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zyisrad

Member

Registered: 2015-12-13

Posts: 22

NVidia + i3wm + Picom = glitchy UI

I get glitchy/flickering of the GTK UI elements randomly with this setup. I can usually float/unfloat the window to temporarily fix it. Once it starts, moving the mouse over different elements seems to exacerbate the issue. Killing `picom` fixes it. Using `unredir-if-possible = false` seemed to rectify it temporarily. It might also happen more frequently after a suspend.

I'm not sure what settings I should be using to fix this issue. I'm not sure when it last didn't present this behavior.

One good example is when opening a file in Xournal++, the dialog box likes to flash the elements while the list of files flashes and flickers so navigating is impossible. Any ideas are much appreciated.

Linux 5.8.10-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu, 17 Sep 2020 18:01:06 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux
nvidia 455.23.04-1
picom 8.1-1
i3-gaps 4.18.2-2

picom.conf:

unredir-if-possible = false;
backend = "glx";
vsync = true;
glx-no-stencil = true;
shadow = true;
blur = false;
active-opacity		= 1.0;
inactive-opacity	= 0.8;
frame-opacity		= 0.8;
inactive-opacity-override = true;
fading = false;
fade-delta = 10;
fade-in-step = 0.1;
fade-out-step = 0.1;
shadow-exclude = [
    "focused = false",
    "_NET_WM_STATE@:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'"
];
focus-exclude = [
    "!class_g = 'kitty'",
    "class_g = 'firefox' && !window_type *= 'menu'"
];
opacity-rule = [
  "95:class_g = 'kitty' && !_NET_WM_STATE@:32a",
  "0:_NET_WM_STATE@[0]:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'",
  "0:_NET_WM_STATE@[1]:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'",
  "0:_NET_WM_STATE@[2]:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'",
  "0:_NET_WM_STATE@[3]:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'",
  "0:_NET_WM_STATE@[4]:32a *= '_NET_WM_STATE_HIDDEN'",
];

Zod

Member

From: Hoosiertucky

Registered: 2019-03-10

Posts: 630

Re: NVidia + i3wm + Picom = glitchy UI

One thing you could try, and it's how I have picom setup, is to use --experimental-backends.

I am using i3-gaps with an older nvidia quadro and don't have the problem you are describing, but I'm also using nouveau.

You can read a little about it here..
https://github.com/yshui/picom

I also comment out the backend setting in picom.conf.

zyisrad

Member

Registered: 2015-12-13

Posts: 22

Re: NVidia + i3wm + Picom = glitchy UI

--experimental-backends didn't help.

It seems like it doesn't happen with nouveau but I have a 1660ti and it has some slowdowns and hiccups when using applications that use opengl (e.g. kitty) with nouveau. For now the best course of action seems to be to not run picom.

zyisrad

Member

Registered: 2015-12-13

Posts: 22

Re: NVidia + i3wm + Picom = glitchy UI

It's hard to debug this issue since it seems to happen when the up time passes a certain point. This is after a few days of suspending the system at night. But I haven't seen any artifacts since using the

xrender-sync-fence = true;

So the main picom config is:

backend = "glx";
xrender-sync-fence = true;
vsync = true;

Edit: After a few weeks, it looks like these settings have fixed the issue.

Last edited by zyisrad (2020-10-11 18:58:05)