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

[ragnarok2040]

I haven't seen this suggested before but you should make sure you're using the latest catalyst version, 10.9 with direct2d acceleration enabled, (sudo aticonfig --set-pcs-str=DDX,ForceXAA,FALSE), if you can. It's the best ATI driver I've ever used since I bought my video card in July of '08.

I have a Q6600 and a HD4850 at 1080p on ArchLinux using LXDE with both compiz/openbox, without XvBA acceleration, and vsync is set to "Always On". It used to be that you needed a compositing window manager, (opengl backend), or a media player with an opengl rendering option, for tear free fullscreen video. I used compiz to watch fullscreen flash videos in firefox. I then switched compiz off if I wanted to watch something using gnome-mplayer with the gl2 output option without tearing (compiz slowed down the opengl rendering speed).

That's no longer the case as I've tested the new direct2d backend in both openbox and compiz. Videos in windowed mode, and flash videos embedded in a webpage, are free of tearing now. Direct rendering in compiz even works. Just a note, "Unredirect FullScreen Windows" should be checked in compiz's setting if you want fullscreen video to render correctly in compiz.

In gnome-mplayer, the video output options I've tested, xv/x11/gl/gl2, result in tear free video windowed or fullscreen. The standalone flash player for games is tear free, too.

The only problems I have is that the framebuffer gets stuck as only white when switching out of fullscreen of some apps, like media players and online flash players. Switching out of X and back fixes that. Games in Wine still exhibit blackbox behavior that firefox used to have, but minimizing and restoring the window fixes that.

[JDifool]

Can someone point me in the right direction ?

Using Slack 13.1 x64 with compiz, fglrx 10.7 and both vlc and smplayer. In preferences I use xv (AVIVO ATI) and I have no tearing whatsoever watching regular and HD movie in windowed and fullscreen.

What am I doing wrong ? I want to complain too !

Cheers

[Kano]

Some ppl do not see tearing as much as others. I always see it.

[RealNC]

Tearing test: http://foss.math.aegean.gr/~realnc/vids/3DMark2000.mkv

If that won't tear, then nothing will :P

[ragnarok2040]

The gl/gl2/xv output options all render it at fullspeed without any tearing that I could see. I chose x11 output to test, since it uses the software scaler and it always would tear with versions prior to 10.9.

If I scale (-zoom) it to fullscreen 1080p, I get the "Your system is too SLOW to play this" message. The framerate is low but each frame is rendered whole. The audio played normally, so it desyncs from the video. Using -x 1920 and -y 1080 causes the video to render in the wrong aspect in a 1920x1080 window at almost fullspeed, where a frame here or there would stall. Using -lavdopts fast and -sws 0 made it fast enough so the message didn't appear.

With -framedrop, in fullscreen, it becomes very jerky, but the currently displayed frame is never dropped. In fact, a frame that is rendered seems to stick for multiple updates.

I tried a few options like -nodouble, -dr, -novsync, and such, to produce some sort of tearing and using the arrow keys to skip ahead. I managed to get some tearing with -nodouble in windowed mode, but it only happened with one test.

It's about the same behavior I get from using vsync handlers on embedded platforms. The framedropping isn't exactly the same, since some frames stick far too long, but I expect it's because the scaling algorithm takes a long time for rendering so it's incomplete before the next screen update.

[JDifool]

RealNC thanks for the video ; indeed I can notice some tearing from time to time on this, but it is not seen on other standard videos...

My wife does not complain watching movies with FGLRX, but now I can !

The driver has seen many improvements throughout the past year, and now it is pretty usable with a compositor and opengl apps. That's fine (not perfect) for me AFAIK, and does not merit all the complaining. But what would phoronix look like without it, heh ?

Cheers,

[RealNC]

@ragnarok2040

Since fglrx does not support GL VSync with compositing (desktop effects) enabled, and no VSync at all and under any circumstances with Xv, I have to wonder how it's possible at all that you don't have tearing...

[RealNC]

The driver has seen many improvements throughout the past year, and now it is pretty usable with a compositor and opengl apps. That's fine (not perfect) for me AFAIK, and does not merit all the complaining. But what would phoronix look like without it, heh ?

Maybe some monitors make tearing more apparent then others. With an old CRT (at 120Hz) I have lying around videos on fglrx are a tearing-fest. Same with my digital TFT monitor which has a 2-ms response time. Maybe slower TFTs are simply not fast enough to display the tearing effect.

[nanonyme]

Tearing test: http://foss.math.aegean.gr/~realnc/vids/3DMark2000.mkv

If that won't tear, then nothing will :P

Have you made sure that there actually is a platform on which it doesn't have tearing? If not, could be broken video file.

[BlackStar]

Have you made sure that there actually is a platform on which it doesn't have tearing? If not, could be broken video file.

It doesn't tear on kwin 4.5 / nvidia.