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#1 2014-04-14 10:39:49

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Another tearing Q with Nvidia

I know this has been asked plenty, and the wiki is full of it too. I think I've been through every thread and every wiki page mentioning the word "tearing", even if it didn't apply to Nvidia. I've been trying many, many things over the past few days. Basically, every DE, WM and different combinations. Tried Compiz, Compton, Xcompmgr, I tried workarounds mentioned for one situation in the other, nothing works 100%. Then I tried most of what I tried with 304.xx drivers too. Many fixes/workarounds don't even work with that version but at least I don't get the repaint issue (see below).

So, basically, I can't seem to fix tearing without introducing a bug which causes parts of the screen not updating, requiring InitialPixmapPlacement to be set to 0 which in turn, makes things slow.

I'd like to know, am I just really some poor unlucky bastard and is this issue related to a combination of drivers and models or perhaps motherboard (Asus P8P67 EVO rev.B)? I'm on a GTX580. If I were to upgrade to a 760, would this issue still be present? I know you guys aren't psycics or anything but you know, you might be aware of something that I'm not?

Thanks.

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#2 2014-04-14 10:56:24

blackout23
Member
Registered: 2011-11-16
Posts: 781

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

What tearing are you talking about? I have an ASUS P8Z68V Pro with an ASUS ENGTX 580 DCII and use Gnome and never had any tearing with it. I'm currently using the 337.12 driver.

Last edited by blackout23 (2014-04-14 10:56:51)

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#3 2014-04-14 11:02:40

wombatz
Member
Registered: 2014-03-10
Posts: 8

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

9400m / 9600m gt here

no tearing in compositors BUT i have repainting issues.
sometimes parts of the screen aren't updated as the OP mentioned. for example clicking the triangles in nemo / nautilus to open the folder contents sometimes does not show until i move the mouse or in some other applications i have to move the complete window to make the changes visible.

this is exeptionally annoying when i have to do a lot of work.

nouveau is no option for me because of the strange macbook pro 5,1 hardware. i just cant load the driver in accelerated mode if it loads at all.

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#4 2014-04-14 11:15:59

blackout23
Member
Registered: 2011-11-16
Posts: 781

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

wombatz wrote:

[...]
sometimes parts of the screen aren't updated as the OP mentioned. for example clicking the triangles in nemo / nautilus to open the folder contents sometimes does not show until i move the mouse or in some other applications i have to move the complete window to make the changes visible.

Might not be a NVIDIA problem.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=179938

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#5 2014-04-14 11:29:07

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

wombatz wrote:

no tearing in compositors BUT i have repainting issues.

Open a terminal and run:

$ nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=0

It will slow things down a bit but the repaint issue should be gone.


blackout23 wrote:

What tearing are you talking about? I have an ASUS P8Z68V Pro with an ASUS ENGTX 580 DCII and use Gnome and never had any tearing with it. I'm currently using the 337.12 driver.

I have the same card.

I should mention I am running dual screens, 2 x Dell Ultrasharp 24" at 1920x1200.

I can get rid of it in Gnome/Cinnamon using the vsync/twinview workaround, but I'll get the repaint issue which is not annoying, its infuriating.

Im XFCE I can use Compton or something similar (even tried Compiz too) but again, repaint issue.

The most annoying is scrolling in firefox. I get a flickering horizontal line that slowly moves up then starts from the bottom again. Dragging windows you'll see the vertical borders flicker and its contents flickers more than usual. But also playing flash video there's tearing visible.

Enlightenment and KDE don't have these problems but they have other issues. Basically, Enlightment is too buggy (apart from the fact that I don't really like it) and KDE is too bloated, starts way too slow - with KDM takes almost a full minute. But, scrolling in firefox (or any window, really) is rock solid and butter smooth. Moving windows around too.

I don't remember having that repaint issue on Cinnamon/Gnome on Debian-based distro's which is why I tried the 304xx driver but that didn't work out either.

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#6 2014-04-14 11:43:01

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

blackout23 wrote:
wombatz wrote:

[...]
sometimes parts of the screen aren't updated as the OP mentioned. for example clicking the triangles in nemo / nautilus to open the folder contents sometimes does not show until i move the mouse or in some other applications i have to move the complete window to make the changes visible.

