KDE Fixes Adaptive-Sync Issues & Less Glitches During GPU Resets

[phoronix]

Phoronix: KDE Fixes Adaptive-Sync Issues & Less Glitches During GPU Resets

KDE developer Nate Graham is back from the latest KDE sprint in Germany and out with his new weekly status report to highlight all of the interesting KDE changes that landed this week...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Less-Bugs-Adaptive-Sync

[Kjell]

Adaptive Sync is problematic in Sway too

• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3166
• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2066

[skeevy420]

Heh. When hard drives make it look like it's 1kb=1024b on the box and you find out it's 1kb=1000b when you format it so your 2TB drive ends up being 1.8TB . Bastards

[aufkrawall]

The bug was in direct scan-out code, not in VRR code. VRR just made it apparent.
Indeed seems to be smooth now once again. Didn't notice this during the early beta, so probably regressed after that.

More positive news: There are patches fixing the amdgpu atomic modesetting hardware cursor + VRR bug, might land in the next weeks or months.
What still makes aufkrawall sad: Still no proper global color clamp in sight. The current implementation in KWin is kinda pointless due to gamma curve incorrectness.

[Kjell]

More positive news: There are patches fixing the amdgpu atomic modesetting hardware cursor + VRR bug, might land in the next weeks or months.

Here's the patches if anyone wants to test it

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2186#note_2368021

[sophisticles]

KDE System Settings has added an option now for selecting how you'd like sizes displayed. You can choose MB and GB style rather than MiB and GiB.

This is a game changer!!! What a brilliant innovation!!!

The Kate text editor now works correctly with multiple virtual desktops.

I much prefer that she keeps working the way she currently does, once she starts working correctly she is going to want a raise.

A fix for KDE Plasma would have flickering and stuttering when Adaptive-Sync (Variable Rate Refresh) support was enabled.

Here the KDE team is missing a golden opportunity. What they should do is add code that when stuttering is detected a pop up window appears that asks rhetorically "Did i stutter?".

Reduced visual glitches when the GPU carries out a reset.

Another bad idea, if you reduce the number of visual glitches, how will people know they are using KDE?

[bosslog]

A fix for KDE Plasma would have flickering and stuttering when Adaptive-Sync (Variable Rate Refresh) support was enabled.

The regression introduced by kwin 6.0.4 caused severe stuttering regardless of whether VRR was enabled or not. But with VRR enabled, very uneven frame pacing (stuttering) can also cause brightness flickering on some monitors.

I hope VRR will work better on future Plasma/Wayland/Mesa/RADV/amdgpu versions, because it's often unstable.
Some thing that may help in the future:

• explicit sync
• ability to use window rules on Plasma to enable/disable VRR per program
• better AMD drivers (e.g. bugs #1500, #2066, #3166)
• cursor that doesn't affect VRR refresh rate (KWIN_DRM_DELAY_VRR_CURSOR_UPDATES=1), either with a software cursor (KWIN_FORCE_SW_CURSOR=1) or with a hardware cursor (but AMD's hardware cursor is bugged at the moment)

[fafreeman]

Adaptive Sync is problematic in Sway too

• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3166
• https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/2066

i noticed both of these issues in gnome with their experimental vrr enabled as well. also noticed god awful mouse lag when the fps is low. like in factorio thats locked to 60fps, the mouse has like a 1 - 2 second delay.

[sobrus]

Heh. When hard drives make it look like it's 1kb=1024b on the box and you find out it's 1kb=1000b when you format it so your 2TB drive ends up being 1.8TB . Bastards

And then they said, that it was always that way, and meant to be that way. You were wrong, and whole IT industry was wrong.
Because 1kB=1000b, and the unit you use it called kiB or something (who cares, just don't use kilobyte).
And then suddenly some gnome apps start using 1kb=1000b as default, so now you have 136GB of memory, even though you bought 128GB.
Free upgrade!

I'm wondering when they will start renaming older computers, for example there should be "Commodore 65.5".
And because of inflation and global crisis, kilobyte may become 960 bytes soon. Why not.

[Kjell]

in factorio thats locked to 60fps, the mouse has like a 1 - 2 second delay.

Same with Halo Infinite loadout customization menu

Probably related to #5