Compositing causes screen tearing with Nvidia, is ATI a better choice?

So far, every Nvidia card I've used with Ubuntu, Debian and Arch has had intolerable screen tearing with a compositing manager running, while watching any video. I've installed the proprietary driver from Nvidia on a Debian machine but the screen tearing is still there. The cards I've been using are an 8600GT and a 9600GT.
I've tried xcompmgr, Xfce compositing and Gnome compositing all of which seem to cause the same symptoms.
It seems like I read somewhere that there's a problem with the Nvidia compositing extension or something like that...
Two questions...
1) Do ATI cards tear video with compositing enabled? (I'm hoping they don't...)
2) Is there any way to cure screen tearing with an nvidia card and compositing enabled?
Last edited by captainmurphie (2010-02-22 07:30:57)

ATI Radeon 4670 user here, KDE w/ Arch Linux. While I can't speak for other video cards, this particular card runs absolutely fine using xf86-video-ati and some xorg.conf tweaks. Though I don't play many games, I can tell you Alice runs fine via WINE. As far as OpenGL goes, the screen savers that are supposedly OpenGL work fine, too.
The only performance difference between this card and the 7600GS I was using beforehand that I can tell (minus the speed improvement) is being forced to view videos using the Xvideo driver in KMPlayer. If I view said videos via OpenGL, they display, however widgets on the desktop tend to offer display glitches while the video is ongoing.
I understand there's a good deal of reason for the commenting, and yes, ATI drivers aren't nearly up to par with their Nvidia counterparts, however this doesn't mean some folks aren't having success with the available driver(s) using little effort on their parts. As an ATI user, it'd be nice to see some fellow reports of success with ATI drivers, open source or not.

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[SOLVED] Compositing causes screen to freeze in KDE 4.7 with Nouveau

Hello,
since the upgrade to KDE 4.7 screen gets [partial] freezes for several seconds (differs) especialy when some repainting is to be done (scrolling in Rekonq/KWrite, opening and closing tabs in Rekonq, playing video in KDE). Usually I can stil see moving the mouse, though the cursor doesn't change on links etc. Also repainting of plasma widgets freezes.
I'm using nouvea driver for 7600 GS video card:
multilib/lib32-nouveau-dri 7.11-1
extra/nouveau-dri 7.11-1
extra/nouveau-firmware 20091212-4
extra/xf86-video-nouveau 0.0.16_git20110726-1
And get foloving in dmesg after a freeze:
[43244.176746] [drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: vm flush timeout: 0x00000022
and in xorg.log:
[ 43235.667] [mi] EQ overflowing. The server is probably stuck in an infinite loop.
Everything is ok with disabled compositing, or with nvidia driver, thogh I do not prefer to use it since it lacks KMS and is proprietary.
Any idea which splendid new feature of KDE 4.7 causes this? And how to turn it off so I can use compositing again? I tried diasbling new GL 2.0 shaders and setting worser filter in advanced Plasma settings but it didn't help.
I'll happily provide more info, if I am pointed which one.
Thank you.
Last edited by Nicky726 (2011-08-13 10:20:57)

3-D is currently an unsupported use-at-your-own-risk feature in nouveau. That leads me to conclude that neither project (kwin or nouveau) can be blamed at the moment.
I had irrecoverable freezes (had to ssh in and reboot) on my 9800 GT while playing videos fullscreen. Turning off the option to disable 3-D for full screen applications solved that problem for me. Compared to that, I'm okay with the temporary one-second freezes (which I see as well).
Your best bet is to play around and isolate which effects cause the issues for you. Start with no desktop effects checked and work your way up, adding one effect at a time. Maybe you'll discover the culprit that way. Hope that helps.

Screen Tearing With Radeon HD 6950

I am having problems watching DVDs. Every DVD I try to watch has a LOT of screen tearing.
I have tried mplayer, VLC, xine, and totem with the same results for all of them. Currenty, I am using the catalyst drivers supplied by AMD. Enabling v-sync and tear free desktop in the catalyst control center causes the tearing to stop, but then I only get about 10 to 15 frames of video a second. Finally, I installed xvba and tried to use vaapi, but the colors are extremely distorted (the image is either all green or all purple).
Has anyone encountered this problem? Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong so I can watch a DVD in arch linux and not boot in Windows?

