In what linux distro ATI + Linux won't be tearing?

[monraaf]

The default video player in Ubuntu is Totem, you can configure it with gstreamer-properties. Problem is that Ubuntu doesn't ship with the gstreamer-gl plugins, so you can't select OpenGL as output. You can compile the gl plugins from git or maybe there's a ppa, but last time I tried it didn't work satisfactory anyways. So best is to either use another video player, or use the open source drivers.

[RealNC]

I recommend SMPlayer, btw

[tball]

I'm using default Ubuntu 10.04 video player.

You can't see tearfree videos on that movie-player, even if you manage to change the output to OpenGL. It has something to do with the movie-players way of setting the movie in fullscreen.

A movie-player which set the fullscreen correctly and enables the tearfree experience, is like RealNC said, smplayer. It uses the mplayer backend.

[BlackStar]

Try SMPlayer or VLC, both work with OpenGL output.

[Argonisius]

And what about hw requirements? (xv / gl)

[monraaf]

You can't see tearfree videos on that movie-player, even if you manage to change the output to OpenGL. It has something to do with the movie-players way of setting the movie in fullscreen.

A movie-player which set the fullscreen correctly and enables the tearfree experience, is like RealNC said, smplayer. It uses the mplayer backend.

Now wait a minute here. Because people might get the wrong idea about this after reading your post. You can get perfectly fine tear-free videos with that movie-player. I'm very sensitive to tearing myself and certainly would have noticed if Totem was somehow broken in this aspect, besides I always test for tearing artifacts with a scene of a roller coaster ride I have for this purpose. I can tell you there's no tearing with Totem when you use the open source drivers. So the problem is not with Totem but with Catalyst, more precisely with its lack of synchronization for what is the de-facto standard for video output in Linux (Xv).

As for using OpenGL output with Totem using the gstreamer gl plugins. Last time I tried it with fglrx tearing wasn't the problem, but motion simply wasn't fluid (e.g. you would see short stalls, very short but long enough to be very annoying, especially with a panning camera) The full screen thing you are referring to may have something to do with compositors and the blob or something. I don't know and I don't care, all I know is that such problems do not exist here with Totem and the
open source drivers.

[RealNC]

And what about hw requirements? (xv / gl)

What do you mean?

[Argonisius]

What do you mean?

I mean CPU/graphics load when playing xv/gl videos

[tball]

Now wait a minute here. Because people might get the wrong idea about this after reading your post. You can get perfectly fine tear-free videos with that movie-player. I'm very sensitive to tearing myself and certainly would have noticed if Totem was somehow broken in this aspect, besides I always test for tearing artifacts with a scene of a roller coaster ride I have for this purpose. I can tell you there's no tearing with Totem when you use the open source drivers. So the problem is not with Totem but with Catalyst, more precisely with its lack of synchronization for what is the de-facto standard for video output in Linux (Xv).

As for using OpenGL output with Totem using the gstreamer gl plugins. Last time I tried it with fglrx tearing wasn't the problem, but motion simply wasn't fluid (e.g. you would see short stalls, very short but long enough to be very annoying, especially with a panning camera) The full screen thing you are referring to may have something to do with compositors and the blob or something. I don't know and I don't care, all I know is that such problems do not exist here with Totem and the
open source drivers.

Okay maybe I wan't clear about that. Ofcourse I meant that the combination fglrx + totem + opengl wouldn't produce tearfree video. But mplayer + fglrx + opengl will.

AFAIK the problem lies if the application uses direct rendering or indirect rendering in fullscreen. Because fglrx is only able to handle tearfree opengl acceleration with a compositor with one of the two (don't remember if it is direct rendering or indirect rendering).

If you are not using a compositor you might aswell be able to get tearfree video with totem + fglrx + opengl output. But I took for granted that he uses a compositor.

[RealNC]

I mean CPU/graphics load when playing xv/gl videos

There shouldn't be any differences.

Just try though. SMPlayer is in the Ubuntu repos I believe, so it's just a few clicks away.