Ubuntu – Screen tearing in Ubuntu with Nvidia/Intel graphics

nvidiascreentearing

I really hope someone here can help, because I'm very close to giving up and moving back to Windows. I have an MSI GT70 Dominator with an i7-4710MQ 2.5 GHz, Intel HD 4000 (I'm pretty sure) integrated graphics card, and a GeForce GTX 970M/PCle/SSE2 dedicated graphics card. I started with a stock install of Ubuntu 14.04.3, and there is terrible screen tearing in every program I've tried, from Chrome to Minecraft to L4D2. I'm using the proprietary Nvidia drivers (version 346.82 from nvidia-346) because I've heard they get the best performance. By screen tearing, I mean that it's as though vsync is off- when something is moving, you can see horizontal lines where the frames are off.

I've tried going to Nvidia X Server Settings to turn on "Sync to VBlank", but the problem persists.

I tried installing Bumblebee as well, but when using the optirun command to open a browser and going to a Youtube video, the screen tearing is still there.

I've also tried going to usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d and editing the 5-xserver-command.conf to have the -bs option.

After some advice from reddit, I upgraded to 15.04, but that didn't work.

I tried setting my Nvidia power settings to high, no luck.

I've tried Compton and Compiz, neither did squat.

In nvidia-settings, the X Server Display Configuration, there is no screen displayed in "Layout", X Screen 0 is the only thing selectable in "Model", and whenever I try to Save to X Configuration File, it says "Failed to generate X config file!"

I've tried this link, nada.

I've rebooted after every attempted fix. I really want to use Ubuntu, but if this screen tearing persists, I might just have to go back to Windows, it's horribly distracting. Please, please, please help me. Any help anyone can give will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Best Answer

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf containing

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "TearFree"    "true"
EndSection

That should fix everything.

Source is https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics#Tear-free_video

Note: This only works if you're using bumblebee.

Note from comments: Since 10.10 the config file directory is now /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d

Starting from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS * you can use the following script to switch between NVIDIA and INTEL's graphics cards and besides it corrects the video/screen tearing on INTELs environment: https://github.com/bauca/graphics-switcher

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Ubuntu 15.04 unsolvable graphic tearing

I had similar a problem with a K2000M on my laptop and using Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.2.

Expecially using a second monitor, video tearing appeared on my primary display.

The solution was to use ForceFullCompositionPipeline together with TripleBuffer

First do sudo nvidia-xconfig if the X11 configuration file xorg.conf is absent, then

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and add the line Option "TripleBuffer" "On" under the Section "Screen":

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "TripleBuffer" "On"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "LVDS-0: 1920x1080_60 +0+840, DP-4: 1920x1080_60 +1920+0 {rotation=left}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

In order to be able to use ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On, one could modify the line Option "metamodes" in xorg.conf, but the problem was that when using a secondary monitor, the monitors.xml file (for the display manager) in ~/.config was overriding any modification issued by X11 reading xorg.conf at login (see here).

The solution for me was to run a script at login (using System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications) with the following command:

nvidia-settings --assign="CurrentMetaMode=LVDS-0: 1920x1080_60 +0+840 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }, DP-4: 1920x1080_60 +1920+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On, rotation=left }"

where LVDS-0 is my primary display and DP-4 my secondary display (use xrandr -q for the display names)

The last lines of /var/log/Xorg.0.log now shows:

...
[   136.640] (II) NVIDIA(0): Setting mode "LVDS-0:1920x1080_60+0+840{ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On},DP-4:1920x1080_60+1920+0{ForceFullCompositionPipeline=On,rotation=left}"
...

and the video tearing disappeared...