Just use OpenGL as the video output driver. I use "mplayer -vo gl". For me this fixes all tearing in videos and it doesn't seem to skip any frames.

" Screen Tearing" with EVGA GTX 970

Hi everyone,
when watching clips with movement or moving windows on windows somewhere else I get the "tearing effect" on my monitor. Meaning I see vertical lines while movement on my monitors, mainly in the middle. I do not see this line in PP CC 2014.
I am running the following hardware:
EVGA GTX 970 FTW Acx 2.0
Monitor 1: EIZO FS 2333, 60 Hz, HDMI
Monitor 2: quite old Acer on 1.600 x 1200, 60 Hz, DVI
Windows 7 professional 64 bit
latest Nvidia drivers
latest version of PP CC 2014
latest version of EVGA Precision X 16
I've heard about a view possible solution:
- activation V-Sync on Nvidia drivers (problem is monitor and graphic card are waiting for each other, monitor Hz will be downgraded)
- lowering Hz value under windows for monitors
- updating drivers (I did)
- Installing latest directX drivers? Do I need this?
I am wondering if the GTX 970 is to fast my old Acer monitor? Maybe the EIZO can handle 60 Hz, the Acer not? Can that be a problem?
My GTX is slightly overclocked, nevertheless that problem has been there before OC.
Are there any windows setting, windows service settings, to fix this? Any specific BIOS or Nvidia settings required?
I'd really appreciate your help and experience.
Best,
Alex

Thx for reply.
I've tried all options. Having Vsync "adaptive" / on does slight help but not at all. Also did update DirectX, no success.
My GTX 970 come up with good results, can it still be a defect? Both monitors can manage 60 Hz, so that can't be a problem.
I will reinstall windows on the weekend, and see it that helps.

Internet Explorer 11 constantly causes screen flickering with Windows 8.1

My screen is constantly flickering and sometimes tabs go blank (white) for no reason while using IE11 with Windows 8.1. This does not happen with other browsers. My resolution and refresh rate for my monitor are both set to recommended settings
and my Windows and drivers are all up to date.

Hi,
According to your description, this problem might be related to :
1.”Add-ons”:Have you download any add-ons like Active-X and other objects recently?
2.The “Enhanced protected mode”.
3.The “Accelerated graphic”.
Solutions
First of all ,you can open the Action center\Troubleshooting\ Programs to use the troubleshooting tool to check whether it can detect something or give us any useful diagnostic reports .
Run “iexplore.exe –extoff “ to open the IE with all
the “Add-ons” disabled ,if this problem disappears ,the problem may be caused by the “Add-ons” ,you can open “Manage Add-ons” in the IE tools to enable the add-ons one by one to check which add-on contributes to this problem.
Open the “Internet options”, choose the “Security” tab , disable the “Enable Protected Mode” ,restart the IE to check whether it works.
Internet Explorer 11 flickers and a box (Windows Installer) flashes.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie11-iewindows8_1/internet-explorer-11-flickers-and-a-box-windows/40e8b992-f804-43c4-9f3a-15b383d6d8aa
Open the “Internet options”, choose the “Advanced” tab ,tick or untick “Use software
rendering instead of GPU rendering” and check the result
If these steps don`t work , please
open the Event viewer\ Applications and services logs\ Internet
explorer to check if we can get any error\warning information.
Best regards

Kde screen resolution with nvidia driver

Hi,
I am completely new to ArchLinux. I really enjoyed installing it and its a hoot to play around with!
I am having a problem getting the screen resolution to work well with the monitor and the resolution with KDE 4.3. I found that by changing the resolution to 1024x768 and changing the refresh rate to 53 or 54hz, the fonts that otherwise display horribly with the nvidia driver and installed nvidia card will suddenly become beautiful. I went to Kmenu, Settings, then display settings, and changed the configuration, and everything worked great.
But on next boot up after I have shut down the computer, X doesn't remember these settings and the fonts look terrible again. If I open the kmenu again and look at the display settings, they are still set at 1024x768 and 54 hz. Once I have looked at them, the screen on the monitor goes dark for a second. Then the computer knows that I want those settings without me changing anything, and adjusts to them without having to hit the apply button. Then the fonts look great again.
How can I get the display to start with those settings? I have tried several configurations of the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file without success, so I need some help.
Thanks
Last edited by munguanaweza (2009-11-13 17:06:17)