Might not be a NVIDIA problem.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=179938

Maybe there's just different things going on then. I have it in all applications, Firefox properties dialog box, switching tabs. In Compiz, I had completely empty tabs sometimes and moving the mouse over it would only repaint the part the mouse went. Moving the box a pixel would correctly redraw the entire tab. But its never immediately. At first, it all works then after a minute of clicking through the tabs, it happens.

The setting I gave above fixes all that.

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#7 2014-04-14 12:08:42

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

I just remembered I had an old GT430 lying around from my old HTPC. Replaced the 580 with that and the repaint issue is still there.

With the 304xx drivers, there's also still tearing.

I tried with 1 monitor (had to, the 430 doesn't have 2 DVI and the Ultrasharp doesn't have HDMI) and that doesn't matter so its not to do with TwinView either.

Edit: Upgraded to the 334.12 beta driver, still has that repaint issue. I don't see that flickering you do, though.

So what else is there left to check?

Last edited by mouseman (2014-04-14 12:30:54)

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#8 2014-04-14 12:31:33

blackout23
Member
Registered: 2011-11-16
Posts: 781

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

mouseman wrote:

I just remembered I had an old GT430 lying around from my old HTPC. Replaced the 580 with that and the repaint issue is still there.

With the 304xx drivers, there's also still tearing.

I tried with 1 monitor (had to, the 430 doesn't have 2 DVI and the Ultrasharp doesn't have HDMI) and that doesn't matter so its not to do with TwinView either.

Edit: Upgraded to the 334.12 beta driver, still has that repaint issue. I don't see that flickering you do, though.

So what else is there left to check?

Why are you using the legacy branch anyway? Have you tried using only one monitor?

Last edited by blackout23 (2014-04-14 12:33:19)

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#9 2014-04-14 12:32:45

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

Sorry, you got me there. Legacy branch?

And yes, tried with 1 monitor, see the post you quoted tongue.

Last edited by mouseman (2014-04-14 12:34:51)

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#10 2014-04-14 12:36:13

blackout23
Member
Registered: 2011-11-16
Posts: 781

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

mouseman wrote:

Sorry, you got me there. Legacy branch?

304xx is for cards that belong to the 6000 and 7000 series and are over 6 years old. There's no point in using that for modern NVIDIA GPUs.

You should try using Gnome with the current nvidia branch and use only one monitor just to see if the problem is still there.
Could be that it's simply a limitation of the X Server when having to handle multiple screens. X11 is also the reason why you can't use NVIDIA Optimus without getting screen tearing.

I also had tearing when using XFCE a while back, but that's obviously caused by other compositors being shit.

Last edited by blackout23 (2014-04-14 12:38:12)

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#11 2014-04-14 12:41:53

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

Mate, I have. Its in the first post. I started with latest from the repositories, 334.xx but as I said, only after I had tried everything I could think of, I tried 304xx.

I'm now on 1 screen with the GT430. There's no tearing now but I do have the repaint issues.

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#12 2014-04-14 12:48:00

blackout23
Member
Registered: 2011-11-16
Posts: 781

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

mouseman wrote:

Mate, I have. Its in the first post. I started with latest from the repositories, 334.xx but as I said, only after I had tried everything I could think of, I tried 304xx.

I'm now on 1 screen with the GT430. There's no tearing now but I do have the repaint issues.

For me using $ nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=0 actually solves the repaint problem, which made using gedit and nautilus unusable. Still no tearing as before.

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#13 2014-04-14 13:02:20

mouseman
Member
From: Outta nowhere
Registered: 2014-04-04
Posts: 291

Re: Another tearing Q with Nvidia

blackout23 wrote:
mouseman wrote:

Mate, I have. Its in the first post. I started with latest from the repositories, 334.xx but as I said, only after I had tried everything I could think of, I tried 304xx.

I'm now on 1 screen with the GT430. There's no tearing now but I do have the repaint issues.

For me using $ nvidia-settings -a InitialPixmapPlacement=0 actually solves the repaint problem, which made using gedit and nautilus unusable. Still no tearing as before.

Yeah, same for me as well, except that it makes certain things a lot slower which you'll notice over time. It's just swapping one annoyance with another, really.

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