X.Org Server Adds "AsyncFlipSecondaries" To Deal With Crappy Multi-Monitor Experience

[Myownfriend]

[LIST=1][*]It's talking about when you have an unredirected fullscreen window on one monitor. (i.e. under X11, the "bypass compositor" feature that lets a game get OpenGL/Vulkan direct-to-monitor for performance) That's a common "you only got this now?" thing for X11 to say to Wayland.

Yea, but that would only be a burn if X11 weren't older than I and nearly three times older than Wayland.

[treba]

Reading comprehension? It is written, but it is a description of the previous, SYNC behaviour that this ASYNC implementation was made to fix.

Then please read. From the commit message:

It adds a new boolean option "AsyncFlipSecondaries" to the device section of xorg.conf. If this option is specified as true, then DRI3 pageflip behaviour changes as follows:
...
The downside is potential tearing artifacts on all outputs apart from the one of the "reference crtc".

[LIST=1]
...

On Wayland you can have multiple screens at different refresh rates, each of them having fullscreen or non-fullscreen "unredirected"/direct scanout clients. Without tearing. In other words a no compromise situation. I think atm only Weston is already capable of doing such a extreme situation (especially the non-fullscreen direct scanout case, which requires overlay plane support via atomic KMS). But a typical situation like screen A 144Hz with a unredirected game + screen B 60Hz + screen C 60Hz works just fine without tearing on Gnome - and if I'm not mistaken on Sway and KDE as well.
That's possible because unlike on X11 there's no "global" VSync on Wayland. Clients receive frame callbacks (or/and presentation times) for the screens they are visible on. Clients on different screens don't need to be in sync.

[cl333r]

Of course not seriously, but exaggeration of an actual oppositional feeling? Yeah.
Besides, you are very uninformed if you think no person is crazy enough to make death threats about silly things. Really.

That would be reasonable if I was a contributor to the graphics stack or something, not an anonymous loser from the peanut gallery who just comments and doesn't actually do anything for the Linux graphics stack and thus has no voice in it.

[sinepgib]

No, if you take that for serious you're either an idiot or the commenter is a killer, none of which applies to the subject of Linux graphics devs.

Of course not seriously, but exaggeration of an actual oppositional feeling? Yeah.
Besides, you are very uninformed if you think no person is crazy enough to make death threats about silly things. Really.

[jacob]

Wayland fanboys: Noo! You can't add new features. Xorg is dead!
Xorg: Ha-ha. Refresh rates go brrrr.

It just so happens that the Wayland fanboys are also the only Xorg (and X11) devs left, and they are the ones who added those features.

[ssokolow]

Wayland users are more like: whoot, you only get this now and it introduces tearing (i.e. is rather trade-off than a clean solution)? Well, if you look for a clean solution for the problem - you know where to find it

Edit: still a nice addition, hope users wanting to use it won't have to wait too long for a release.

1. It's talking about when you have an unredirected fullscreen window on one monitor. (i.e. under X11, the "bypass compositor" feature that lets a game get OpenGL/Vulkan direct-to-monitor for performance) That's a common "you only got this now?" thing for X11 to say to Wayland.
2. It's a configuration setting that means "If monitors are configured to have differing refresh rates and a whole-desktop sync-to-vblank has been requested, prefer tearing on the secondary monitors over waiting for all vblanks to report in."

I'm not sure how much more prone to needing the "whole-desktop sync-to-vblank has been requested" situation X11 is, but, if you ask for that (eg. for a display wall), then a Wayland compositor can't magically do something like forcing a 60Hz monitor to speed up to keep pace with a 144Hz monitor.

[geamandura]

It's written in the article:

Reading comprehension? It is written, but it is a description of the previous, SYNC behaviour that this ASYNC implementation was made to fix.

[cl333r]

Knowing the kind of character you can meet online, I'd say Poe's Law is at play. Next time use a tag.

No, if you take that for serious you're either an idiot or the commenter is a killer, none of which applies to the subject of Linux graphics devs.

[doomie]

I actually was never able to get proton vsync to work on triple monitors, as my primary would tear unless I disabled the others. Using TearFree would work, I seem to remember, but resulted in some serious mentioned stuttering. I always just assumed it had to do with syncing a single "screen"/canvas with multiple "displays" on X. Looks like this would fix that for me :3

Just to bait some of the KILL THE UNBELIEVERS fellers, last I tried I still couldn't seemingly get any unredirect to actually work on any wayland compositors; Sway or Plasma. With uncapped FPS, I got serious stuttering where the FPS average might be 100+ but it most often looked like 18, and overall performance was lower. With capped, somewhat improved but still pretty bad. I'm still not sure how wayland syncs displays or how games read it, and I don't know what I was doing wrong either. Disabling displays didn't help.

One of at least two reasons I gotta stick to X for now; the other being drawing tablets. This fix will make my life just that much better. Big TY dev

[gfunk]

well, I think that was the single biggest complaint with x11 right?
glad its sorted, now back to Wayland development!