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As everybody knows the use of the xf86-video-intel driver is discouraged by Debian and other distributions. Intel users owning a relatively new hardware are instead encouraged to use the built-in modesetting driver. Fair enough, I've never managed to use the TearFree option with DRI3 enabled.
The modesetting driver comes with few options. Of these options, PageFlip seems the most promising; as far as I know (basically nothing), page flipping should avoid tearing. So, full of hope, I tried the modesetting driver and... tearing is there. It's fairly visible when I move a floating window in dwm and when I scroll a page in chromium. But... when I scroll a page in fullscreen, or when I watch a video in fullscreen via mpv, tearing magically disappear. I disabled the PageFlip option and tearing is there in fullscreen applications too. This PageFlip option seems to work only when in fullscreen and this is not specified in the manual. This post seems to agree:
So, this is the end of the story, isn't it? It seems like these guys expect me to install a compositing manager like Compton in order to enjoy a tearfree experience. But why? I don't need shadows or transparency or other eye candy. I just want to get rid of the tearing and the Intel driver shows that this can be done at the driver level.
If you use a basic window manager without compositing, can you test this driver? Same results?
The modesetting driver comes with few options. Of these options, PageFlip seems the most promising; as far as I know (basically nothing), page flipping should avoid tearing. So, full of hope, I tried the modesetting driver and... tearing is there. It's fairly visible when I move a floating window in dwm and when I scroll a page in chromium. But... when I scroll a page in fullscreen, or when I watch a video in fullscreen via mpv, tearing magically disappear. I disabled the PageFlip option and tearing is there in fullscreen applications too. This PageFlip option seems to work only when in fullscreen and this is not specified in the manual. This post seems to agree:
[...]
This series improves the usability of the modesetting driver by eliminating tearing in fullscreen applications (such as your compositing manager).
[...]
This series improves the usability of the modesetting driver by eliminating tearing in fullscreen applications (such as your compositing manager).
[...]
If you use a basic window manager without compositing, can you test this driver? Same results?