I know some time back using nvidia driver with my particular monitor, i had to tell it what resolution/refresh rate to use by default or else X would make a poor choice as to what it wanted the default to be (put me in 800x600 or something like that by default). I was able to tell X to default to what I wanted by adding in a Metamode line in my xorg.conf, i think under the screen section. I'm out right now and won't be back to my box to look up exactly what I did, but hopefully this might give a starting point if you havent tried it already. Metamodes in xorg.conf under the Display section if i remember right. I specified a resolution there and it now uses that as the default.

Problems with nVidia 9600 on my MB pro

I use 'mosaic' screen sever. But I have some problems with VGA nVidia 9600 on Snow Leopard. If I use the VGA 9400 it's all OK, but when I use the nVidia 9600 the picture of the screen sever (mosaic) is inverted in first time, and after 1 second the picture is ok.. I hope you can understand my problem.. Can you try this screen sever with nVidia 9600? thanks.
my mac: MacBook pro 15'' Alu 2,66GHz, 320Gb+160Gb di hdd ext, 4Gb di ram DDR3 1067, nVidia 9400m + nVidia 9600m GT

Hello ka.
You will find a lengthy thread dealing with this issue at http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10127873
Some people appear to have been able to overcome the problem by changing the number of rows. In other cases it appears that specific graphics processors produce problems similar to your own.
Cheers
Rod

HDTV Shows - Screen Tearing in iTunes

I've noticed very minor screen tearing with HD shows when I watch them in iTunes. When I open the video file in Quicktime Pro, the issue goes away.
Anybody else noticing this? I mean, it's a minor, minor issue. But I'm wondering if maybe iTunes is bottlenecking its processing speed below HD bit-rates - because my Mac can play 122 Megabit Final Cut ProRes videos without a single hiccup.

Yep, noticed the same thing while watching the latest Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles ep last night.
There is definitely something sub-par going on w/ the way iTunes processes HD content.
BTW - this is on iTunes for Windows running on a speedy Vista machine that can easily playback all kinds of HD content w/ no problems otherwise.

Late 2006, 24" iMac, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Screen Tearing, nVidia 7300

