Ubuntu/Nvidia tearing problem.

Have recently installed Ubuntu Studio 9.10 on my laptop, a Clevo D901C / Sager 9262, as my primary OS (assuming all niggles can be worked through) primarily for music production and some graphics/video work.

The card in the machine is a Nvidia 8800M GTX (90% sure GTX version anyway without checking.)

Now I have read many reports of problems with Linux, especially Ubuntu, and tearing on fullscreen Flash video. I wish this was my problem! I get tearing on all video, from any player. I also get tearing within programs, for example I can often see a break in the location bar while it is scrolling across the screen in a wave editor, which is something I use a lot this being an audio production machine.

I have tried the native Linux drivers and both the ones listed in the Hardware Drivers section (173 and 185 I think.) I am running 32bit due to the audio software and believe 185 was also the latest in Windows, which has always run with no problems.

I have desktop effects (Compiz?) set to off so this should not be affecting it.


I have asked on the Ubuntu forum but there is a lot of traffic over there and so far the thread has been ignored. Hope one of you laptop genii can help me out.

 

What video output are you using with your media player? Xv? You might try OpenGL. If you're using X11, stop it.

 

Use the latest official Ubuntu driver, which is 185. Oddly enough, you're better off running Compiz on as long as you set it at the proper refresh rate. See this article. As post #2 says, use xv for video, and also use PulseAudio for sound. You should find the relevant bits in options dialogs. With your card you can also use VDPAU and accelerate videos using your GPU. That should help considerably.

 

I have tried 173 and 185 from the repository and 195 from Nvidia's site and all exhibit tearing on my system. I will read through your article on getting it working with Compiz though. When I initially went to 195 (which is currently running) I had enabled medium desktop effects as I had heard something similar and searching brought me to a page which mentioned upgrading to 195.

On initial install of 195 it was really bad, going back to desktop effects off and it did seem less for a while (well more often but less pronounced tearing.) Not sure if that was psychological now.

As I also get tearing in normal programs (audio editors or anything with a horizontally scrolling line) not just video I don't think VDPAU is going to help there. Maybe I can clean playing videos a bit with it though. From that link seems maybe I should go to MPlayer, rather than VLC (I liked VLC as it works nicely going between Jack when I want to do proper audio work and PA when just doing desktop stuff without complaining.)


When installing 195 I did get a fair few error messages/warning about OpenGL/GLX stuff but everything seems to be working as far as I can see... Just the same old tearing I haven't managed to solve!

 

Tearing even in non video? Odd. Is your definition of tearing correct? It's best to stick with 185 as it's packaged by the Ubuntu guys. Less trouble in the end for you. Post a link to the UF forum thread, I'll post a bump to it.

 

Yep definitely tearing. A horizontal offset of the video down the screen. Had forgotten the name when made the original thread on UF mind, which was a few days before making the one on here. Not sure where the post is but I'll make a new, clearer one from work tomorrow.

In non-video I only really notice it on things like audio wave editors, where you have a bar scrolling across the screen. This gets broken so you can see a split in the bar, usually only of one pixel offset, which travels either up or down the screen . Have read plenty of reports of people experiencing it with dragging windows around the desktop so know it's not that strange a case (and although I think I can just notice it when doing that it's slight enough to be unworthy of comment.)

Luckily for me I usually compose in a tracker, which scrolls vertically, rather than horizontally like the vast majority of DAWs, so not quite as affected as I could be.

 

I have experienced tearing on my ion nettop which I use as an htpc.

I haven't done much about it to be honest. If the release at the end of the month doesn't patch this up and offer better multimedia support more generally, it might be on to a new distro.

 

Well enabling Desktop Effects and playing with the VSync settings for Compiz does make a difference.

When playing a single sample, with just one scrolling bar the tearing seems to have disappeared. It is quite noticeably jerky though, and not sure if this is more or less offputting than the tearing. Not checked video or my external monitor yet.

When a sample is playing more than once so you can two position bars tearing again becomes very apparent.

Trying to take a screenshot in any mode shows up the tearing very badly. In fact I would say much worse than how it is actually displayed, which seems a little weird. No real difference between them either.

Here's a random example of screenshot anway, although don't think it will help at all.

 

Resize that screenshot.

 

Sorry didn't check the size as I posted it (used to most forums resizing to width automatically now.) Have just changed it to a clickable thumbnail though.