[SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

douteiful · 2013-08-20 10:43:54

Hello everyone, I tried searching for this issue but I couldn't find anyone with the same problem.

I get bad tearing with Awesome WM, it feels pretty sloppy and the tearing gets really noticeable when playing videos (I use mpv's VDPAU output), especially at low refresh rates like 23.9Hz on my TV.

This doesn't happen with dwm, i3, wmfs or XFCE; only with Awesome.
I'm not using any compositor.
I'm using propietary NVIDIA drivers 325.15, Xorg version 1.14.2.
I tried both with latest upstream awesome and stable 3.5.1, same result.

Why does this happen? Does awesome have an internal compositor or something? This feels really weird and I really hope someone can help me point this problem as it seems it's quite rare.

Last edited by douteiful (2013-08-21 08:09:10)

z1lt0id · 2013-08-20 11:14:38

Install compton-git from AUR and try the following command. Worked for me

compton --backend glx --paint-on-overlay --glx-no-stencil --vsync opengl-swc --unredir-if-possible

douteiful · 2013-08-20 11:28:00

z1lt0id wrote:

Install compton-git from AUR and try the following command. Worked for me
compton --backend glx --paint-on-overlay --glx-no-stencil --vsync opengl-swc --unredir-if-possible

Thank you very much for your quick answer. Effectively this fixes the tearing but I wanted to avoid using a compositor altogether because it causes mpv (with VDPAU) to hang when switching tags, and some games like TF2 to misbehave.

Do you know why tearing happens only on awesome wm? From what I understand, the window manager doesn't handle rendering, right?

EDIT: I also noticed that even with compton with vsync enabled, while it fixes tearing, some visual glitches still occur, like stuck frames while scrolling in the terminal or switching tags, so it still feels quite clunky.

Last edited by douteiful (2013-08-20 11:40:08)

z1lt0id · 2013-08-21 02:49:11

I have had issues with VDPAU crashing if I switch between tags. But haven't had the stuck frames like you do. Awesome doesn't handle the rendering. I had to tearing to begin with and used Compton to resolve the issue. I think most niche WMs all do the same if I'm correct (correct me if I am wrong). If you are wanting an all in one solution you are better of using things like KDE, Cinnamon, Gnome3 or even Pantheon.

douteiful · 2013-08-21 07:27:51

z1lt0id wrote:

I have had issues with VDPAU crashing if I switch between tags. But haven't had the stuck frames like you do. Awesome doesn't handle the rendering. I had to tearing to begin with and used Compton to resolve the issue. I think most niche WMs all do the same if I'm correct (correct me if I am wrong). If you are wanting an all in one solution you are better of using things like KDE, Cinnamon, Gnome3 or even Pantheon.

I've tried with i3, wmfs and dwm, all tiling WMs that are even more niche/minimal than awesome, and they don't have this problem. I think awesome is even based on dwm.
Maybe I should report this on awesome's bug tracker. Thank you very much for your replies.

douteiful · 2013-08-21 08:08:45

Problem solved!

I just came back from the awesome issue tracker and it seems that a current change produces this problem.
According to the replies in this issue, I tried running awesome with the --no-argb argument, and it completely fixed the tearing problem in videos and awesome feels much more responsive now. Also I don't get visual glitches with compton vsync enabled. Awesome 3.4 doesn't have this problem.

So, if anyone has video tearing problems or slowness with awesome, try running it with --no-argb argument, or if the problem persists, downgrade to awesome 3.4.

Last edited by douteiful (2013-08-21 08:26:05)

z1lt0id · 2013-08-21 10:33:30

Do you get tearing in games?

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-20 10:43:54

[SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#2 2013-08-20 11:14:38

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#3 2013-08-20 11:28:00

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#4 2013-08-21 02:49:11

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#5 2013-08-21 07:27:51

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#6 2013-08-21 08:08:45

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

#7 2013-08-21 10:33:30

Re: [SOLVED] Bad tearing with Awesome WM, no compositor (NVIDIA)

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