Hope this helps on Ubuntu

Ubuntu – Screen Tearing Nvidia/Intel

I have coded a script which switches between Intel and NVIDIA's video card. Besides switching between them it also FIXES video/screen tearing when using INTEL video card. NVIDIA video card still showing video/screen tearing problems to which I haven't found a solution so far.
Here's the script on GitHub

#!/bin/bash
# -------------------------------------------------------
# A shell script that fixes screen tearing on intel video cards and switches between nvidia and intel graphic cards
# Written by: Bruno Assis
# Created on: 25/03/2017
# -------------------------------------------------------

#asks for sudo if the user uid != 0 then calls the script again with the current user name
(( EUID != 0 )) && exec sudo -- "$0" "$@$USER"

#-----------------
#----Settings-----
#-----------------

PREVIOUS_USER=$1
SCRIPT_NAME="20-intel.conf"
CONF_BASE_PATH="/etc/X11/"
CONF_BASE_DIR="xorg.conf.d"
CONF_PATH="/etc/X11/$CONF_BASE_DIR/"
CONF_FILE_PATH="$CONF_PATH$SCRIPT_NAME"
CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD=""

#-----------------
#----Functions----
#-----------------

#creates the config file.
function CreateTearingFreeFile {
    echo 'Section "Device"' >> $1
    echo '   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"' >> $1
    echo '   Driver      "intel"' >> $1
    echo '   Option      "TearFree"    "true"' >> $1
    echo "EndSection" >> $1
}

#switches the environment to use nvidia graphics card
function SwitchToNvdia {
    echo -e "\n Switching to nvidia."
    rm $CONF_FILE_PATH
    prime-select nvidia
}

#switches the environment to use intel's graphics card
function SwitchToIntel {
    echo -e "\n Switching to Intel."
    cd $CONF_PATH
    CreateTearingFreeFile $SCRIPT_NAME
    prime-select intel
}

function LogoutFromCurrentSession {
    echo -e "\n You'll need to logout in order to changes take effect."
    echo -e "\n Do you wish to logout now? (y | n)" 
    read -n 1 option
    if [[ "$option" = "y" || "$option" = "Y" ]]; then
        #log out from the current session for the current user
        su -c "kill -9 -1" "$PREVIOUS_USER"
    fi
}

function SetupEnvironment {

    if [ ! -d "$CONF_BASE_PATH" ]; then 
        echo -e "\n error: could not find $CONF_BASE_PATH."
        exit 1
    else
        if [ ! -d "$CONF_PATH" ]; then 
            echo -e "\n could not find $CONF_BASE_DIR."
            echo -e "\n trying to create it."
            cd $CONF_BASE_PATH
            mkdir $CONF_BASE_DIR
            if [ ! -d "$CONF_PATH" ]; then
                echo -e "\n could not create $CONF_BASE_DIR folder."
                exit 1
            else
                echo -e "\n $CONF_BASE_DIR folder created successfully."
            fi
        fi
    fi
}

function CheckForCurrentVideoCardInUse {
    local _VIDEO_CARD=`glxinfo|egrep "OpenGL vendor|OpenGL renderer*"`
    if [[ $_VIDEO_CARD == *"NVIDIA"* && $_VIDEO_CARD == *"GeForce"* ]]; then
        CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD="NVIDIA"
    elif [[ $_VIDEO_CARD == *"Intel"* && $_VIDEO_CARD == *"Intel"* ]]; then
        CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD="INTEL"
    else
        ErrorHandler
    fi
}

function ErrorHandler {
        echo -e "\n Could not find your video card"
        echo -e "\n Please use glxinfo to check if the name is correct or if you are using NVIDIA's or Intel's card"
        exit 1
}

#------------------
#--Program Flow ---
#------------------

#Setups the environment if it hasn't already been set.

CheckForCurrentVideoCardInUse
SetupEnvironment

echo -e " current video card in use: $CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD"

#If the file exists then we should delete it and start nvidia

if [ $CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD == "INTEL" ]; then
    echo -e "\n Switch graphics card to NVIDIA? (y | n)"
    read -n 1 option
    if [[ "$option" == "y" || "$option" == "Y" ]]; then
        SwitchToNvdia
        LogoutFromCurrentSession
    fi
elif [ $CURRENT_VIDEO_CARD == "NVIDIA" ]; then
    echo -e "\n Switch graphics card to INTEL? (y | n)"
    read -n 1 option
    if [[ "$option" == "y" || "$option" == "Y" ]]; then
        SwitchToIntel
        LogoutFromCurrentSession
    fi
else
    ErrorHandler
fi

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Ubuntu 15.04 unsolvable graphic tearing

Ubuntu – Screen Tearing Nvidia/Intel

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