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#1 2016-07-09 03:21:15

BhaskarK
Member
Registered: 2016-07-07
Posts: 8

[SOLVED]Screen tearing on xfce with proprietary nvidia drivers.

EDIT:
The Problem has been solved by installing bumblebee instead of NVIDIA Optimus. Please check the Wiki for more info. There is still a lack of options in the nvidia-settings dialog but the tearing has gone.
Happy Tweaking!

---

So when I posted my last query I didn't notice this problem and most of the problems there have already been solved. I have got an ASUS A555LF notebook with dedicated Nvidia Geforce 930M graphics. During the installation I chose to install the proprietary drivers along with the nvidia-settings applet. Now, I am noticing considerable screen tearing issues while watching videos , moving windows, or playing games.

 lspci | grep -E "VGA|3D" 

gives

 
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics (rev 09)
04:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM108M [GeForce 930M] (rev a2)

that means I have both an integrated and a dedicated chip (right?).

So, I chose to use nvidia optimus and here's my 20-nvidia.conf file from xorg.conf.d directory:

Section "Module"
    Load "modesetting"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "nvidia"
    Driver "nvidia"
    BusID "4:0:0"
    Option "AllowEmptyInitialConfiguration"
    Option         "RegistryDwords" "PerfLevelSrc=0x3322; PowerMizerDefaultAC=0x1; PowerMizerDefault=0x3"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "False"
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On , ForceCompositionPipeline= On }"
    Option "Tearfree" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "nvidia"
#   Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
    Option         "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" "off"
#   Option         "TripleBuffer" "on"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

the alternative configuration section on the optimus page mentions that adding these lines to xorg.conf (20-nvidia.conf in my case) might solve problems in some cases:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "intel"
    Driver      "modesetting"
    BusID       "PCI:0:2:0"
    Option      "AccelMethod"  "sna"
    #Option      "TearFree" "True"
    #Option      "Tiling" "True"
    #Option      "SwapbuffersWait" "True"
EndSection

However, on adding them, I get stuck at

[OK] Target Graphical Interface Reached. 

instead of getting the sddm manager.

Also, my nvidia-settings window is showing incomplete options. There must be a 'Sync every Vblank' option there but what I am getting is this :

http://i.imgur.com/eUCpfbm.png

note the line " Currently Synced to display: unknown".

Here might lie the main cause of the tearing problem. Please Help!

Last edited by BhaskarK (2016-07-09 12:38:43)

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#2 2016-07-09 03:33:15

cra1g321
Member
Registered: 2011-01-24
Posts: 66

Re: [SOLVED]Screen tearing on xfce with proprietary nvidia drivers.

** Edit, apologies just looked at your config file, and you seem to have this setting added **


I have a GT730 in my desktop and had been getting tearing with scrolling in browsers and html5 videos, what fixed it was doing

nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"

then i used this useful website http://www.vsynctester.com/ to check the tearing had gone.

I have the code set to run everytime i login by my openbox autostart config file, i've never looked at the nvidia-settings GUI to see if there is way to do it with it.

Last edited by cra1g321 (2016-07-09 03:35:19)

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#3 2016-07-09 08:35:24

brebs
Member
Registered: 2007-04-03
Posts: 3,742

Re: [SOLVED]Screen tearing on xfce with proprietary nvidia drivers.

cra1g321's command above, is enough to fix vsync smile

Funnily enough, an even better test than Youtube of whether vsync is really taking effect, is just to scroll up and down a few times in an email within Thunderbird - any tearing is very noticeable.

As an alternative: I have temporarily played with ortle, which has the advantage over compton in that there isn't a ton of command-line option combinations to experiment with. Both ortle and compton fix the vsync.

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#4 2016-07-09 10:48:33

BhaskarK
Member
Registered: 2016-07-07
Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED]Screen tearing on xfce with proprietary nvidia drivers.

cra1g321 wrote:

** Edit, apologies just looked at your config file, and you seem to have this setting added **

I have a GT730 in my desktop and had been getting tearing with scrolling in browsers and html5 videos, what fixed it was doing
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
then i used this useful website http://www.vsynctester.com/ to check the tearing had gone.
I have the code set to run everytime i login by my openbox autostart config file, i've never looked at the nvidia-settings GUI to see if there is way to do it with it.

Yes, after a number of tries, nothing seems to be working, even the ForceCompositionPipeline method.
Thanks for the vsync tester, it's quite a handy tool.

brebs wrote:

cra1g321's command above, is enough to fix vsync smile
Funnily enough, an even better test than Youtube of whether vsync is really taking effect, is just to scroll up and down a few times in an email within Thunderbird - any tearing is very noticeable.
As an alternative: I have temporarily played with ortle, which has the advantage over compton in that there isn't a ton of command-line option combinations to experiment with. Both ortle and compton fix the vsync.

As he himself mentioned above, I have already tried that and it didn't do anything.
Nevertheless I tried ortle and it also failed (I noticed even more tearing than before). I am presently using xfce's own composting manager. Even compton failed to do anything.

Now, I've got a theory that the problem is something to do with the hardware-software connection because the nvidia-settings dialog is not even detecting all options available with the gpu. I am pretty sure that if I can get a vsync option there, the tearing will be solved quite easily. Is there any way to check if I have installed the drivers correctly and whether my notebook is actually using the gpu instead of the integrated card.

Thanks !

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#5 2016-07-09 12:36:15

BhaskarK
Member
Registered: 2016-07-07
Posts: 8

Re: [SOLVED]Screen tearing on xfce with proprietary nvidia drivers.

Goddamn YEAH!
Solved the problem, it was a problem with Optimus itself. There is still no vsync option in nvidia-settings but I have fixed the tearing by installing

bumblebee

instead.
Working like a charm !

Marking solved.

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