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#1 2017-03-23 19:28:48

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Video tearing in X

Hello,

I have Arch installed on a machine with a Sis videocard and xf86-video-vesa driver and there is no problem with video with auto-configured video settings (X :0 -configure).

Recently I have created another Arch installation on the same machine, but on another hard drive. And on the clean installation, having only base, base-devel, xorg-server, xorg-server-utils and xfce4 groups installed, I have heavy video artifacts (screen "tearing") after starting xfce4 with startxfce4 command. The file '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' is the same on both installations. (I first tried X :0 -configure, and after screen tearing appeared, I copied the xorg.conf from the "good" installation, but the result is the same).

I tried to turn off the XFCE compositor, but this changed nothing.

The kernel is:

$ uname -a
Linux localhost 4.10.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Mar 18 19:39:18 CET 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux

The X.0.log here:
http://pastebin.com/cKiJADXR

Could someone please advise what can be the cause of the incorrect video working?

Thanks.


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#2 2017-03-23 19:35:13

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
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Re: Video tearing in X

You have access to both installs: check what's installed on the other disk that's different.

But is there a reason you are using vesa rather than the sis driver or modesetting?


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#3 2017-03-23 19:47:15

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Re: Video tearing in X

I used vesa driver on several installations (686 and x64-86) with this videocard and it always worked without any problems. What other drivers should I try? xf86-video-sisusb doesn't work with my card (as I read somewhere, it's for usb video cards). Modesetting is the default driver which works without any drivers installed? When I tried "X :0 -configure" without any drivers, I got a segfault.

> check what's installed on the other disk that's different.

What stuff can matter in this case? (There are about 800 packages on other installation.) Maybe gl library? Or other video supporting libraries?


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#4 2017-03-23 20:09:03

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: Video tearing in X

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SiS

Modesetting generally performs much better than vesa.  As for "X :0 -configure" you just really should never do that.  Remove the xorg.conf and try sis or modesetting.

As for package differences, are there 800 packages installed on the other system that are not on the problematic one?  What are the unique packages to the working system?


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#5 2017-03-23 20:27:59

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Re: Video tearing in X

I can see now only one driver with 'sis' in the name - 'xf86-video-sisusb', but it's doesn't work with my card, since it's seems to be for USB video cards. Some time ago there we three or four sis drivers in the official repo, but none of them worked and also recently they were all removed from the repo.

How to try 'modesetting' driver? I don't see a driver with a like name in the output of 'pacman -Ss xf86-video'. When I did "X -configure", I saw the modesetting in the list of two installed drivers: vesa, modesetting. But when I remove vesa, then X doesn't start at all.

> are there 800 packages installed on the other system that are not on the problematic one?  What are the unique packages to the working system?

The matter is, almost all those packages are not on the new installation. So it's hard to figure out which single package makes change. Many of those packages were first installed one or two years ago, when they could have some other initial default dependencies. E.g. when installing xfce, one has to make a couple of choices on gl and mesa provider libraries. So when xfce was installed a year ago and worked normally, then might be some other dependencies.

UPDATE: I didn't notice the link to SiS wiki. Thanks! I'll try it now and will report back.

Last edited by nbd (2017-03-23 20:29:20)


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#6 2017-03-23 20:37:17

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: Video tearing in X

I don't have high hopes for the sis drivers - but they should be tried first.

To use modesetting, just remove vesa.

In either case, delete/rename the xorg.conf.  You shouldn't need one and it may cause problems.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#7 2017-03-23 21:42:44

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Re: Video tearing in X

I tried the xorg.conf from the wiki, but the tearing persisted. I then removed vesa driver and xorg.conf and X failed to start. As is seen in the log, X in the process of loading was trying to load vesa driver by some reason, and failed to do it.

The Xorg.0.log:

[ 23794.423] 
X.Org X Server 1.19.3
Release Date: 2017-03-15
[ 23794.485] X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[ 23794.506] Build Operating System: Linux 4.9.11-1-ARCH x86_64 
[ 23794.547] Current Operating System: Linux localhost 4.10.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sat Mar 18 19:39:18 CET 2017 x86_64
[ 23794.548] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=12345677-9f29-4b6c-9495-1b1d36724084 rw quiet
[ 23794.614] Build Date: 16 March 2017  02:47:54PM
[ 23794.636]  
[ 23794.659] Current version of pixman: 0.34.0
[ 23794.706] 	Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
	to make sure that you have the latest version.
[ 23794.706] Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
	(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
	(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 23794.808] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Fri Mar 24 03:34:22 2017
[ 23794.836] (==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
[ 23794.836] (==) No Layout section.  Using the first Screen section.
[ 23794.836] (==) No screen section available. Using defaults.
[ 23794.836] (**) |-->Screen "Default Screen Section" (0)
[ 23794.836] (**) |   |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 23794.836] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Default Screen Section".
	Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 23794.836] (==) Automatically adding devices
[ 23794.836] (==) Automatically enabling devices
[ 23794.836] (==) Automatically adding GPU devices
[ 23794.836] (==) Automatically binding GPU devices
[ 23794.836] (==) Max clients allowed: 256, resource mask: 0x1fffff
[ 23794.836] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/Type1/" does not exist.
[ 23794.836] 	Entry deleted from font path.
[ 23794.836] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/".
[ 23794.836] 	Entry deleted from font path.
[ 23794.836] 	(Run 'mkfontdir' on "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi/").
[ 23794.836] (WW) `fonts.dir' not found (or not valid) in "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/".
[ 23794.836] 	Entry deleted from font path.
[ 23794.836] 	(Run 'mkfontdir' on "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi/").
[ 23794.836] (==) FontPath set to:
	/usr/share/fonts/misc/,
	/usr/share/fonts/TTF/,
	/usr/share/fonts/OTF/
[ 23794.836] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
[ 23794.836] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices.
	If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices.
[ 23794.836] (II) Loader magic: 0x822d60
[ 23794.836] (II) Module ABI versions:
[ 23794.837] 	X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
[ 23794.837] 	X.Org Video Driver: 23.0
[ 23794.837] 	X.Org XInput driver : 24.1
[ 23794.837] 	X.Org Server Extension : 10.0
[ 23794.839] (++) using VT number 1

