KDE – How to Fix Video Tearing with KDE and ATI Drivers

12.04atikdekwintearing

I have Ubuntu 12.04.02 x64 and KDE 4.10.00.
I'm having a little video tearing while playing ANY video (HD mkv, avi, etc.).

  • it happens with vlc latest version and with default Ubuntu video player and also with other players like kmplayer.
  • I have some effects enabled and I use: OpenGL, Raster, Shaders: OpenGL 2 and vertical sync.
  • I have ATI MSI R6870 hawk with latest fglrx video card driver AMD Catalyst™ 13.1 Proprietary Linux Display Driver
  • My pc hardware are:
    CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 Sandy Bridge
    Motherboard: Asus P8P67 PRO
    Display: full hd display (DVI)
  • glxinfo says direct rendering: yes
  • No problem with Windows 7.

How to solve it?

Best Answer

The AMD Catalyst software has an option to reduce tearing.

Open a terminal and type kdesudo amdcccle, then find the section for reducing tearing and check the option.

Additionally, I should mention that I had some tearing issues with VLC and Totem a while ago (before the 13.1 driver was released), but using smplayer instead of VLC dramatically improved my video playback. If the Catalyst option doesn't work for you, give smplayer a try and see if that helps.

Related Question