[SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

arch_noob82 · 2020-03-28 03:59:39

Hi Arch Linux Users,

I'm Stewart and I'm a recovering Ubuntu user

I have installed arch for the first time and I have been playing around with the Awesome Window Manager. While I have been able to figure out most of what I need I have run in to a strange screen tearing issue where scrolling in a terminal emulator causes the screen to become torn with a repeating triangle patterns. This only happens when I have 3D acceleration enabled on VMWare player 14 (Win 10 Host).

After extensive googling of terms such as "screen tearing arch" and "z tearing" I'm at a loss to even understand what component of linux is causing the issue. I suspect a driver but I really have no idea. Any guidance in what to google next would be amazing. Thanks in advance for your time reading this.

I have cross posted this issue on reddit. That post includes screen shots of the issue. https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware/comment … nux_guest/

Last edited by arch_noob82 (2020-03-30 11:21:40)

jasonwryan · 2020-03-28 04:11:01

Read the Code of Conduct and only post thumbnails http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cod … s_and_code

arch_noob82 · 2020-03-28 04:19:42

Sorry. I have removed the direct screenshots from the post and replaced them with a link to my cross post.

seth · 2020-03-28 07:50:02

Please post your xorg log and the outputs of "glxinfo" and "loginctl session-status".

arch_noob82 · 2020-03-28 08:38:22

Hi Seth.

Thanks for your reply.

As requested:
Xorg Log : http://ix.io/2fJf
loginctl session-status http://ix.io/2fJg
glxinfo: http://ix.io/2fJh

Last edited by arch_noob82 (2020-03-28 08:39:14)

Lone_Wolf · 2020-03-28 12:59:14

install xf86-video-vmware , restart X and verify whether that helps .

seth · 2020-03-28 14:32:24

Otherwise get picom out of the equation.

arch_noob82 · 2020-03-28 23:46:25

Lone_Wolf wrote:

install xf86-video-vmware , restart X and verify whether that helps .

I already had this package installed. I let pacman reinstall however the issue persists.

seth wrote:

Otherwise get picom out of the equation.

I tried that yesterday by taking the spawn command out of the rc.lua file that awesome uses. This time I removed the whole package using pacman -R. The issue persists. Interestingly the garbled effect with out picom is slightly different. It's more tiled now rather than the triangles I was initially getting.

Does it matter that these packages where installed after I installed Xorg? I also forgot to enable 3D acceleration when I first setup the VM in VMWare. I added it after I installed Xorg. Could this have some how contributed to the issue? Is the order of installing packages important? Is there a way to tell Xorg to reconfigure it's self somehow?

Not sure if this helps too but I can reproduce the issue using openbox and xterm so as I can currently tell it's not something caused by awesome and picom. It's something lower in the stack.

== EDIT ==

So it looks like this is a driver issue. As it turns out I installed xorg-server before having vmware drivers installed. At that point I generated a default config file for xorg that had the Driver set to "modesetting". Changing this to "vmware" seems to have fixed the issue. Interestingly after discovering this I tried adding picom back and it was erroring out under the vmware driver. Adding the "--experimental-backends" flag seems to allow picom to run. Who knows what side effects that flag might deliver though.The performance is "OKish" however it is a VM so you cant expect 3D acceleration to be all that good. Will continue to use over the next day or two but for now it seems like this is working well enough to keep moving forward with my migration to Arch.

Last edited by arch_noob82 (2020-03-29 04:37:33)

Ropid · 2020-03-29 03:09:31

You mention you generated a config file. Try removing the file and see what happens. Nowadays the Xorg server has good automatic behavior and doesn't need an xorg.conf file anymore. The different Arch packages also ship with config snippets that are loaded by the Xorg server. The X parts in the packages then start working by themselves without you having to do anything in your own config.

arch_noob82 · 2020-03-29 04:36:21

Ropid wrote:

You mention you generated a config file. Try removing the file and see what happens. Nowadays the Xorg server has good automatic behavior and doesn't need an xorg.conf file anymore. The different Arch packages also ship with config snippets that are loaded by the Xorg server. The X parts in the packages then start working by themselves without you having to do anything in your own config.

So I tried this and it worked!!! Fantastic. I do remember removing this configuration file at one point but I don't remember that fixing the issue however this time it has. I think I might have tried that before I had the VMWare drivers installed. Now everything works a lot better including desktop resizing. For any users who are encountering this issue make sure you have not made the two mistakes I did. First install the correct drivers before anything else. Second remove any generated configuration file before further debugging.

Last edited by arch_noob82 (2020-03-29 04:36:48)

seth · 2020-03-29 06:55:57

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-03-28 03:59:39

[SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#2 2020-03-28 04:11:01

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#3 2020-03-28 04:19:42

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#4 2020-03-28 07:50:02

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#5 2020-03-28 08:38:22

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#6 2020-03-28 12:59:14

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#7 2020-03-28 14:32:24

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#8 2020-03-28 23:46:25

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#9 2020-03-29 03:09:31

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#10 2020-03-29 04:36:21

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

#11 2020-03-29 06:55:57

Re: [SOLVED] Screen Tearing Issues

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