Horizontal video tearing in xfce and ion graphics (nvidia)

Question

Hello all,
I have arch + xfce running no problems, but there is significant horizontal video tearing when I play videos (in vlc or firefox/flash). I have already enabled 'Sync to VBlank' within the nvidia-utils control panel. I think the problem arises from the xfce monitor settings window that only allows the frequency output to the monitor to be 50Hz. Can someone confirm this and/or offer advice?
Thanks again,
DF

Answer 1

Since Devotedfollower is using a nvidia ion card he will get the best results without compositing at all.
If you want to use a nvidia card along with compiz without tearing, I found these additional steps to be necessary:
put
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
under Section "Device" in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (if you don't have one, run "nvidia-xconfig" once as root)
put "nvidia-settings -l" into your startup applications
install and launch ccsm, open up the general options and look for a tick called "Sync to VBlank" and activate it
within these general options there is a tick called "recognize refresh rate" (or something alike); deactivate it
try playing around with the refresh rate slider (I got the best results when using the exact refresh rate for my display or something higher)
Note that these steps are only necessary if you really want to use compiz on nvidia cards. They worked with several GTX cards for me. Don't know about your ION though.
My netbook has an ION but it was one of the first ones. As far as I can remember it had no tearing on xfce without compositing but on compiz it had a bit tearing at the top of screen even with all the steps above.
Nevertheless I wish you best luck!
P.S. Tearing has always been a huge problem on Linux for me. After a lot research I found compiz being the only compositor able to almost eliminate tearing. So the only choice for nvidia users to get rid of video tearing is either to use no compositing at all (which results in teary desktop graphics) or to use compiz along with vdpau...