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KeiNivky

Member

Registered: 2015-02-06

Posts: 11

[SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

Sometimes when I input something the screen doesn't refresh until another event that should also trigger a screen refresh (like another input or a blinking cursor). Examples:

1. If I hover my mouse over something that should be highlighted, like a menu option, it will not highlight until I move the mouse to other option, which then will highlight the ealier option.
2. If I execute a command in the terminal, sometimes it won't display output until something happens. If I type 'vim file.txt' sometimes it stay in the frozen terminal unti another refresh is issued.
3. Sometimes when typing text the last character is not displayed until something happens, like me typing another character or the cursor blinking.

These don't happen 100% of the time, but they do happen a lot. From what I have seen, programs do refresh each other. The blinking cursor in the browser can refresh the vim editor in the terminal. The blinking cursor in the terminal can refresh the browser. This doesn't happen in the Gnome applications menu, or anything from the top panel apparently.

I installed Gnome from the official repositories and I use a 'Geforce FX 550 Ti' card with the 'nvidia' driver also from the official repositories. Is it possible to fix this?

Last edited by KeiNivky (2015-02-09 02:52:46)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: Belsize Park

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,253

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

Wait until this happens, then post the output of:

free -h
df -h

If you run `htop` (or any similar task manager) is the CPU usage very high when this is happening?

Are you running any compositors (eg, compton)?

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Velocitas Eradico

PootisBird

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 125

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

It's probably this bug:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi … gtx-580/4/

KeiNivky

Member

Registered: 2015-02-06

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

Wait until this happens, then post the output of:

I want to clarify that it while it doesn't happen with every single event, it is always happening. It is happening as I am typing this text, but it doesn't happen with every single character I type. Right now if I hover the mouse over the links on this page, most of the time they will not be highlighted, etc...

outputs:

$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3.8G        1.1G        2.2G         20M        549M        2.5G
Swap:          3.7G          0B        3.7G

$ df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2        27G  3.3G   23G  13% /
dev             1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
run             2.0G  676K  2.0G   1% /run
tmpfs           2.0G  1.5M  2.0G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs           2.0G     0  2.0G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           2.0G   52K  2.0G   1% /tmp
/dev/sda3       248G  172M  235G   1% /home
tmpfs           390M   28K  390M   1% /run/user/1000

This is a pretty fresh installation. Gnome is one of the first things I installed. Looking at `top` none of my cpu cores go above 5% while I mess with the the browser even when this "bug" happens. They generaly spike up to 1-3% and go down to 0%.

I didn't install any compositors, at least not intentionally. I checked for compton and it is not installed. I will look up for others.

I noticed that the Gnome applications menu, the overview menu (the one that shows all windows in current workspace) and apparently every element in the top panel do not have this problem and are working perfectly.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: Belsize Park

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,253

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

I think @PootisBird is probably right here.

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Velocitas Eradico

KeiNivky

Member

Registered: 2015-02-06

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

It's probably this bug:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topi … gtx-580/4/

From the first video, apparently it is exactly what I am experiecing. Really... The topic is from almost one year ago and the bug still exists. Is it possible to install older versions of the driver through pacman?

edit: With 'the first video' I mean the video in the page 1, first post.

Last edited by KeiNivky (2015-02-08 16:46:38)

PootisBird

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 125

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

I've got test for you:
Open Nvidia control panel, go to PowerMizer, wait until performance level drops to 0. Open Nautilus and rename any file while it is at level 0. It should be visible.
After that change Preffered Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance. Voila, you have workaround for GNOME 3 and Cinnamon.

Edit.
I've got 550Ti too.

You can downgrade drivers for sure. You will have uglier Vsync though, mark my words

Last edited by PootisBird (2015-02-08 17:06:56)

KeiNivky

Member

Registered: 2015-02-06

Posts: 11

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

Wow, everything is working perfectly so far. Thanks a lot.

But what exactly is the problem? The driver is setting low performance or something? Also is it possible to set it to 1 or I really need maximum performance to work properly?

PootisBird

Member

Registered: 2014-04-16

Posts: 125

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

Devs wrote that it's timing problem with Xorg. Nvidia was thinking about introducing yet another extension as workaround.
This may be a good start: http://askubuntu.com/questions/172806/n … nce-levels
My solution was to switch back to KDE.

Last edited by PootisBird (2015-02-08 18:27:30)

rulet

Member

Registered: 2010-11-23

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] Gnome 3.14 not properly refreshing windows after input

I've got test for you:
Open Nvidia control panel, go to PowerMizer, wait until performance level drops to 0. Open Nautilus and rename any file while it is at level 0. It should be visible.
After that change Preffered Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance. Voila, you have workaround for GNOME 3 and Cinnamon.

Edit.
I've got 550Ti too.

You can downgrade drivers for sure. You will have uglier Vsync though, mark my words

Will have this setting consequences for the life of the graphics card (chip)? What do you think?