Ubuntu 8.04 - video tearing/stuttering in fullscreen problems


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My laptop is a Toshiba A215-S4747 (Turion 64 X2). GPU is an ATI Radeon x1200 IGP.

8.04 fixed a few problems I had with 7.10 x64, like suspend actually works, Compiz worked from the get-go, but when in full screen, graphics tear, and video (like DVDs) shutter. I tried Envy, and played around with the vsync settings (on or off), but it's made no difference. I've looked around on the ubuntuforums, but haven't seen anything similar.

Is there something else I could add to xorg.conf that may fix this tearing problem?

Additionally, I can't get copy-protected DVDs to work, and those always worked fine in 7.10, with VLC, but not so here.

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What player are you using? If it is mplayer, which video output are you using?

VLC primarily, those videos have a stuttering problem in fullscreen, and games have a tearing issue in fullscreen - not sure if it's driver/Compiz/8.04 causing the problem. I will try shutting off Compiz completely, and see if that fixes it.

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As suggested, try using gl output. Not sure how you set it in VLC... but try playing your file from a terminal like this:

mplayer -vo gl video.mkv

That should stop the tearing issues if your VSync implementation is working. If that doesn't work then I would say the problem lies in the ATI drivers...

And hello fellow Arch user and Ale drinker, gav616!

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Are you using the fglrx (proprietary) driver for ATI? If yes, the corruption is expected. You will have two options here:

1) Switch the video output mode to X11 in VLC. Open VLC, go to Settings > Preferences. On the left pane, navigate to Video > Output Modules. Check the "Advanced Options" box at the bottom right corner of the Preferences window. Under "Video Output Module", select "X11 Video Output". Do not choose XVideo Extension Video Output - The problem will remain.

However, there are some drawbacks. In fullscreen mode, there will be no hardware scaling of videos - thus contributing to bad quality in the video output.

2) Disable compiz temporarily. If you disable Compiz, XVideo will work properly. This is quite annoying, but then it works, even for games. I have a shell script here that can disable Compiz temporarily. If you do know how to use shell scripts, use this by typing "./runeffects.sh <programname>". Hope that helps.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Shell script to run programs that have problems with Compiz Fusion.
# This script will temporarily disable Desktop Effects,
# and re-enable it after the program closes.
#

# Check for arguments
if [ -z $1 ]; then
    echo "No command-line specified."
    exit 1
fi

if [ -z $DISPLAY ]; then
    echo "Display not defined."
    exit 1
fi

# Disable CF.
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY metacity --replace &amp;

# This should be enough time
sleep 3

# Notify the user.
notify-send --expire-time=5000 --icon=gtk-info "Desktop Effects" \
"Desktop Effects has been disabled temporarily due to an incompatible \
application. This will be restored after the program is closed."

# Run the program
$1

# Re-enable CF
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY compiz --replace &amp;

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Are you using the fglrx (proprietary) driver for ATI? If yes, the corruption is expected. You will have two options here:

1) Switch the video output mode to X11 in VLC. Open VLC, go to Settings > Preferences. On the left pane, navigate to Video > Output Modules. Check the "Advanced Options" box at the bottom right corner of the Preferences window. Under "Video Output Module", select "X11 Video Output". Do not choose XVideo Extension Video Output - The problem will remain.

However, there are some drawbacks. In fullscreen mode, there will be no hardware scaling of videos - thus contributing to bad quality in the video output.

2) Disable compiz temporarily. If you disable Compiz, XVideo will work properly. This is quite annoying, but then it works, even for games. I have a shell script here that can disable Compiz temporarily. If you do know how to use shell scripts, use this by typing "./runeffects.sh <programname>". Hope that helps.

#!/bin/sh
#
# Shell script to run programs that have problems with Compiz Fusion.
# This script will temporarily disable Desktop Effects,
# and re-enable it after the program closes.
#

# Check for arguments
if [ -z $1 ]; then
    echo "No command-line specified."
    exit 1
fi

if [ -z $DISPLAY ]; then
    echo "Display not defined."
    exit 1
fi

# Disable CF.
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY metacity --replace &amp;

# This should be enough time
sleep 3

# Notify the user.
notify-send --expire-time=5000 --icon=gtk-info "Desktop Effects" \
"Desktop Effects has been disabled temporarily due to an incompatible \
application. This will be restored after the program is closed."

# Run the program
$1

# Re-enable CF
DISPLAY=$DISPLAY compiz --replace &amp;

Yeah, Compiz was the problem, (or ATI is) or a combination of the 2. Next time, I'm sticking with Nvidia. :(

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