Screen tearing in video playback

Jodi42 · 2026-04-29 22:17:22

I have nvidia 3070ti 8GB card in HP OMEN. I am experiencing extreme screen tearing and have tried the configs listed here https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA … ng_on_Xorg Still I am experiencing them. I am using nvidia-580xx-utils from AUR.

$ nvidia-smi
Thu Apr 30 03:44:06 2026
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.142                Driver Version: 580.142        CUDA Version: 13.0     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ...    On  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| N/A   43C    P5             20W /   40W |    1225MiB /   8192MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            1479      G   /usr/lib/Xorg                           745MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            6472      G   /opt/Antigravity/antigravity             79MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            7715      G   ...rack-uuid=3190708988185955192        180MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A          172044      G   alacritty                                18MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A          457189      G   .../calibre/bin/calibre-parallel         61MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A          765200      G   /opt/calibre/bin/ebook-viewer            61MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A         1143590      G   alacritty                                24MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A         1409682      G   alacritty                                10MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

$ cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 580.142

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig:  version 580.142

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd"
    HorizSync       257.0 - 257.0
    VertRefresh     60.0 - 165.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DP-0"
    Option         "fmetamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option 	   "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" "off"
    Option	   "TripleBuffer" "on"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"	
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

I am running on discrete GPU mode. I have hardware acceleration turned all. I use picom as compositor and am using xrender in backened.

5hridhyan · 2026-04-30 04:46:39

typo in ur xorg.conf, in the section "Screen" it should be `metamodes` (no "f")

about xrender, I mean it might be subjective but I don't think, it supports modern synchronization methods as effectively as OpenGL on "modern" NVIDIA cards... so try changing the backend to glx in your picom config, also ensure `vsync` is set to true

If you want to keep picom for shadows/transparency, it is often better to turn off ForceFullCompositionPipeline in xorg and let picom (with the glx backend and vsync = true) handle the sync, or NVIDIA Pipeline ON + Picom VSync OFF, your choice on which you find more stable

Last edited by 5hridhyan (2026-04-30 05:31:53)

seth · 2026-04-30 06:31:33

Leaving aside the (bogus) metamodes for ForceFullCompositionPipeline the config is massive cruft anyway, please don't use nvidia-xconfig or nvidia-settings to generate a static server config that tries to use drivers that have not existed in decade*s*.

xrender cannot sync to the vblank signal (though picom has (had?) a funny feature that uses GLX to wait for the vblank and then redraw w/ xrender.

Video playback of what and with what? (If you're trying to play 24fps on a 60Hz output you'll get an occasional tearline or judder unless you have the player resample the video, try "mpv -vo=gpu --video-sync=display-resample 24fporns.mp4"
Also please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General and try to quantify "extreme tearing", maybe what you're seeing is not actual "tearing" but some other rendering artifacts.
Do you get "extreme tearing" when running glxgears?

Jodi42 · 2026-05-01 19:13:26

I get most of tearing in playback of anykind be it in a website like this one https://www.arduino.cc/ , or in playback of video. I am using VLC in flatpak version.

cat  ~/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log | ts | curl --upload-file - 'https://paste.c-net.org/'

https://paste.c-net.org/NumberDolled

The log of xorg. I have 165Hz screen on laptop 1440p resolution.
I don't know if problem is called screen tearing or lack of vsync. I am not sure what to name it entirely. it is like above part and below part sort went haywire and shifted while rendering. I do know that frames do not display correctly and sometimes appear out of sync.

Right now to remove problem completely I run

nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"

$ nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
Gtk-Message: 00:43:40.386: Failed to load module "colorreload-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 00:43:40.386: Failed to load module "window-decorations-gtk-module"

  Attribute 'CurrentMetaMode' (arch:0.0) assigned value
  'nvidia-auto-select+0+0{ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On}'.

after every boot whenever I see that happening. Right now it seems to have worked but many times video starts stuttering and loosing frames.
should I delete current xorg.conf?

Last edited by Jodi42 (2026-05-01 19:14:09)

seth · 2026-05-01 19:35:34

nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"

There's absolutely no trace of an nvidia GPU in the posted Xorg log but

May 02 00:35:15 [   154.013] (==) Log file: "/home/shobhit/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log", Time: Thu Apr 23 22:59:33 2026

it's also severely dated.

It's virtually impossible to get tearing w/ 165Hz but the output in the (dated) X11 log is https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variable_refresh_rate capable
Is that currently enabled?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variab … _on_NVIDIA

Jodi42 · 2026-05-02 16:26:07

Update -
This lack of vsync/Screen tearing is happening in almost all motions. I am attaching my picom config file G-SYNC screenshot.

https://paste.c-net.org/DynastyBrent

https://paste.c-net.org/PokerSounds

I was scrolling thorugh a pdf involving a lot of graphics. There as well I experienced this screen tearing. I do not know how to enable G-SYNC.

seth · 2026-05-02 18:12:08

The output is "only" running at 60Hz, GSYNC is disabled.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variab … _on_NVIDIA

xrandr --verbose

Popst the current xorg log, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General for locations, check the timestamps

Do you get tearing when disabling picom?

