Arch Linux

Serpentarius13

Member

Registered: 2024-04-19

Posts: 10

Choppy video playback

Hi. I'm a bit of a newb, so forgive if I don't provide enough info, please ask, and I'll provide everything about my system. I've been using Arch with Sway for about 6 months now, everything was pretty smooth. Some time ago, I needed to get on Gnome with X because I had an app that I need but did not support Wayland. After that I've started noticing stutters in every video player I have: mpv, vlc, youtube in Chrome. I've noticed that they disappear when I move my mouse and UI appears, and choppiness returns after I stop moving my mouse, perhaps it is linked to inhibiting power or something, but I've tried it on all power modes, with cable and not. I tried it in Firefox also, and suddenly the problem was not there (Mozilla strikes again). I've tried checking my disks, my task manager, and journalctl, but no unusual stuff is going on there. I have a laptop with Ryzen 7 8845HS and 780M gpu with 32 gigs of ram. There's maybe some change when I'm scrolling / reopening apps too, for example when Chrome opens, the window readjusts itself for a split second, being blurry. I've been even thinking its my OCD acting up, but I'm pretty sure its not. Please help! ._.

Last edited by Serpentarius13 (2024-12-15 13:23:43)

Katataf1sh

Member

Registered: 2023-12-02

Posts: 18

Re: Choppy video playback

Hi. I'm a bit of a newb, so forgive if I don't provide enough info, please ask, and I'll provide everything about my system. I've been using Arch with Sway for about 6 months now, everything was pretty smooth. Some time ago, I needed to get on Gnome with X because I had an app that I need but did not support Wayland. After that I've started noticing stutters in every video player I have: mpv, vlc, youtube in Chrome. I've noticed that they disappear when I move my mouse and UI appears, and choppiness returns after I stop moving my mouse, perhaps it is linked to inhibiting power or something, but I've tried it on all power modes, with cable and not. I tried it in Firefox also, and suddenly the problem was not there (Mozilla strikes again). I've tried checking my disks, my task manager, and journalctl, but no unusual stuff is going on there. I have a laptop with Ryzen 7 8845HS and 780M gpu with 32 gigs of ram. There's maybe some change when I'm scrolling / reopening apps too, for example when Chrome opens, the window readjusts itself for a split second, being blurry. I've been even thinking its my OCD acting up, but I'm pretty sure its not. Please help! ._.

Hey, I’ve run into similar issues before, and I think I can help. Try these steps:

Disable Panel Self Refresh (PSR). Add amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 to your kernel parameters. Edit /etc/default/grub, add it to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line, then update GRUB with sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and reboot.
Check your Sway config. Make sure you’ve got output * adaptive_sync on in there. Restart Sway after adding it.
In Chrome, try disabling hardware acceleration (chrome://settings/system) and restart it. If that doesn’t help, launch Chrome with --ozone-platform=wayland to force it to use Wayland.
For mpv, add this to your ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf:

hwdec=auto
video-sync=display-resample

See if that smooths things out.
Test if power management is messing with your GPU. Run:

echo "performance" | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

If that works, you can make it permanent later. Lastly, make sure everything’s updated (sudo pacman -Syu), especially the kernel and Mesa drivers. Let me know if any of this works or if you need more help.

Serpentarius13

Member

Registered: 2024-04-19

Posts: 10

Re: Choppy video playback

Hi. I'm a bit of a newb, so forgive if I don't provide enough info, please ask, and I'll provide everything about my system. I've been using Arch with Sway for about 6 months now, everything was pretty smooth. Some time ago, I needed to get on Gnome with X because I had an app that I need but did not support Wayland. After that I've started noticing stutters in every video player I have: mpv, vlc, youtube in Chrome. I've noticed that they disappear when I move my mouse and UI appears, and choppiness returns after I stop moving my mouse, perhaps it is linked to inhibiting power or something, but I've tried it on all power modes, with cable and not. I tried it in Firefox also, and suddenly the problem was not there (Mozilla strikes again). I've tried checking my disks, my task manager, and journalctl, but no unusual stuff is going on there. I have a laptop with Ryzen 7 8845HS and 780M gpu with 32 gigs of ram. There's maybe some change when I'm scrolling / reopening apps too, for example when Chrome opens, the window readjusts itself for a split second, being blurry. I've been even thinking its my OCD acting up, but I'm pretty sure its not. Please help! ._.

Hey, I’ve run into similar issues before, and I think I can help. Try these steps:

Disable Panel Self Refresh (PSR). Add amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10 to your kernel parameters. Edit /etc/default/grub, add it to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line, then update GRUB with sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg and reboot.
Check your Sway config. Make sure you’ve got output * adaptive_sync on in there. Restart Sway after adding it.
In Chrome, try disabling hardware acceleration (chrome://settings/system) and restart it. If that doesn’t help, launch Chrome with --ozone-platform=wayland to force it to use Wayland.
For mpv, add this to your ~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf:

hwdec=auto
video-sync=display-resample

See if that smooths things out.
Test if power management is messing with your GPU. Run:

echo "performance" | sudo tee /sys/class/drm/card0/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level

If that works, you can make it permanent later. Lastly, make sure everything’s updated (sudo pacman -Syu), especially the kernel and Mesa drivers. Let me know if any of this works or if you need more help.

THANK YOU!! Setting adaptive_sync fixed it! God bless for such detailed reply!

Katataf1sh

Member

Registered: 2023-12-02

Posts: 18

Re: Choppy video playback

THANK YOU!! Setting adaptive_sync fixed it! God bless for such detailed reply!

Cheers, glad it worked.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 60,756

Re: Choppy video playback

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.

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