Arch Linux

jroovy-11904

Member

Registered: 2020-01-01

Posts: 18

XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

Since updating my system 2 days ago, I have this weird issue where the whole screen flickers like crazy when playing back a video in XWayland apps (VLC, Chromium) at fullscreen. I'm not sure if this is a bug or an issue with my hardware, so I'm posting it here.

Video showing the issue:
https://imgur.com/a/ldKPj1b

Hardware:
Operating System: Arch Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.1.0
Qt Version: 6.7.0
Kernel Version: 6.8.7-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 2 × AMD A9-9420e RADEON R5, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G
Memory: 3.7 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon R5 Graphics

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,882

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

This is more common w/ nvidia, https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xse … ssues/1317
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/VLC_me … nd_support
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chromi … nd_support (use "--ozone-platform=wayland" explicitly, there's a regression in the most recent chromium version)

Does this also happen w/ eg. sway or weston?

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jroovy-11904

Member

Registered: 2020-01-01

Posts: 18

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

Does not happen on weston. I don't have sway installed.
As for VLC, do I have to install vlc-git to get wayland support?

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,882

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

Seems so, but you could use mpv as testcase.
Seems plasma related then?
Try to disable VRR?
Edit: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variab … KDE_Plasma

Last edited by seth (2024-04-18 12:58:50)

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mccord

Member

Registered: 2008-10-12

Posts: 14

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

I'm having the same problem with games flickering at fullscreen, only happens in Wayland, Xorg session works fine. Downgrading to kwin 6.0.3.1-4 seems to fix the flicker.
There's a bug report about it on the kwin/wayland tracker and discussion about it on some other bug reports: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485730

Running Plasma 6.0.4 on a rx6700.

edit: setting adaptive sync to never doesn't help.

Last edited by mccord (2024-04-18 13:14:16)

jroovy-11904

Member

Registered: 2020-01-01

Posts: 18

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

I'm having the same problem with games flickering at fullscreen, only happens in Wayland, Xorg session works fine. Downgrading to kwin 6.0.3.1-4 seems to fix the flicker.
There's a bug report about it on the kwin/wayland tracker and discussion about it on some other bug reports: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485730

Running Plasma 6.0.4 on a rx6700.

edit: setting adaptive sync to never doesn't help.

Downgrading to kwin 6.0.3.1-4 fixes the fullscreen flickering for me as well

laggydesu

Member

Registered: 2024-04-19

Posts: 2

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

I'm at a bit of a loss on where to post this, since there are way too many variables, so in the newbie corner I go.

My system is an AMD laptop, specifically with a 5700U which features Vega 8 integrated graphics (identified by the system as AMD ATI 03:00.0 Lucienne). It's no gaming laptop, but it's capable of running the three games I need it to run: Left4Dead2 (native Vulkan), Garry's Mod (native OpenGL) and Dead By Daylight (Proton DXVK), albeit the last one looking more like a N64 game- don't care, it's playable. I also ran all three with MangoHud, feralgamemode and locked at 60 FPS, which made them work with the 40 - 60Hz Freesync range on this thing's monitor.  It worked like a charm, with no tearing and low input latency, until about yesterday (2024-04-18).

The previous day I had done a full system upgrade and shutdown the system a couple hours later. I remember there being some packages from KDE and a kernel update. The next day I ran Gmod for the first time on that install, and noticed that it was stuttering a lot more than usual, despite reporting 60 FPS. I thought it was related to the missing locales that the game reported on startup, though if I had run Left4Dead2 before chasing that, I would've noticed that it was also affected. The latter went from a smooth 60 FPS, to 1 second per frame, quite literally. I noticed MangoHud was flashing every time a frame was shown- disabling it produced similar results to Gmod: not Freesyncing and stuttering heavily, even after uncapping the frame rate and whatnot. I carefully re-installed the system hoping I had somehow broken Vulkan/OGL when fixing the typo on locale.conf, and that it would just fix itself if I spelled 'en_US.UTF-8' correctly this time.