Late 2006, 24" iMac, 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Screen Tearing, nVidia GeForce 7300 GT
I've been suffering with screen tearing, strange screen artifacts, etc. followed by totally unresponsive freezing machine. This problem has been happening to varying degrees for about 9 months.
Initially, I was able to mitigate the problem with smcFanControl. Adjusting the fan speeds up helped keep the machine cool and prevent most of the problems. Recently, we had a spell of hot weather and the fans just couldn't keep up. If you're using smcFanControl, the only fan speed that will really make a difference is the CPU. The HDD and ODD fans are no where near where you need to be.
Also, I noticed the machine was LOADED with dust when I took it apart, including the heat sink fins for the graphics card. If you have time you may want to try a thorough cleaning with compressed air before replacing the card. You just need to get through step 11 below to access what needs to be cleaned.
Based on reading here and elsewhere, I decided to replace the graphics card. To give back to the community, I wanted to layout the procedure here.
Where to buy the card.
I had a tough time finding the right card. I did exhaustive web searches using every combination of Nvidia 7300 GT, etc. You really need to search by the Apple part number. The Apple part number for the 7300 is 661-4179, for the 7600 is 661-4180. I found it at We Love Macs and at dv warehouse. I paid $248 for the 7600 card. BE CAREFUL buying a "refurbished" card. At We Love Macs, "refurbished" means "pulled from a working machine." Could be a machine with as much mileage as yours and prone to the same failures as yours.
The card is an MXM style card (generally used in laptops), with a giant heat sink and heat pipe assembly. The card can be separated from the heat assembly. If I had time, I would have tried a generic, cheaper, MXM style card.
Dispelling some myths.
People here and elsewhere have said that no Intel iMac graphics card can be replaced, that they're wedded to the logic board. The one on this model can be replaced, I've done it. Also, some have said you can't put a 256MB, 7600 GT in a machine that originally had a 128MB, 7300 GT. Also, not true. That's what I did to my machine and it is working fine.
So here's the step-by-step on my take apart and replacement. This is just one user helping out others, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. This takes about 1 1/2 hours to take apart and 2 to put back together.
1) Install the iStat widget and monitor the temperatures for a few days and record the temperatures (to be able to verify that you've completed the repair correctly later)
2) Make a complete backup of any internal drives and make sure the backup will be bootable (use Carbon Copy Cloner)
3) Use static safeguards, like an anti-static wrist strap.
4) Get a pen a stack of paper envelopes to separate and label the pieces you remove.
5) You'll need a #2 Phillips and #6, 8, 10 Torx. Most of the screws at T-8. There are 8 T-8s holding in the LCD. They are about 1 1/4" down. You'll need a long, skinny T-8 to get to them.
6) Unplug the machine and place it on it's back on a large white sheet of paper.
7) Remove RAM door, #2 Phillips x 2.
8) Remove RAM.
9) Remove 4 T-8s along bottom.
10) Remove large rectangular plastic bezel surrounding the whole machine, tilt up being careful not to stress iSight cables. You'll need to stretch it around the RAM ejection tabs.
11) Detach two iSight cables.
12) Peel up black stickers at lower corners of speakers.
13) Remove LCD screws, T-8 x 8. You'll probably drop a few, they're pretty easy to retrieve.
14) Remove two retaining screws on right hand LCD cable. T-6 x2 Unplug cable.
15) Remove LCD inverter cable, left.
Start unplugging everything connected to the logic board.
16) Unplug cable coming from right speaker. Note cable routing, it is the only one that's a little tricky. Also, note that the left one plugs in on the right and the right one plugs in on the left.
17) Remove right speaker. T-10 Note: left and right speaker screws are different lengths.
18) Unplug ODD blower cable.
19) Unplug ODD temp cable and lift up tape.
20) Unplug HDD blower cable.
21) Unplug the HDD temp cable.
22) Unplug the camera & mic cable.
23) Unscrew the clamp securing the airport card (has two antenna cables going to it, labeled PCIE), T-6 x 2
24) Unplug SATA cable.
25) Unplug Power cable, thick black plastic harness, socket.
26) Unplug ambient temp cable.
27) Unscrew the bluetooth card, T-6 x2.
28) Unplug CPU blower cable.
29) Unplug power button cable, 2 conductor, tiny cable, bottom left.
30) Unscrew left speaker, T-10, unplug from logic board, but just leave dangling, no need to remove cable completely.
31) Remove logic board screws. Be careful to segregate them, they have different lengths and different thread pitches and thread types. Some are machine threads going into metal, some are coarse threads going into plastic.
31a) Heat sink frame to case T-8 x 2
31b) Logic board to case T-8 x 3
31c) Screws at heat sink from arrows T-8 x 3
31d) Logic board at bottom near RAM slot T-8 x 2
32) Unplug ODD ribbon cable, be extremely careful. Release plastic tabs on each side to remove. Be sure it is fully and evenly seated when you put it back later.
33) Remove logic board with attached graphics card.
34) Unplug graphics card heat sink sensor cable at logic board end.
35) Remove graphics card screws 2 x T-6
36) Remove single screw from small L-bracket on heat sink 1 x T-6
Replace graphics card.
Reverse steps, put everything back together. Be careful not to pinch any cables when you put the logic board back in. When you put the LCD back in, if you can't get the screws to stick to the driver, use some glue stick from your kid's art supplies.
Test everything. You've disconnected every cable in the system.
I torture tested the machine with a space heater on it, 5 different videos of different formats playing at the same time. No problems.
I took a lot of pictures inside the machine. As soon as I figure out a good place to post them, I'll try to add a link here.
Good luck

