Nvidia Tearing problems [NVIDIA GLX (proprietary) Driver]

[ripper81]

I have a tearing problem with my linux gaming machine. It has been a while since i experienced this for the first time. I get tearing in most of the games using the unity3d engine (Hand of fate, Pillars of eternety, War for the overworld). I fixed it once by disabeling the x.org backingstore. Since i have upgraded to a new Version of my Distro (Kubuntu 15.04) this doesn't work anymore. The display manager has changed from lightdm to sddm and i have no idea how to disable the backingstore with this new displaymanager.

Any ideas about that?

ripper81358

Systemspecs:

AMD FX-8350
8 GB RAM
nVidia Geforce FX 760 (2GB)
Driver: nVidia GLX 346.59
Distro: Kubuntu 15.04 x86_64

[slrp]

Have you tried just turning on VSync in the game? It's supposed to eliminate tearing by causing the game to fully render an image before updating your screen.
You can also turn it on for all games with the "sync to vblank" option in nvidia-settings

Some side effects of turning on VSync are that your FPS is limited by your monitors refresh rate (usually 60Hz, so your FPS can't go above 60)
and it's possible you might experience mouse lag.

[ripper81]

I've found a way to solve it. I had to create the file x.org.conf in the directory /etc/X11 with the nvida-settings tool because in Ubuntu there is no x.org.conf. I wasn't able to find out where the x.org configuration is written to in Ubuntu. I just couldn't find a .conf file that contains the "screen" section of the x.org configuration.

After doing this i added "{ ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }" to the metamode options in the "screen" section of the created x.org.conf.

Since i've done that all tearing is gone. But i think this is a complicated approach for most users. I don't understand why there is no option to turn this on in nvida-settings, or why this is not enabled by default.

Turning VSync on or off in the abovoe mentioned games had no effect on the screen tearing. Maybe this is only related to my type of nVidia GPU or to specific graphicadaptors.

[slrp]

I've never even heard of that option
I just googled it and was reading some posts people have made about moving windows with 3D content

Was your tearing problem only related to desktop compositing? i.e. moving windows with special effects like 3D desktop or transparency?

Usually "tearing" just refers to the game itself, which exists even if the game window is fullscreen without any window movement or desktop effects.

[ripper81]

I also had tearing effects in some desktopapps like vlc (video playback) and firefox (Fast scrolling down on websites) . So i tried another DE (LXDE with Openbox windowmanger). But the tearing presisted.

[ripper81]

By the way i am not alone with my problem:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/5/

[slrp]

Originally posted by ripper81:

I also had tearing effects in some desktopapps like vlc (video playback) and firefox (Fast scrolling down on websites) . So i tried another DE (LXDE with Openbox windowmanger). But the tearing presisted.

This is what I was trying to say. People might not be helping you because you're not explaining your problem completely.

It sounds to me that what you are calling "tearing" is a completely separate issue from what people usually think of when they see "tearing" in the context of games.

[Kendji]

For me driver 352 fixed the problem, though it can reapear if I use multiply monitors

[blues02]

I'm getting this bad in Wasteland 2. Massive screen tearing that is bad enough I don't want to play the game in Linux. VSync isn't doing anything to help it.

[ripper81]

Hi, try to build the file xorg.conf with the nvidia-settings tool.
To do this just klick on "X Server Display Configuration" and then on "Save to X Configuration File". Make shure that nvidia-settings saves the file to /etc/X11.

After doing so you can open the xorg.conf file with your prefered editor. To change the content of this file you'll need root privileges.

Open the file and insert the following in the "screen" section: Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }".

The complete section should look like this:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
Option "SLI" "Off"
Option "MultiGPU" "Off"
Option "BaseMosaic" "off"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection

Then do a reboot.

[blues02]

Excellent man! Seems to have fixed the issue.

[Cadavere]

Same problem here on Ubuntu GNOME 15.04, I resolved with this:

Originally posted by ripper81:

Hi, try to build the file xorg.conf with the nvidia-settings tool.
To do this just klick on "X Server Display Configuration" and then on "Save to X Configuration File". Make shure that nvidia-settings saves the file to /etc/X11.

After doing so you can open the xorg.conf file with your prefered editor. To change the content of this file you'll need root privileges.

Open the file and insert the following in the "screen" section: Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }".

The complete section should look like this:

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }"
Option "SLI" "Off"
Option "MultiGPU" "Off"
Option "BaseMosaic" "off"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection

Then do a reboot.

Many thanks man!

[Lx]

Works for me, thanks.

Specs: Intel Core i3, Nvidia GTX 660, Arch Linux 4.4.5, Xorg 1.18.2, Openbox 3.6.1

[ripper81]

Hi some "news" from my side regarding screen tearing with the nividia glx linux driver. I just reinstalled my linux system and the tearing appeared again. So i searched the web for solutions and found the following.

The nvidia glx driver seems to cause tearing when it is used with certain windowmangers like in my case kwin (the windowmanager for plasma 5 KDE). This seems to be related to graphic buffering issues.

A "new" solution that works in my case is to activate triple buffering. Since there is no option to turn this on or off in the nvidia-settings tool you have to to do this manually. The steps to enable triple buffering are the same as described above. But instead of altering the "screen" section of your x.org.conf you have to add the "triplebuffer" option to the "device" section.
The x.org.conf file should look something like this:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings: version 352.21 (buildd@lgw01-37) Thu Jul 23 11:50:49 UTC 2015


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"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "LG Electronics 22MP55"
HorizSync 30.0 - 83.0
VertRefresh 56.0 - 61.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce GTX 760"
Option "TripleBuffer" "true"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Option "Stereo" "0"
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-1"
Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
Option "SLI" "Off"
Option "MultiGPU" "Off"
Option "BaseMosaic" "off"
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
EndSubSection
EndSection

This solution seems to cause less preformance issues. If this is viable solution depends a lot on which windowmanger is used by your desktopenvironment and how it is configured. Take a look at displaysettings that related to vsync and dektopeffects. You also should make shure that vsync to blank is enabled in the nvidia-settings tool and in the game you are playing.