XFCE video flickering..

sHyLoCk · 2009-09-03 08:50:16

Whenever I play a video file in XFCE [with compositing on] there are horizontal lines,don't know how to explain it, the screen flickers when there's a lot of movement or fast motion in the video. i have faced this problem in both arch and gentoo. So I'm thinking this is a xfce problem. Any ideas?

EDIT: I just turned off compositing by going to Settings->Window manager tweaks and the flickering vanishes. Is there anyway to solve this problem without permanently turning off compositing? Like switching composite on / off easily. Or ask xfce to ignore certain apps from using compositing.

Last edited by sHyLoCk (2009-09-03 08:59:06)

rwd · 2009-09-03 12:00:53

Most likely has to do with your video card driver and it's settings in xorg.conf. Try the wiki.

Last edited by rwd (2009-09-03 12:12:14)

sHyLoCk · 2009-09-03 12:40:53

Here is my xorg.conf. try what exactly in the wiki, can you point me to the right direction?

R00KIE · 2009-09-03 13:42:22

I believe what you are referring to is tearing, I see you are using a nvidia card so I don't know much about that but in my case with an ati card I know that there have been changes to make xv work properly, that is, no video tearing.

I'm not using compositing here and videos work fine for me now, try without compositing and check if the problem is still there, also there is one option to show fullscreen videos directly (xfce compositing settings) although that may not work for what you want.

sHyLoCk · 2009-09-03 14:48:27

Yes tearing. A few weird things I noticed:

1. Video is perfect when I disable compositing.
2. When i launch mplayer from terminal [ie. no gui mode] video works great, but if I use a front-end like gnome-mplayer or even if I use xfmedia, video is same choppy/torn again.

I'm thinking of totally removing the composite section from xorg.conf and checking it out. Will report back here.

EDIT: No difference.

Last edited by sHyLoCk (2009-09-03 14:52:05)

R00KIE · 2009-09-03 17:12:48

You say mplayer, have you tried smplayer as a frontend and select xv as the video output? May not solve anything, I'll try compositing and videos and I'll post back if I get tearing with compositing enabled.

I don't have the composite section in my xorg.conf but xdpyinfo still reports Composite as an extension .... does this mean that have it enabled anyway or is there any way other way to check for it? Just so I'm not reporting completely useless results.

Edit:
Same thing here too, with compositing enabled videos are more choppy and there is very visible tearing, with compositing disabled then all is well.
ATI radeonhd2400 with xf86-video-ati-git drivers here and of course also using xfce :d .

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-09-03 17:24:27)

sHyLoCk · 2009-09-03 17:46:24

Hmm looks like a xfce issue. Anyways thnx for trying it out.

Acecero · 2009-09-03 18:48:03

Have you adjusted your video output settings to xv or gl?

danvari · 2009-09-03 19:41:12

hey what nvidia card do you have? i have got a 7300go and i have the same problems since...there is the composition support in xfce/gnome. as i said i have the same problem with xfce _and_ gnome, does not matter if i choose xv or gl as video putput. tried out different video-players, different outputs. that tearing does not appear with compiz fusion (once it is 'correct' configured) and kwin (kde). and i tried the same in gentoo too
i guess it is a problem with xfce/gnome.

R00KIE · 2009-09-03 21:48:19

Here although gl works it is very slow (open source drivers, no acceleration for that yet) so it isn't an option, and yes, xv was selected in my case.

Video playback without tearing seems to be quite a problem in linux, at least with ati cards, can't say anything about nvidia cards. Also this varies from video to video, some videos don't show tearing, maybe because there aren't many fast scenes or scenes prone to showing the problem.

Also it depends if you are looking for artifacts like these or not, I guess that for most users if the problem is _minimal_ it will not be noticed or disregarded.

Edit:
Forgot to mention but turning vsync on may help a little.

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-09-03 21:49:27)

sHyLoCk · 2009-09-04 01:48:10

xv,gl,x11, everything I have tried. I would like to mention though, that this doesn't happen in kde or gnome, not even when I use openbox or xmonad. So this is definitely due to xfce's inbuilt compositor. However even after turning it off problem persists! Might check out xubuntu to make sure.

Acecero · 2009-09-04 03:49:59

My only suggestion to you is to get a newer nvidia gpu that supports VDPAU for more video acceleration, if you still want to use xfce's compositing.

Get the ones that are supported. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU

Last edited by Acecero (2009-09-04 03:53:08)

danvari · 2009-09-04 08:12:48

how do i turn on vsync?

R00KIE · 2009-09-04 09:22:46

danvari wrote:

how do i turn on vsync?

Depends on your driver, if you use the nvidia or ati proprietary drivers then check their interface, if you use an open source driver check the man page for any option to turn vsync on.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-03 08:50:16

XFCE video flickering..

#2 2009-09-03 12:00:53

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#3 2009-09-03 12:40:53

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#4 2009-09-03 13:42:22

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#5 2009-09-03 14:48:27

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#6 2009-09-03 17:12:48

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#7 2009-09-03 17:46:24

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#8 2009-09-03 18:48:03

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#9 2009-09-03 19:41:12

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#10 2009-09-03 21:48:19

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#11 2009-09-04 01:48:10

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#12 2009-09-04 03:49:59

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#13 2009-09-04 08:12:48

Re: XFCE video flickering..

#14 2009-09-04 09:22:46

Re: XFCE video flickering..

Board footer