Great work! UbuntuMate 19.10 is the best yet! But of course we still find things to improve:
There was a bit of hope that the Marco would not show screen tearing. Unfortunately it still does to some degree (tested with 4K monitor, Geforce 950, Openshot, Kdenlive, Gnome MPV, VLC, also two other computers). Are there more Marco updates coming in the near future or should I go back to compiz?
Good news for video editors: you can now install uptodate version of Kdenlive from SNAP and it works great on Mate, loads fast, reliable. Also, this kernel seems to help all kinds of video format converters to crunch the codec very fast.
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I would go with Compiz for the customization alone but that's just me. As for screen tearing, see if it's how your hardware is configured. I know on this laptop I am using to get rid of the tearing altogether I had to write a special file X picked up on next session for smooth, tear-free video since even when using Compiz the video tearing issue persisted.
The best part about 19.10 is now, (if starting fresh anyway) you don't have to completely remove Compiz 0.9 if you want to be on Scott Moreau's maintained legacy build known colloquially as Compiz Reloaded. I have a guide specifically about that.
Since it sounds to me like you don't care about Compiz's effects and just want the tearing fixed, I'd personally go with Compton rather than Compiz. It only takes about 5 minutes to set up, so you'll know very quickly whether it'll fix the problem for you or not. (Plus, I can't live without Edge Resistance, which has always been broken in Compiz - IDK if Reloaded has fixed that or not).
If you DO actually prefer Compiz though, go for it. I haven't seen any mention anywhere of further Marco work being planned: that certainly doesn't mean there isn't any, but my guess is it's "done" for now.
I haven't seen any mention anywhere of further Marco work being planned: that certainly doesn't mean there isn't any, but my guess is it's "done" for now.
My to-do list for marco is a mile long and constantly growing. Definitely not "done".
In terms of new features, there are a few planned, mostly a wish list from what I see people asking on this website. In terms of bug fixes, I have an absurdly large list of things that I want to address, including things that need to be ported from mutter and metacity.
The main blocker is time. I only work on this during spare time, along with other things in MATE and related libraries.
But anyway, just as a reassurance: marco is not done, there's plenty of work to do on it! 
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Sorry - I meant "wrt vsync", not "completely and forever"!
Thank you for your very informative posts. I went back to what I know has worked for many years: installed compiz - screen tearing is 99% gone. Just a few things I have noticed:
- the screen tearing problem seems (just based on my own experience) to be most prominent with UbuntuMate/MintMate setup. I have on a different SSD with a KDE Neon installation, no tearing, Debian 10 with Noveau driver, no tearing. Buntu/Mate is visibly faster than those two though.
- I have been on Compiz since it came out more than 10 years ago, but I can see why many want to stay away from it, it fires up all kinds of bell and whistles, confusing at first ...
Also, tested the combination of Noveau driver + Marco (Adaptive Compositor) and I guess this is what they are talking about in the 19.10 release notes. Absolutely no tearing, video, browser etc. Also, Gnome MPV works better now.
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