NVIDIA, VDPAU, tearing and an XBMC solution?

[m042]

I use vdpau with Smplayer and XBMC with full Compoiz on my laptop. There used to be a bit of tearing with Smplaye, but I opened Compiz Settings Manager (You need to install it from the repo) , went to General Options > General and checked the box "Undirected Fullscreen Window" and the problem disappeared and video playback is really smooth.

As an aside, I notice that XBMC is actually not very good without vdpau. On my other machines (without Nvidia card) it performs very poorly comparing to both VLC and SMplayer. It struggles to play clips that the other players playback with ease and sometimes audio and video don't sync. But then it may be just my hardware.

BTW, I install Smplayer and mplayer from this ppa
https://launchpad.net/~ripps818/+archive/coreavc

It is a multithreaded version of mplayer, works great with vdpau and also great without vdpau. I didn't bother with coreavc, don't have to install dshowserver if you don't want or need coreavc.

I checked "Unredirect Fullscreen Window" as suggested here and my video tearing problems were gone! I wish I'd done this sooner. Using mplayer, no gui. Thanks!

[gobbledigook]

The best thing about this, it ONLY works if you have;

System -> Preferences -> Appereances -> Visual Effects

Select ANY setting except none.

This overwrites whatever you have set in NVIDIA X Server Settings.

just upgraded to natty... didn't like the default desktop so switched to classic (no effects) this post explains why i now have tearing i have now selected just classic....

thanx!

[Dugger5688]

If you're using nvidia's twinview option you might need a little more love to get compiz to understand which display to sync to vblank.

Setting these OpenGL environment variables in my .xsession and .gnomerc to be executed before compiz started showed a massive improvement for me.

export __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1
export __GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE=DFP-0

(where DFP-0 is the name of the display device to sync)

You are my hero! This needs to be stickied. I'm so sick of my vsync being set to my crappy acer 19" while my nice monitor tears all over the place.

[allwise]

Go to;

System -> Preferences -> CompizConfig Settings Manager -> General Options -> Display Settings

Texture Filter - Fast
Lighting - Checked
Detect Refresh Rate - Unchecked
Refresh Rate - SEE BELOW
Detect Outputs - UnChecked
Overlapping Output Handling - Smart
Outputs - SEE BELOW
Sync to VBlank - Checked

Your Refresh Rate and Outputs HAS TO be the same freq as your monitor.

E.g, I am 60hz and 1280x800 thus;

Refresh Rate - 60
Outputs - 1280x800+0+0

The best thing about this, it ONLY works if you have;

System -> Preferences -> Appereances -> Visual Effects

Select ANY setting except none.

This overwrites whatever you have set in NVIDIA X Server Settings.

I use this on my laptop with an NVidia 8400GS card and on a Revo 3700 (with NVIDIA ION) through SMPlayer and XBMC.

You can have choppy free and 'break line' free playback AND visual effects on!

This or changing to Ubuntu Classic stopped the tearing in XBMC for xvid videos. mkv-files worked pretty good all the time, might have improved a bit now...

I'm on a Asus AT330ION-Deluxe, passive cooling and ssd-drive.

[chessplayer]

I checked "Unredirect Fullscreen Window" as suggested here and my video tearing problems were gone! I wish I'd done this sooner. Using mplayer, no gui. Thanks!

Just wanted to let you know that in Natty the option has been moved from the "General" settings to the "Composite" settings in CompizConfig Settings Manager (CCSM). This notwithstanding, it still works! XBMC + tvheadend now give a perfect viewing experience!

So, all in all, just one little checkbox does the trick! Thumbs up!!

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

Slightly off topic but on Xubuntu 11.04 (with compositing enabled) I have a launcher in the "dock" that turns compositing on and off, making it easy to go tear free when needed. (There is a bug in Xubuntu that makes the dock disappear without compositing, so I need to run it most of the time) If I could be arsed I could write scripts and make launching the playing app (normally mplayer) turn off compositing before play and back on when finished, but my little launcher works just fine.

The code for doing it (in xubuntu) is:
OFF!

xfconf-query --channel=xfwm4 --property=/general/use_compositing --set=false

ON!

xfconf-query --channel=xfwm4 --property=/general/use_compositing --set=true

[Danstroem]

There used to be a bit of tearing with Smplaye, but I opened Compiz Settings Manager (You need to install it from the repo) , went to General Options > General and checked the box "Undirected Fullscreen Window" and the problem disappeared and video playback is really smooth.

Thanks man, you saved my day In combination with vSync enabled in Nvidia settings and in Compiz it's perfect! NVidia Corporation GT218 [NVS 2100M] (rev a2) with nvidia-current 280.13-0ubuntu1 on Maverick (Ubuntu x-swat ppa).

[linux-warrior]

Just wanted to let you know that in Natty the option has been moved from the "General" settings to the "Composite" settings in CompizConfig Settings Manager (CCSM). This notwithstanding, it still works! XBMC + tvheadend now give a perfect viewing experience!

So, all in all, just one little checkbox does the trick! Thumbs up!!

Just wanted to thank you! and confirm it works in Oniric too. I am on a Zotac zbox with Ion2. Tested with XBMC Eden Beta from the unstable ppa's

[ewangr]

Am hoping there might be some way to make these suggestions work on a non-XBMC solution that is attached to an LCD 42" screen?

I'm running 64-bit 12.04, and while I have installed VDPAU (at least the libraries that appear to be the right ones), am using the recommended nvidia driver (which doesn't seem quite as new as the other one in the restricted drivers dialog), and have installed the Compiz configuration tool as well as the latest VLC. With all that, I can't see where I can tell VLC to use VDPAU, the options in the Compiz tool don't seem to match what is described here, and it isn't clear which of the nvidia options I should be selecting.

System is an Atom 2 (i.e. a 64-bit dual-core Atom) with an ION-2 GPU and 3 gigs of RAM.

Suggestions?

[jwcalla]

Am hoping there might be some way to make these suggestions work on a non-XBMC solution that is attached to an LCD 42" screen?

I'm running 64-bit 12.04, and while I have installed VDPAU (at least the libraries that appear to be the right ones), am using the recommended nvidia driver (which doesn't seem quite as new as the other one in the restricted drivers dialog), and have installed the Compiz configuration tool as well as the latest VLC. With all that, I can't see where I can tell VLC to use VDPAU, the options in the Compiz tool don't seem to match what is described here, and it isn't clear which of the nvidia options I should be selecting.

System is an Atom 2 (i.e. a 64-bit dual-core Atom) with an ION-2 GPU and 3 gigs of RAM.

Suggestions?

I'm not sure if VLC has good VDPAU support, but there should be an option somewhere to enable GPU-accelerated decoding.

http://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_GPU_Decoding