anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

capoeira · 2010-09-12 01:36:19

from time to time my mouse-curser gets strange. It happens like 3x a week, suddenly and after some time it becaomes normal again. allready tested other mouse-theme. It's the red "thing" in the middle:

FluxBB bbcode test

What could cause this?

Last edited by capoeira (2010-09-19 17:39:31)

marfig · 2010-09-12 03:13:00

I'm only aware of that problem under windows for users of ATI cards. It's most prevalent when running with multiple monitors and on my case it's almost granted to happen whe running a virtual machine on the second monitor in full screen. I also hear this is common among gamers, but I wouldn't know about that. What you are witnessing is some kind of sync bug in the ATI drivers (assuming you are using an ATI card, of course). Each line is a one pixel high line of your cursor that then gets squished horizontal and stretched vertically. It's weird, it's a nuisance and it's been happening since yearly this year (that's right!) with no fix yet. Simply incredible.

Now, assuming you are indeed running on a ATI card, this only happens on Windows 7. It's news to me that this bug somehow migrated to the Linux drivers too. Way to go AMD!
You do well posting here what's your DE/WM (gnome, kde, etc), its version and what's your GPU and what drivers you are using.

EDIT:
Oh, btw, in Windows 7 the hack is to enable cursor trails under the mouse option in the control panel. If they bother you (they do me) bring the slider all the way to the left so the trails all but completely dissapear. So, under linux (and assuming you have nothing similar in your DE/WM), search for any program that takes it to itself to redraw your mouse cursor. That should do it for now until ATI manages a fix sometime in the upcoming decade.

Last edited by marfig (2010-09-12 03:18:38)

codycarey · 2010-09-12 16:14:26

This bug has been around for a while on Linux, it's not a new thing. I used to experience this same problem on the older Catalyst drivers, but haven't experienced it in a long time. I run an HD 4850 X2 with multiple screens and occasionally when moving from one screen to another it would suddenly turn into the 'pointer stack'. On the rare occasion it would hard lock X completely when moving between screens.

capoeira · 2010-09-12 16:51:29

yea, it gives you a windows-feel-alike when this happens lol
yes, indeed I have a radeon card.
And I have 2 monitors, too....but I don't switch between them, in fact one is a copy of the other. (it's a laptop, which remains closed all the time)
I'm using KDE4, I will see - perhaps I try another graphic-driver. I use this one: "extra/ati-dri 7.8.2-1"

Last edited by capoeira (2010-09-12 16:55:39)

capoeira · 2010-09-12 17:01:11

marfig wrote:

in Windows 7 the hack is to enable cursor trails under the mouse option in the control panel. .

In KDE it's default that they are on, but I will play with this settings next time it happens to see if it is realated.

dcc24 · 2010-09-12 18:30:39

capoeira wrote:

I use this one: "extra/ati-dri 7.8.2-1"

Uhm, that's the DRI driver, which you shouldn't be using if you are running catalyst. ati-dri is to be used only with xf86-video-ati.

Last edited by dcc24 (2010-09-12 18:30:57)

capoeira · 2010-09-12 18:38:56

dcc24 wrote:

capoeira wrote:
I use this one: "extra/ati-dri 7.8.2-1"
Uhm, that's the DRI driver, which you shouldn't be using if you are running catalyst. ati-dri is to be used only with xf86-video-ati.

oh yes i'm using xf86-video-ati. if xf86-video-ati is the driver, what is ati-dri for?
should I use catalyst and uninstall xf86-video-ati and ati-dri? (I'm no gamer and don't use 3-d effects either)

dcc24 · 2010-09-12 18:45:52

capoeira wrote:

oh yes i'm using xf86-video-ati. if xf86-video-ati is the driver, what is ati-dri for?
should I use catalyst and uninstall xf86-video-ati and ati-dri? (I'm no gamer and don't use 3-d effects either)

No, you shouldn't use catalyst unless you do gaming/3D etc.

xf86-video-ati is the ATI driver for the X.org X server, whereas ati-dri is the mesa DRI driver.

