Tearing with Nvidia Geforce GTX 950m

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello everyone,

after having problems with my Intel HD 520 Graphics with more than one display (Performance with 2+ monitors is low), I decided to switch to my Nvidia Graphics permanently.

But now, I’ve got the following problem: When I’m watching videos or something else, it appears that the video is tearing.

What I’ve already tried to solve this problem is changing the window manager in Mate Tweak which solved this problem with my Intel HD Graphics, but that didn’t really work with my Nvidia Graphics.

I hope here’s anyone who has experience with Ubuntu Mate and who has an idea how to solve this…
Because I’m still a ‘noob’ to Ubuntu Mate and don’t know the tricks with Ubuntu Mate…

Thank you,

Leon

#2
  • run nvidia-settings -L | grep DPY to find the connected display
    the output looks like this:
    Assign ‘RedBrightness’ on DPY-1 (DVI-D-0)
    …
    Assign ‘SynchronousPaletteUpdates’ on DPY-1 (DVI-D-0)

The part in brackets is what we need. In my case the first digital DVI connection (DVI-D-0) is where the screen is connected.

  • create a new file (let’s call it tearingfix.sh) containing the following command:
    nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DVI-D-0: 1920x1200 { ForceCompositionPipeline = On }"
    Replace DVI-D-0 with whatever you got from the previous step, and 1920x1200 with your screen resolution.

  • make that file executable:
    chmod +x tearingfix.sh

  • now run it
    ./tearingfix.sh

Try watching a video - if the problem has been solved, you can run MATE Control Center, select “Startup Applications” and create a new autostart entry for the tearingfix.sh script.
If you saved it in your home directory, set the command to /home/YOUR_USERNAME/tearingfix.sh .

#3

I don’t have a nVidia card but from what I’ve heard, you need to have a xorg.conf (you can generate one with sudo nvidia-xconfig) and add the following in the section “Screen”:

Option "TripleBuffer" "true"

I’ve also seen a video shared on Reddit that deals with options and advice about vsync and it talks about a different option in the xorg.conf for nVidia cards. See there, at 5:11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3esPpe-fclI

EDIT: I guess it does pretty much the same as @maximuscore commands but the xorg.conf is probably more robust and you don’t have to start a script with each session.

#4

I give it up. I don’t get Ubuntu running smoothly on my laptop. I only need
an OS that runs, but with Ubuntu, there are so many bugs I have to fight
with.

This was a test if I could use Ubuntu instead of Windows on this laptop. It
failed. The last tip by terzag even ruined Ubuntu, setting it’s resolution
to 640x320 px.

I used Linux Mint on my old laptop quite a long time and I was very happy
with it, but I think Ubuntu is still not 100% compatible to the latest
hardware on the market.

Thank you for trying to help me, but for the next few months I won’t use
Ubuntu Mate.

#5

It should not be very hard to fix. First thing to check would be that the correct screen resolution is defined in the xorg.conf.