[ 23794.839] (--) controlling tty is VT number 1, auto-enabling KeepTty
[ 23794.844] (II) systemd-logind: took control of session /org/freedesktop/login1/session/c4
[ 23794.846] (--) PCI:*(0:1:0:0) 1039:6330:8086:d61f rev 4, Mem @ 0x80000000/134217728, 0x8a000000/131072, I/O @ 0x00001000/128, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
[ 23794.847] (WW) Open ACPI failed (/var/run/acpid.socket) (No such file or directory)
[ 23794.847] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[ 23794.847] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[ 23794.851] (II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 23794.851] 	compiled for 1.19.3, module version = 1.0.0
[ 23794.851] 	ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 10.0
[ 23794.851] (==) Matched sis as autoconfigured driver 0
[ 23794.851] (==) Matched modesetting as autoconfigured driver 1
[ 23794.851] (==) Matched fbdev as autoconfigured driver 2
[ 23794.851] (==) Matched vesa as autoconfigured driver 3
[ 23794.851] (==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout
[ 23794.851] (II) LoadModule: "sis"
[ 23794.851] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module sis
[ 23794.851] (II) UnloadModule: "sis"
[ 23794.851] (II) Unloading sis
[ 23794.851] (EE) Failed to load module "sis" (module does not exist, 0)
[ 23794.852] (II) LoadModule: "modesetting"
[ 23794.852] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so
[ 23794.852] (II) Module modesetting: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 23794.852] 	compiled for 1.19.3, module version = 1.19.3
[ 23794.852] 	Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 23794.852] 	ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 23.0
[ 23794.852] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
[ 23794.853] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module fbdev
[ 23794.853] (II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"
[ 23794.853] (II) Unloading fbdev
[ 23794.853] (EE) Failed to load module "fbdev" (module does not exist, 0)
[ 23794.853] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
[ 23794.853] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module vesa
[ 23794.853] (II) UnloadModule: "vesa"
[ 23794.853] (II) Unloading vesa
[ 23794.853] (EE) Failed to load module "vesa" (module does not exist, 0)
[ 23794.853] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[ 23794.853] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 23794.853] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[ 23794.853] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 23794.853] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[ 23794.853] (II) UnloadModule: "modesetting"
[ 23794.854] (EE) Device(s) detected, but none match those in the config file.
[ 23794.854] (EE) 
Fatal server error:
[ 23794.854] (EE) no screens found(EE) 
[ 23794.854] (EE) 
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
	 at http://wiki.x.org
 for help. 
[ 23794.854] (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.
[ 23794.854] (EE) 
[ 23794.903] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

UPDATE: The informative lines in the above log seems are these:

[ 23794.853] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[ 23794.853] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 23794.853] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[ 23794.853] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[ 23794.853] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[ 23794.853] (II) UnloadModule: "modesetting"
[ 23794.854] (EE) Device(s) detected, but none match those in the config file.
[ 23794.854] (EE) 
Fatal server error:
[ 23794.854] (EE) no screens found(EE) 

Does X fail because no config file is found?

Last edited by nbd (2017-03-23 22:53:41)


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#8 2017-03-24 00:35:08

infinarchy
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Registered: 2016-09-19
Posts: 73

Re: Video tearing in X

empty

Last edited by infinarchy (2017-11-04 21:36:30)

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#9 2017-03-24 01:19:25

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Re: Video tearing in X

infinarchy:

maybe "tearing" is not the right word, since the artifacts are so strong, that this doesn't seem to be a compositing problem (the top half centimeter of the monitor is not covered by the desktop, multiple cursor images, extreme slowness and lagginess...).

Actually, the tearing problem was solved by removing the 'load_video' line in the menu entry in grub.cfg. But this added another, though a bit lesser, problem of console being set to 1024x768 resolution instead of native 1280x1024. Will try to look further into grub.cfg and compare it with the counterpart from the 'good' installation.

EDIT: spelling

Last edited by nbd (2017-03-24 01:20:19)


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#10 2017-03-24 01:55:34

infinarchy
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Registered: 2016-09-19
Posts: 73

Re: Video tearing in X

empty

Last edited by infinarchy (2017-11-04 21:35:29)

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#11 2017-03-24 03:04:37

nbd
Member
Registered: 2014-08-04
Posts: 389

Re: Video tearing in X

The problem with the console resolution is the one that I don't know how to solve.

When I set in grub.cfg

set gfxmode=1280x1024x32

for the grub menu video mode, and then

set gfxpayload=keep

for the grub menu entry, then the console is set to the correct 1280x1024 mode. BUT: the X starts with tearing.

If the the grub menu entry is changed to

set gfxpayload=1280x1024x24

Then X starts normally and without tearing, BUT: the console is set to 1024x768 mode.

Can someone help to resolve this dilemma?


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