Screen Tearing, Nvidia 660M on Mint 13, Cinnamon

[Dakiraun]

Hello all. I've been though quite a few forums to try and find solutions to this issue, but it still seems to plague me. One common fix for many Nvidia cards is to use the Nvidia-settings manager to set the PowerMizer from the default "Adaptive" to "Prefer Maximum Performance". While that's worked on other systems, it does not work very well on my current laptop.

So, here are the hardware details:
Asus G55V
- i7 2630 quad core, 12G RAM
- Nvidia 660M 2G RAM
- Linux Mint 13 64 bit w/Cinnamon
- Current driver: 310.14 (via the X-edgers repo)

I use a custom xconf.org file to enable the triple buffering on the card, though that seems to also have no affect. So does anyone have any other ideas or solutions to fix up the tearing? Let me know if you require any other settings info.

[Dakiraun]

Updated drivers to 310.19, still have the tearing issue. Bellow is my xorg.conf, if that assists in troubleshooting:

Code: Select all

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier     "Monitor0"
   VendorName     "Unknown"
   ModelName      "LGD"
   HorizSync       44.4 - 66.6
   VertRefresh     39.9 - 59.9
   Option         "DPMS"
   # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier     "Screen0"
   Device         "Device0"
   Monitor        "Monitor0"
   DefaultDepth    24
   Option         "TwinView" "0"
   Option         "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" "DFP-0"
   Option         "metamodes" "1920x1080_60 +0+0"
   SubSection "Display"
      Depth       24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier     "Mouse0"
   Driver         "mouse"
   Option         "Protocol" "auto"
   Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
   Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
   Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier     "Keyboard0"
   Driver         "kbd"
   # generated from default
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "Layout0"
   Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
   InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
   InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
   Option         "Xinerama" "0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier     "Device0"
   Driver         "nvidia"
   Option       "TripleBuffer" "1"
   VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
   BoardName      "GeForce GTX 660M"
   Option   "NoLogo"   "True"
EndSection


[homerscousin]

Please allow me to add a bit to this thread because this a subject I have wanted to post on for a few weeks now. I run the Intel HD4000 onchip graphics. I have noticed when especially watching NFL football from my tv tuner card card that when the camera pans left or right I see a distorted horizontal band across the screen, maybe only 1/2 inch thick. This is what is called video tearing, right? The same as you (OP) are seeing? I also see it when watching a dvd video I recorded from years ago, or a streaming video. I guess this isn't limited to Nvidia or AMD or Intel. Maybe someone can point us in the right direction so we can get to the bottom of this annoiance.

[Dakiraun]

@Homerscousin - yes, that's video tearing. It's definitely not a problem limited solely to Nvidia cards, just happens to be worse with Nvidia cards than most in Linux. Then again though, even if I boot the system in Windows 7, I still get screen tearing on video. It's really leading me to believe that the drivers for the 660M are just garbage, regardless of OS.

Tearing with other adapters can sometimes be tuned via their driver problems. I'm not sure if Intel has a supplemental driver configuration program - if it does, check through the options and look for V-sync and double-check that the screen refresh rate is correct for your choice of monitor. Either being off can lead to tearing.