Jodi42 · 2026-05-03 18:09:58

seth wrote:

The output is "only" running at 60Hz, GSYNC is disabled.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Variab … _on_NVIDIA
xrandr --verbose
Popst the current xorg log, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General for locations, check the timestamps
Do you get tearing when disabling picom?

https://paste.c-net.org/ExistTimber

Disabling picom, I still see stuttering and screen tearing. But the speed of tear and repair is a bit fast compared to before. and amount os image distortion is high as well. per minute amount of times tears happening are increased well.

I have right now removed xorg.conf and every boot i run that nvidia-settings command.

seth · 2026-05-03 19:40:05

HDMI-0 disconnected primary (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-0 connected 2560x1440+0+0 (0x1be) normal (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 355mm x 200mm

There's only the DP-0 output but for some reason some absent HDMI-0 one is the primary output.

xrandr --output DP-0 --primary

__GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 __GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE=DP-0 picom

Other than that

  2560x1440 (0x1be) 256.090MHz -HSync +VSync *current +preferred
        h: width  2560 start 2608 end 2640 total 2736 skew    0 clock  93.60KHz
        v: height 1440 start 1443 end 1449 total 1560           clock  60.00Hz

You're (still) running at the (preferred) 60Hz, try

xrandr --output DP-0 --rate 165

The monitor supports VRR but randr doesn't list it.

I have right now removed xorg.conf and every boot i run that nvidia-settings command.

For the moment don't enforce the full composition pipeline, much more importantly

seth wrote:

Post the current xorg log, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General for locations, check the timestamps

Jodi42 · 2026-05-04 18:30:17

I noticed that every boot my system reverted to 60Hz diplay so I have run

xrandr --verbose
 xrandr --output DP-0 --primary
 xrandr --verbose
 xrandr --output DP-0 --mode 2560x1440 --rate 165
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DP-0: 2560x1440_165 +0+0 {AllowGSYNCCompatible=On}"

https://paste.c-net.org/VariousSlowed

xclip -o -selection clipboard -t image/png | pastebin

My videos are not doing hardware decoding at all in chrome and firefox.

https://paste.c-net.org/ConsentLeftover
Above one is before

[quote=seth]
sudo pacman -S libva-nvidia-driver

export LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=nvidia

https://paste.c-net.org/TwirlSicko
This one is after running above code.

My cpu spikes in running 4k video. Although through handbrake and ffmpeg

for f in *.mp4 *.mkv; do                                                
  ffmpeg -hwaccel cuda -i "$f" \
  -map 0:v -map '0:a?' \
  -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset p6 -cq 32 \
  -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
  "${f%.*}_encoded.mkv"
done

This command does its job without problem.

seth wrote:

Post the current xorg log, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General for locations, check the timestamps

I am unable to understand what do you want me to do here.

I think my screen tearing problem and this is related.

Another mention that earlier in I used to have normal vlc but there also I was having problems with certain codecs not displaying and videos not properly displaying and stuttering so I had switched to vlc flatpak.

Last edited by Jodi42 (2026-05-04 18:30:57)

seth · 2026-05-04 20:50:49

I am unable to understand what do you want me to do here.

The log you posted in #4 is two weeks old and there's no nvidia GPU. I'm asking you to look for and post the log that actually reflects the current situation.

I think my screen tearing problem and this is related.

What is "this"?
How the video is decoded would at best indirectly matter and not using HW decoding in browsers (and esp. chromium + nvidia, there's an eternal thread about that clusterfuck) is unfortunately a common problem and the solution to that a bit more involved.
Ignore that for now.

Jodi42 · 2026-05-05 23:57:07

Finally got Xorg logs

https://paste.c-net.org/HuntedBowing

About this HW decoding. Should I remove those packages and environment variable?

seth · Yesterday 11:48:06

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 6#p2297156

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-29 22:17:22

Screen tearing in video playback

#2 2026-04-30 04:46:39

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#3 2026-04-30 06:31:33

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#4 2026-05-01 19:13:26

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#5 2026-05-01 19:35:34

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#6 2026-05-02 16:26:07

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#7 2026-05-02 18:12:08

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#8 2026-05-03 18:09:58

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#9 2026-05-03 19:40:05

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#10 2026-05-04 18:30:17

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#11 2026-05-04 20:50:49

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#12 2026-05-05 23:57:07

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

#13 Yesterday 11:48:06

Re: Screen tearing in video playback

Board footer