Alas, re-installing did not fix the issues, and I just ran on X11 with uncapped FPS for the night to at least have something playable. However, there was one game I overlooked at the time.

Dead By Daylight works just as usual whereas the other two games are broken. What's even stranger is that running DBD before those two FIXES them. Left4Dead2 and Garry's Mod work just as before (smooth, FPS counter, gamemode), but only if I run a completely unrelated game beforehand. Re-booting the system brings back the stutters and all of that.

I am at a complete loss on the cause of this issue. I will refrain from rebooting my system for the time being, despite finding a solution. Unfortunately, I can't safely rollback the updates since I re-installed the system. Please, if needed, redirect me to whoever needs to hear about this, since I'm starting to think it might not be any of you. Any help describing this issue more concisely would be much appreciated.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,447

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

There's https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=485730 already reported and suggests a regression in KWin you might be able to downgrade in isolation. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_Linux_Archive and https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=294986

FWIW I can't really confirm and I'm wondering whether it's actually a KWin issue and not e.g. Some optimisation leading to the card not properly clocking up. Did you compare GPU clocks between "working" and "not working"?

In any case I'll merge this with the other thread.

laggydesu

Member

Registered: 2024-04-19

Posts: 2

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

I see. What I assume is happening is that Proton somehow forces KWin to use the correct refresh rate, and that setting persists until restart.

Did you compare GPU clocks between "working" and "not working"?

In the 'working' state, at 60 FPS:

- Left4Dead2 hovers around 35 - 40% GPU usage on a workshop 'range' map. The core clock bounces between 400 to 1900MHz. Behaves as expected pre-KWin 6.0.4

- Garry's Mod hovers around 40% GPU usage on gm_construct. The core clock also bounces healthily between 400 to 1900 MHz. Behaves as expected.

- Dead By Daylight varies around 60% and 90% usage on 'Survive with Bots', and the core clock is more frequently at its maximum of 1900 MHz, with the usual drops to 400 when not much is happening/the frames are queuing or something. Once again, as expected.

In the 'broken' state, at whatever FPS it can manage:

- Left4Dead2 literally runs at 1 second per frame. It goes up to 18 if I focus another application on top (expected). I can't get past the menu screen, but it reports <10% GPU usage, which looks about right, and the core clock bounces erratically between frames. Disabling MangoHud returns the framerate to 60, but it still stutters and fails to Freesync.

- Garry's Mod looks about the same on the GPU stats, despite the stutters and frequently failing to Freesync.

- Dead By Daylight refuses to break under these conditions.

Running on X11 shows similar GPU Stats to 'working' Wayland, though with no Variable Refresh Rate.

spiffeeroo

Member

Registered: 2021-04-23

Posts: 23

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/co … fb17faf6d9

This commit should fix the fullscreen app flickering problem present in kwin 6.0.4.

FiliPX32

Member

Registered: 2024-04-20

Posts: 1

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

The Kwin 6.0.4 regression seems to cause a lot of issues on all of my GPUs, on my RX 470 it causes flickering, frame pacing issues and sometimes GPU hangs, on my RX 6650 XT causes a full on hard freeze, crashing the whole system and leaving no logs to see even on active SSH sessions. Something odd is that lowering my refresh rate from 140 to 120 or enabling HDR fixes the freezing issues, but it looks worse on my monitor.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,447

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

The patch got backported in the just released 6.0.4-2 you should be able to upgrade again.

jroovy-11904

Member

Registered: 2020-01-01

Posts: 18

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

The patch got backported in the just released 6.0.4-2 you should be able to upgrade again.

kwin 6.0.4-2 fixes the issue for me

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,447

Re: XWayland apps violently flicker when playing video at fullscreen

Please mark as [SOLVED] by editing the title in your first post, might have to shorten it a little.