From the DRI site:

Mesa is an open-source OpenGL implementation, continually updated to support the latest OpenGL specification.
The Direct Rendering Infrastructure, also known as the DRI, is a framework for allowing direct access to graphics hardware under the X Window System in a safe and efficient manner. It includes changes to the X server, to several client libraries, and to the kernel (DRM, Direct Rendering Manager). The most important use for the DRI is to create fast OpenGL implementations providing hardware acceleration for Mesa. Several 3D accelerated drivers have been written to the DRI specification, including drivers for chipsets produced by 3DFX, AMD (formerly ATI), Intel and Matrox

Whereas X.org is a separate thing:

The X.Org project provides an open source implementation of the X Window System.

capoeira · 2010-09-12 18:52:33

dcc24 wrote:

capoeira wrote:
oh yes i'm using xf86-video-ati. if xf86-video-ati is the driver, what is ati-dri for?
should I use catalyst and uninstall xf86-video-ati and ati-dri? (I'm no gamer and don't use 3-d effects either)
No, you shouldn't use catalyst unless you do gaming/3D etc.
xf86-video-ati is the ATI driver for the X.org X server, whereas ati-dri is the mesa DRI driver.
From the DRI site:
Mesa is an open-source OpenGL implementation, continually updated to support the latest OpenGL specification.
The Direct Rendering Infrastructure, also known as the DRI, is a framework for allowing direct access to graphics hardware under the X Window System in a safe and efficient manner. It includes changes to the X server, to several client libraries, and to the kernel (DRM, Direct Rendering Manager). The most important use for the DRI is to create fast OpenGL implementations providing hardware acceleration for Mesa. Several 3D accelerated drivers have been written to the DRI specification, including drivers for chipsets produced by 3DFX, AMD (formerly ATI), Intel and Matrox
Whereas X.org is a separate thing:
The X.Org project provides an open source implementation of the X Window System.

understood, thanks alot

lolllllllllllllll
right at the moment I clicked "post a reply" the strange mouse-curser appeared again

capoeira · 2010-09-12 18:57:31

capoeira wrote:

lolllllllllllllll
right at the moment I clicked "post a reply" the strange mouse-curser appeared again

and allready gone (generaly it last longer). I changed cursor trails to 0ms, perhaps it was that (perhaps, because it had no imidiate effect)
stange thing, this

EDIT: i don't see any diference between curser trails inicial time of 0ms and 1000ms nor a diference when change curser trails distance from 1 to 20 pixels, so this is apparently broken in KDE (at least in mine)

Last edited by capoeira (2010-09-12 19:02:16)

xvello · 2010-09-12 20:09:29

If the glitch is due to your GPU, you might have a chance to work around this bug by using software cursor. It is slower (xorg has to draw the cursor itselft while the GPU takes care of it in the default HWCursor mode) but might be useful.
You need to add to your xorg.conf the following line (in the good device section) :
Option "SWCursor" "true"

codycarey · 2010-09-12 21:47:30

dcc24 wrote:

No, you shouldn't use catalyst unless you do gaming/3D etc.

That is just your opinion. I don't do any gaming or 3D and I still prefer to use Catalyst because they simply give better results for me. Discouraging people from using them simply for that reasoning is nonsensical.

Last edited by codycarey (2010-09-12 21:50:00)

dcc24 · 2010-09-12 22:05:39

codycarey wrote:

dcc24 wrote:
No, you shouldn't use catalyst unless you do gaming/3D etc.
That is just your opinion. I don't do any gaming or 3D and I still prefer to use Catalyst because they simply give better results for me. Discouraging people from using them simply for that reasoning is nonsensical.

"Better results" is not a metric, hence it is nonsense. What is actually better? What can't you do with xf86-video-ati that you can do with fglrx (since you said you don't do gaming/3D)?

codycarey · 2010-09-12 22:50:08

dcc24 wrote:

codycarey wrote:
dcc24 wrote:
No, you shouldn't use catalyst unless you do gaming/3D etc.
That is just your opinion. I don't do any gaming or 3D and I still prefer to use Catalyst because they simply give better results for me. Discouraging people from using them simply for that reasoning is nonsensical.
"Better results" is not a metric, hence it is nonsense. What is actually better? What can't you do with xf86-video-ati that you can do with fglrx (since you said you don't do gaming/3D)?

Stability, performance, etc are all major factors in me using Catalyst over the open source drivers. You can argue semantics all you want, but the fact is that different people have different results and should use whatever works best for them.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-09-12 01:36:19

anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#2 2010-09-12 03:13:00

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#3 2010-09-12 16:14:26

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#4 2010-09-12 16:51:29

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#5 2010-09-12 17:01:11

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#6 2010-09-12 18:30:39

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#7 2010-09-12 18:38:56

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#8 2010-09-12 18:45:52

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#9 2010-09-12 18:52:33

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#10 2010-09-12 18:57:31

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#11 2010-09-12 20:09:29

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#12 2010-09-12 21:47:30

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#13 2010-09-12 22:05:39

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

#14 2010-09-12 22:50:08

Re: anybode seen a mouse-curse behave like this?

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