Bug 27192

Created attachment 34231 [details]
Xorg.0.log

Created attachment 34232 [details]
dmesg

We've had him test 6.12.191 and the 2.6.32-16 kernel (which includes the 2.6.33 drm)

If he's using a compositing manager, he should either:

* Use fullscreen and make sure the compositing manager unredirects fullscreen windows.

or

* Make sure the compositing manager uses OpenGL.

Otherwise it's not really practical to avoid tearing with KMS.

Hi, I am the original reporter.

In Gnome I have "Special effects" set to "none", I guess that means I am not using a composite manager.

Changing that to "Normal" or "Extra" does not solve the problem, though the artifacts are different: instead of mixed frames, I get full frames but at a low rate or the timing is wrong (or both) and video does not play smoothly.

Is there anyway you can get a picture or a screenshot of the problem?

Created attachment 34248 [details]
simulation

An screenchot does not reproduce the problem I am seeing because it mixes a lot of video frames (and not just two) in the resulting image.

I have made up a picture showing the effect. The border between the frames is not static but changes randomly and is usually placed at the top, between the 10% and 30% of the screen.

BTW, playing the same films I have tried using another computer with an Intel card attached to the same monitor (same resolution) run smoothly.

(In reply to comment #7)
> Created an attachment (id=34248) [details]
> simulation
> 
> An screenchot does not reproduce the problem I am seeing because it mixes a lot
> of video frames (and not just two) in the resulting image.
> 
> I have made up a picture showing the effect. The border between the frames is
> not static but changes randomly and is usually placed at the top, between the
> 10% and 30% of the screen.

Looks like tearing.  Make sure the Xv attribute XV_VSYNC is set to 1 (check with xvinfo or xvattr) and your video app is using Xv.  You might also try disabling XV_BICUBIC (use xvattr).

When XV_BICUBIC is set to 0, video plays smoothly.

(In reply to comment #9)
> When XV_BICUBIC is set to 0, video plays smoothly.
> 

bicubic filtering may be a bit much for the IGP depending on the video.

Created attachment 34253 [details]
xvinfo for ubuntu 9.04

I was able to see video without any issue on the same machine before moving to Ubuntu Lucid.

Actually, I have just tried booting from an Ubuntu 9.04 CD and video plays fine there and xvinfo reports that bicubic interpolation is being used (xvinfo for Ubuntu 9.04 attached).

That should discard the non-powerful-enough-IGP hypothesis.

(In reply to comment #11)
> I was able to see video without any issue on the same machine before moving to
> Ubuntu Lucid.

That was probably using the video overlay, which isn't available with KMS.

> Actually, I have just tried booting from an Ubuntu 9.04 CD and video plays fine
> there and xvinfo reports that bicubic interpolation is being used (xvinfo for
> Ubuntu 9.04 attached).

Bicubic filtering is only supported by the textured video adaptor.

yes, under 9.04 the video player uses video overlay

Setting XV_BICUBIC to 0 doesn't solve tearing for me (UMS is the only solution). I have a Radeon Xpress 200M.

(In reply to comment #14)
> Setting XV_BICUBIC to 0 doesn't solve tearing for me (UMS is the only
> solution). I have a Radeon Xpress 200M.

You will still get Xv tearing if you are using a composite manager like compiz or metacity unless you configure the compositor to use gl vsync options.

What should I do exactly to get rid of tearing under KMS? I use GNOME and desktop effects are turned off.

So I have to enable compiz and tick sync to vblank? I can only check it out sunday.

It works.

(In reply to comment #17)
> So I have to enable compiz and tick sync to vblank? I can only check it out
> sunday.

Three hours later it doesn't work (the computer was in idle during this time). When I switch a movie into full screen it's starts to stutter.

(In reply to comment #18)
> It works.
> 
> (In reply to comment #17)
> > So I have to enable compiz and tick sync to vblank? I can only check it out
> > sunday.

If I use UMS I have system freezes randomly when playing videos in full screen ,so the only way it will be working is KMS + Overlay.

