphics 520), i915, Mesa 26.2.6
Kernel	7.2.11-arch1-1
Profile	native (session as configured)
Runs	3 consecutive runs, all rated high confidence

The benchmark reports the compositor as tessa-ink with the panel and xdg-desktop-portal attributed as the modular stack. Battery was charging and RAPL was unreadable without root, so package/battery power is not reported. Those are the only failed confidence checks; the benchmark still rated every run high confidence.

Results

Medians with [min–max] where runs differed by more than 1%.

Idle session

RAM MiB	peak MiB	anon MiB	comp PSS MiB	stack PSS MiB	procs	CPU %	comp CPU %	stack CPU %	unrelated CPU %	wakeups/s
120 [120–191]	120 [120–191]	73 [73–145]	519	521	19	3.27	0.21 [0.17–0.22]	0.31 [0.26–0.32]	0.62 [0.61–0.76]	3 [3–3]

comp/stack PSS are the benchmark’s attribution, not the compositor’s working set; use the RAM and anon columns for the session footprint.

Extra toplevels

ws/window	ws delta MiB	client GPU MiB	comp delta MiB	comp GPU MiB	residual MiB	post-close MiB	windows
16.2 [14.8–17.6]	97 [89–106]	172 [157–173]	-0.0 [-0.1–2.1]	34 [34–35]	34.9 [26.2–35.1]	0.0 [0.0–0.1]	6

Frame timing — one animated surface

fps	cadence Hz	panel %	comp ms/frame	CPU@60 Hz %	comp GPU ms	client GPU ms	p95 ms	dropped	frames
59.7	59.9	99.6	2.402 [2.380–2.413]	14.34 [14.21–14.41]	0.758	11.436	17.73	1	358

Frame timing — animated surface + extra windows

fps	cadence Hz	panel %	comp ms/frame	CPU@60 Hz %	comp GPU ms	client GPU ms	p95 ms	dropped	frames
53.3 [52.8–53.8]	59.9	89.0 [88.1–89.8]	4.595 [4.562–4.737]	24.57 [24.22–25.27]	4.234	12.295	33.97	39 [36–42]	320 [316–323]

During the run

RAM peak MiB	CPU avg %	CPU peak %
276 [271–345]	13.9 [13.8–15.2]	100.5 [100.4–104.0]

Protocol surface

The scan reports 23 of 31 tracked desktop/protocol features (74.2%), or 30 of 46 when optional tiers are included. One feature is marked stale (wp_cursor_shape_manager_v1). The full per-global list, timeline, and phase marks are in the raw JSON.

Raw results

• Run 1
• Run 2
• Run 3

The raw files contain the complete 25 ms RAM/CPU series, 100 ms CPU timeline, protocol versions, and confidence checks.

Reproduce

Run inside the logged-in Tessa session:

wayland-compositor-bench --check
wayland-compositor-bench --run --json results/tessa-native-1.json --label tessa-native
wayland-compositor-bench --run --json results/tessa-native-2.json --label tessa-native
wayland-compositor-bench --run --json results/tessa-native-3.json --label tessa-native
wayland-compositor-bench --report results/

The three runs above used the tool’s native profile and default 20 s idle, 6 s frame tests, and six extra toplevels. Use --profile reference when comparing across machines or compositor configurations.