Greetings!
I know this is in response to your post from over 2 years ago, but I was searching on Apple's site for the max RAM I can upgrade our refurbed iMac too and it brought up this post.
Oddly enough, I've been experiencing the same screen issues and locking up on our iMac as well. I was concerned it was a bad memory module, but now I'm thinking it's the same issue you found.
Because I bought this some 2+ years ago refurbed from Apple, I'm not surprised that could be the actual problem.
I've pulled this thing apart once to replace the hard-drive which crashed about a year ago, so I'm not totally new at opening it up, but this process you mention sounds pretty intense...just wanted to get your second take on it based on what I've done thus far.
Thanks again for posting this...it was an eye-opener as to what might actually be causing our issues with our trusted Mac!
Joshua

[SOLVED] Dual-Screen Setup with ATI Catalyst

I'm having a beast of a time trying to set up X to work on my two screens.
Screen 1 is a 23" screen connected with a DVI cable. My preferred resolution for this one is 1920x1080. Screen 2 is a 17" screen (4:3) connected with a VGA cable. My preferred resolution for this one is 1280x960.
I tried using "aticonfig --initial=dual-head". This does not produce a working xorg.conf file. Specifically, my smaller monitor simply complains about not being able to display the given video mode. Running xrandr (from the main screen) shows only that output as being "connected" - the rest of them (including the CRT outputs which seem to correspond to the VGA port) as "disconnected".
I've spent about 5 hours searching for an answer to this, and the only ones I seem to be able to find are nvidia-specific.
I have an ATI Radeon HD 4850 or 4870 - I honestly forget which, although the drivers should be the same. I'm using the catalyst driver from the AUR, because I'd like to have 3D acceleration.
I've read through the entire xorg.conf man page, and tried a few things from there (including writing my own xorg.conf from scratch). Unfortunately, this seems incredibly useless, as the man page doesn't list any of the options that I seem to need (for example, I've read about and tried the "PairModes" option under "Device").
I can probably eventually figure this out, but it would be nice to have a few pointers. For example:
Should I have one or two "Device" sections in xorg.conf? Should I have one or two "Screen" sections in xorg.conf? Where can I find a full list of possible "Option" keys, at least for the Device section? Should I be using Xinerama (I've tried with and without, to no avail).
EDIT: I solved this by using the aticonfig tool some more, and not by messing around with xorg.conf. Specifically, the command:
aticonfig --initial=dual-head --xinerama=on --resolution=0,1920x1080 --resolution=1,1280x960 --screen-layout=right
I'll leave this here in the hopes that it can help someone else.
Last edited by Tempest (2011-08-06 02:28:41)

If you aren't playing games, it may be worth it to check out xf86-video-ati. Then you can configure your displays the standard way with xrandr.

Firefox version 22 screen tearing issue with video

So I've updated to Firefox 22 and have recently started noticing this really annoying screen tearing issue when scrolling. its only when i use Firefox sometimes it happens when I'm watching videos sometimes it just happens on normal every day pages. I've tried to duplicate this issue in other browsers (Chrome) and it just only seems to happen with Firefox. anyone else experienced this and knows how to stop it? kinda annoying

Hello,
'''Try Firefox Safe Mode''' to see if the problem goes away. Safe Mode is a troubleshooting mode, which disables most add-ons.
''(If you're not using it, switch to the Default theme.)''
* You can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the '''Shift''' key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
* Or open the Help menu and click on the '''Restart with Add-ons Disabled...''' menu item while Firefox is running.
''Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode"''
'''''If the issue is not present in Firefox Safe Mode''''', your problem is probably caused by an extension, and you need to figure out which one. Please follow the [[Troubleshooting extensions and themes]] article for that.
''To exit the Firefox Safe Mode, just close Firefox and wait a few seconds before opening Firefox for normal use again.''
''When you figure out what's causing your issues, please let us know. It might help other users who have the same problem.''
Thank you.