(In reply to comment #19)
> Three hours later it doesn't work (the computer was in idle during this time).
> When I switch a movie into full screen it's starts to stutter.
> 
> (In reply to comment #18)
> > It works.
> > 
> > (In reply to comment #17)
> > > So I have to enable compiz and tick sync to vblank? I can only check it out
> > > sunday.

Is there any other solution?

Is this still an issue with a newer driver?

(In reply to comment #22)
> Is this still an issue with a newer driver?

It's much better, but I still see tearing in the upper half of the screen. DVD videos are fine (I saw one tearing in 30 minutes). With 1800kbps h264 and 6000kbps h264 the video tears badly when there's a high speed camera move. Other than that the tearing is not noticable, so movies are watchable.

Ubuntu 10.10, linux-image-2.6.35-22.35 (2.6.35.4), xserver 1.9.0-0ubuntu7, xserver-xorg-video-ati 6.13.1-1ubuntu5

It's still an issue with 2.6.38-rc4, xserver 1.9 and xserver-xorg-video-ati 6.14.0.

xvinfo:

"X-Video Extension version 2.2
screen #0
  Adaptor #0: "Radeon Textured Video"
    number of ports: 16
    port base: 63
    operations supported: PutImage 
    supported visuals:
      depth 24, visualID 0x21
    number of attributes: 9
      "XV_BICUBIC" (range 0 to 2)
              client settable attribute
              client gettable attribute (current value is 0)
      "XV_VSYNC" (range 0 to 1)
              client settable attribute
              client gettable attribute (current value is 1)"

Xorg.0.log:

"[    16.486] (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "ATI Radeon XPRESS 200M 5A62 (PCIE)" (ChipID = 0x5a62)
[    16.487] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling: enabled
[    16.487] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Pageflipping: enabled
[    16.487] (II) RADEON(0): SwapBuffers wait for vsync: enabled"

dmesg:

"[    7.936293] [drm] radeon defaulting to kernel modesetting.
[    7.936299] [drm] radeon kernel modesetting enabled.
[    7.936458] radeon 0000:01:05.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[    7.939726] [drm] initializing kernel modesetting (RS400 0x1002:0x5A62).
[    7.939790] [drm] register mmio base: 0xC0000000
[    7.939793] [drm] register mmio size: 65536
[    7.940143] [drm] Generation 2 PCI interface, using max accessible memory
[    7.940154] radeon 0000:01:05.0: VRAM: 128M 0x0000000058000000 - 0x000000005FFFFFFF (128M used)
[    7.940159] radeon 0000:01:05.0: GTT: 512M 0x0000000060000000 - 0x000000007FFFFFFF
[    7.940177] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 1 (10.10.2010).
[    7.940180] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[    7.940255] [drm] radeon: irq initialized.
[    7.942623] [drm] Detected VRAM RAM=128M, BAR=256M
[    7.942629] [drm] RAM width 128bits DDR
[    7.942763] [TTM] Zone  kernel: Available graphics memory: 440494 kiB.
[    7.942766] [TTM] Zone highmem: Available graphics memory: 705970 kiB.
[    7.942769] [TTM] Initializing pool allocator.
[    7.942805] [drm] radeon: 128M of VRAM memory ready
[    7.942808] [drm] radeon: 512M of GTT memory ready.
[    7.942841] [drm] GART: num cpu pages 131072, num gpu pages 131072
[    7.969009] [drm] radeon: 1 quad pipes, 1 z pipes initialized."

I get perfect video playback only with UMS and Overlay Video Output.

No tearing with 2.6.38 final and VLC Player. Videos are still tearing with MPlayer so its not a vsync fault.

Salvador Fandiño García, Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop reached EOL on May 9, 2013. For more on this, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases .

If this is reproducible in a supported release, it will help immensely if you filed a new report with Ubuntu by ensuring you have the package xdiagnose installed, and that you click the Yes button for attaching additional debugging information running the following from a terminal:
ubuntu-bug xorg

Also, please feel free to subscribe me to it.

For more on why this is helpful, please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.