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Bo Dang Ren
Asked: 2014-04-20 04:36:42 +0800 CST

How do I eliminate screen tearing on 14.04 and XBMC with NVidia-331?

  • 772

I have updated my 12.04 HTPC to 14.04 (new install; same hardware), and have started getting awful screen tearing where I had none before.

/proc/cpuinfo

AMD A4-3300 APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics

lspci

...

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2)

...

lsmod

...

nvidia 10675249 71

drm 302631 2 nvidia

...

Everything is from the official repos.

xbmc_12.3+dfsg1-3ubuntu1_all.deb

nvidia-331_331.38-0ubuntu7_amd64.deb

drivers

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I too had this problem after upgrading to 14.04

    The solution mentioned here worked wonders for me,

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/1278012/comments/12

    A workaround for ubuntu 14.04 with nvidia driver is to disable backing store in xorg: Make sure you have the "-bs" option in lightdm config file:

    cat /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-xserver-command.conf
[SeatDefaults]
# Dump core
xserver-command=X -bs -core

    If you're using another mechanism for starting X you can use the same flag in a similar way. For example, here's startx which is popularly used in XBMC (and other kiosk applications') startup scripts:

    startx /etc/X11/Xsession /usr/bin/xbmc-standalone -- -bs
    • 20

  2. Just to sum up to the Brenden's answer, the real problem is with the libsdl1.2 package, as stated in this bug report.

    The solution is ready, but somehow isn't available on default Ubuntu package sources yet (at least not for me). So, a way to solve this is to import the developer PPA and install the patched package directly:

    sudo apt-add-repository ppa:timo-jyrinki/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian

    You can later remove the PPA with:

    sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
sudo ppa-purge ppa:timo-jyrinki/ppa

    All credits to Timo Jyrinki.

    This solved the problem for me, in a gnome-shell environment (which uses gdm).

    • 9

  3. Screen tearing can also be caused by xfce compositing or window manager with compositing that doesn't suppport vblank sync! To fix the issue i used compton, which completely stops the tearing, it's also quite easy to configure, i followed this guide and i haven't had any problems.

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  4. For those who are unable to solve the issue by both package update from Timo Jyrinki and downgrading the Catalyst Control Center, try this method:

    1. Download Catalyst 14.9, packaged as

      amd-catalyst-14-9-linux-x86-x86-64.zip

    2. Download Catalyst 14.6 Beta, packaged as

      linux-amd-catalyst-14.6-beta-v1.0-jul11.zip

    3. Install Catalyst 14.6 Beta First using method given here.

    4. After Successful installation, reboot. Then open Catalyst Control Center and set Tear Free Desktop to ON.

    5. Reboot. Then purge the Catalyst by:

      sudo apt-get purge fglrx*

    6. WITHOUT Rebooting, still in terminal, install Catalyst 14.9 using same method as Catalyst 14.6 was installed.

    7. After Successful installation, reboot. Then set VSync to Always ON.

    Now you have your latest Catalyst Control Center with Tear Free Desktop enabled. This method worked on Ubuntu 14.04 and Linux Mint 17

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