IMAC 24Inch with NVidia 256 MB graphics card CRASHED NO SCREEN STARTUP HELP

HI there, wondering if anyone has had their nvidia GT graphics card crash then the screen go black?
I got home tonight, my ali imac 24inch, looks like its off, I turn it on, everything boots up but no
screen. Ive shared the screen through my macbook and look at the system info and it says under graphics displays "No information found" What does this mean? Has my graphics card destroyed itself?
It better not have! HELP!!!

Actually you may find that you have more success with an AMD\ATI Radeon video card.
I have experienced that with some motherboards, specifically Pegatron motherboards.
The problem is that you are delving into the DIY gaming PC realm and trying to do it with a prebuilt desktop PC.
Upgrading a prebuilt PC does not always result in a success story. Don't even consider trying to install cutting edge gaming memory modules. That will be a definite disappointment for you.
You may get lucky with an AMD Radeon HD video card.
But...You might just run into the same frustrating scenario you are facing today. I wish I had better news to give you.
****Please click on Accept As Solution if a suggestion solves your problem. It helps others facing the same problem to find a solution easily****
2015 Microsoft MVP - Windows Experience Consumer

Hello, I have a Mac computer with NVIDIA 750M dedicated graphics card and monitor EIZO but the problem was there when I was working with Windows and Acer monitor. When I open a file from Camera Raw in PS this is smaller than the screen so I double-click w

Hello, I have a Mac computer with NVIDIA 750M dedicated graphics card and monitor EIZO but the problem was there when I was working with Windows and Acer monitor. When I open a file from Camera Raw in PS this is smaller than the screen so I double-click with the tool "hand" to fit on the screen, but the picture loses sharpness and becomes blurry. If you magnify the image even only slightly with the tool "zoom" the picture comes back clear. In Camera Raw instead is always sharp. I solve the problem by turning off the graphics card in PS but often use plugin that need the graphics card otherwise the processing time is much longer. I ask for help.
Thanks.

Hello, I have a Mac computer with NVIDIA 750M dedicated graphics card and monitor EIZO but the problem was there when I was working with Windows and Acer monitor. When I open a file from Camera Raw in PS this is smaller than the screen so I double-click with the tool "hand" to fit on the screen, but the picture loses sharpness and becomes blurry. If you magnify the image even only slightly with the tool "zoom" the picture comes back clear. In Camera Raw instead is always sharp. I solve the problem by turning off the graphics card in PS but often use plugin that need the graphics card otherwise the processing time is much longer. I ask for help.
Thanks.

Upgrade MacPro1,1 with ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB and Open GL 1.7.7. to recommended system requirements for heli simulator: OpenGL Version 2.1 compatible 3D-graphics card from NVIDIA or ATI with 512MB.

I want to install a helicopter simulator into my MacPro1,1 with ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB and Open GL 1.7.7. Recommended system requirements for the heli simulator are: OpenGL Version 2.1 compatible 3D-graphics card from NVIDIA or ATI with 512MB (at least as fast as NVIDIA 8600, 9400 or ATI Radeon HD 2400). Is there such a graphics card available that will work in my Mac Pro?

Are you really still running 10.6.3? you will need 10.6.5+ so do that and make a clone.
ATI 5770 from Apple Store - like 1000s of others have done and in the comments section on the store page.

KDE systemsettings causing freeze on x86_64 with nvidia

not sure where to post this, but i have been having a difficult time tracking down this problem.
it only happens when i have effects enabled.
when i try to access system settings it hangs the GUI. i can eventually get over to the command line and "killall systemsettings" and return to the GUI.
i have been runing the 180.08 / 180.06 drivers.
i rolled back to the 177.80 drivers and the problem is different, but similar:
when i have effects enabled and try to access system settings the window shows nothing until i disable effects. then i can see all the icons (appearance, desktop, etc...)
I did NOT have this problem before i recently reformatted my system in favor of the 64 bit version of Arch.
any help in tracing this gremlin would be appreciated!

I just installed it to check here and have no problems running it. x64_86, Nvidia graphics card with nvidia driver, KDE (not mod). Compositing enabled. Didn't have a .celestiarc before. I know it's not a whole lot of help, but it might help to narrow down things a little. perhaps it points towards the graphics driver or mesa?

Compositing causes screen tearing with Nvidia, is ATI a better choice?

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