Ubuntu – My new Nvidia card has screen tearing in games

14.04driversgraphicsnvidia

The desktop display is fine, watching videos is okay, but when I load up games I get constant screen tearing. I'm running 14.04 64-bit on an Intel i5-2500k 3.30GHz, 16GB RAM, 2TB Barracuda 7200 RPM, w/ dual monitors @1080p Samsung SyncMaster PX2370.

I recently upgraded my video card from a Nvidia 560Ti to a Nvidia 970. As soon as I loaded up my first game I noticed screen tearing. I tried enabling and disabling v-sync but it did not help. Actually v-sync can make it worse for some games! see below

This For my 560Ti I had installed the 346.47 binaries from Nvidia's site. When v-sync did not work, I upgraded my driver to 352.21. I followed this guide from the part where it tells how to install binaries. This still did no good.

Later I figured out I could have probably just updated my current binaries. Also if I rundkms statusit lists nvidia 331.113 driver. However I do not know how to purge the driver from DKMS and the binary fails to pull into DKMS.

I feel like my first step should possibly be purging the Nvidia drivers from Kernal and DKMS, then trying the install again. Since I've only been using Linux for about 3 years now I'm hesitant to blame Nvidia's drivers, but am inclined to think it is my own incompetence.

Any suggestions on how I might fix this problem?

Games Tested:

  1. Wasteland 2 – Tearing when moving overhead view
  2. Cities: Skylines – V-sync DISABLED removes tearing
  3. The Fall – Tear in middle of the screen anytime you walk
  4. Dungeons 2 – Slight tearing when moving the view around
  5. The Talos Principle – V-sync ENABLED removes tearing
  6. Torchlight II – No tearing
  7. Team Fortress 2 – Slight tearing, some ghosting
  8. Borderlands 2 – V-sync DISABLED removes tearing

Best Answer

Two steps that solved the problem for me on my gtx 960 on Kubuntu 14.04

1st try adding this to your xorg.conf file @ /etc/X11/

Section "Screen"

Option "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {ForceFullComposition = On}"

If that works only sometimes or distorts clarity on internet or game video then add this and it should make a big difference and hopefully permanent fix.

Section "Screen"

Option "TripleBuffer" "1"

You can check out my research here-askubuntu.

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