Arch Linux

Meyermagic

Member

Registered: 2011-10-11

Posts: 1

Nouveau graphical tearing, dual-head setup

I currently experience tearing while using the Nouveau drivers for my NVidia card. I experienced the same (or a similar) tearing issue while using the proprietary drivers, which, along with the inherent incompatibility with most of the linux graphics stack, led me to switch to Nouveau.

I'm using the 3D support from nouveau-dri along with xf86-video-nouveau and the most recent Gnome 3 build in the official repositories.

I have a dual-head setup with one 1024x768 IBM monitor to the left of a 1920x1080 Dell monitor. Both report 60Hz vertical refresh rate in their configuration menus.

So far, my attempts to solve this problem have consisted of the following steps:

1. Use a minimal xorg.conf and configure everything using the integrated Gnome display settings utility. The minimal xorg.conf was as follows:

Section "Device"
	Identifier "nvidia"
	Driver "nouveau"
	Option "GLXVBlank" "true"
EndSection

2. Enable/disable the GLXVBlank flag in xorg.conf.

I do not experience the same issue when booted to Windows 7, using the most recent official NVidia drivers.

I would greatly appreciate any help anyone could offer on this issue, it is quite frustrating to boot into Windows to watch videos without horizontal breaks in every frame. Thanks!

Output from xrandr --current is as follows:

[ifx@melancholy ~]$ xrandr --current
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 2944 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-1 connected 1920x1080+1024+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
   1920x1080      60.0*+
   1280x1024      75.0     60.0  
   1152x864       75.0  
   1024x768       75.1     60.0  
   800x600        75.0     60.3  
   640x480        75.0     60.0  
   720x400        70.1  
DVI-I-2 connected 1024x768+0+312 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 304mm x 228mm
   1024x768       60.0*+   75.1     70.1  
   832x624        74.6  
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2  
   640x480        72.8     75.0     60.0     59.9  
   720x400        70.1  

My current xorg.conf is as follows:

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Monitor0"
	Option "PreferredMode" "1920x1080_60.00"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier "Monitor1"
	Option "PreferredMode" "1024x768_60.00"
	Option "LeftOf" "Monitor0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier "nvidia"
	Driver "nouveau"
	Option "Monitor-DVI-I-1" "Monitor0"
	Option "Monitor-DVI-I-2" "Monitor1"
	Option "GLXVBlank" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier "Screen0"
	DefaultDepth 24
	SubSection "Display"
		Depth 24
		Virtual 2944 1080
	EndSubSection
	Device "nvidia"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier "Layout0"
	Screen "Screen0"
EndSection

Other information can be provided on request.

darthpenguin

Member

Registered: 2011-09-16

Posts: 113

Re: Nouveau graphical tearing, dual-head setup

Hello. I have the same problem. Not just on Arch. I've had this problem with many distros, graphics cards, and drivers across the board. Installing the proprietary nvidia driver fixes the video tearing (vsync) issue for me. However; A) it's Linux, I don't want to use proprietary anything (otherwise I'd be on a Mac); and B) the proprietary driver will not flip my display to portrait anyway.

I basically have the same setup as Meyermagic. One GeForce 8600 GT, Two monitors (identical acers) 1680x1050 (oriented in portrait so 1050x1680 if you like), using open source Nouveau driver, created a minimal xorg file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-nouveau.conf

Section "Module"
    Load "glx"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Nvidia card"
    Driver "nouveau"
    Option "GLXVBlank" "true"
EndSection

Both monitors have a refresh rate of 60Hz. I still get really bad tearing as I drag windows across the screens.

Again, I've had this issue with almost every Linux box I've built (the only time this is not even remotely an issue is on my Thinkpad T400 using the Intel graphics). I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong or I've just had bad luck because it is nearly impossible to find any support for this on any forum anywhere. Anything I do find is either a thread like this where someone asked the question and simply never got a response. Or it is some out-of-date forum that give you 10 ways to modify the xorg.conf none of which make any sense or don't work. Not to mention that xorg.conf is now depreciated anyways.

Seriously, even if there is a wiki that concisely explains in excruciating detail how to actually modify the xorg conf files then I could figure it out for myself but I can't find that anywhere which makes me feel really stupid because I know it has to be out there. If there isn't an xorg wiki or xorg.com site or something that explains how to use the thing then I'm not sure I want to live on this planet anymore.

If anyone can help in any way please do.

mahen

Member

From: France

Registered: 2007-02-05

Posts: 72

Re: Nouveau graphical tearing, dual-head setup

Hi guys ! Did any of you manage to get Vsync to work properly with Nouveau, meanwhile ?