vertical refresh issue?

[s0nicp]

When i move windows around the desktop with or without compiz it appears that the vertical lines are taking longer to refresh/ there appears to be flickering. I have the latest ATI driver installed and my x.conf looks like. Could it be to do with the the vertical refresh rate? Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated

Section "Device"
Identifier "ATI Technologies Inc ATI Default Card"
Driver "fglrx"
Busid "PCI:5:0:0"
Option "VideoOverlay" "on"
Option "OpenGLOverlay" "off"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "SyncMaster"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "ATI Technologies Inc ATI Default Card"
Monitor "SyncMaster"
Defaultdepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Modes "1440x1440" "1440x900" "1280x1024" "1280x960" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

[MagnusB]

It doesn't list the Vertical refresh rate, try:

Code: Select all

cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep Vert

Or since you are using the proprietary ATi driver, maybe Catalyst handles this?
Anyway, the above code should return something like:

Vertrefresh 43.0 - 60.0

If it doesn't, then I'm not sure what to do, it's been ages since I last had a box with an ATi card...

[s0nicp]

i inputted the command cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf | grep Vert and it returned nothing. Is it possible to manually change the vsync refresh rate?

[MagnusB]

Have you checked Catalyst? I'm not sure how ATi configure X..

[s0nicp]

yep checked catalyst and checked that it was set to wait for vertical refresh was set to quality...
im kicking myself now that i went with an ati card!

[MagnusB]

I am not entirely sure what is wrong, as a practical experiment, have you tried reconfigurering X and using vesa? It might not be an optimal solution, though, as vesa has NO 3D support.
And to be honest, nVidia cards aren't that much better in Linux either, I still prefer Intel chipsets...

[s0nicp]

is there anything else that i could do? is it worth speaking to ATI as well?

[Fred]

s0nicp,

You can try setting the refresh rates manually in the xorg.conf file. Look at the exert from a xorg.conf file below.

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "A70f+"
HorizSync 30 Hz-72 Hz
VertRefresh 50 Hz-150 Hz

Notice that I put a couple ranges in instead of specific values. Do Not specify values that are out of your monitors capability. Doing so will most likely damage your monitor.

You may need to make similar entries in the screen section also. In fact, if it were me I would put a range in the monitor section and experiment with a specific value setting of the VertRefresh in the screen section.

Fred

[s0nicp]

thanks for the suggestion Fred it is appreciated. i will try as soon as i get home and see where i get too from there

[MagnusB]

If you are going to edit xorg.conf, remember to backup the "working" one first:

Code: Select all

sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.confBAK

That way you you can easily restore the previous version (just "reverse" the code above)
Also, be very careful by changing the refresh rates, if you go out of range you could fry your panel.

[s0nicp]

it might seem like a dumb question.. i apologise. how do i get local permission to change this file

[MagnusB]

Code: Select all

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[s0nicp]

i edited the x.conf file and made the necessary changes and when i restarted it failed to pick up the gfx card and ran in safe mode. Any ideas?

[MagnusB]

Did you backup? If you didn't, use nano to remove the changes you did:

Code: Select all

nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Use ctrl+x to quit, press y then enter to save the changes.

[s0nicp]

yep i backed it up. So it was a lucky escape. i booted into recovery restored and then rebooted and all ok.
Do you know of any sites/books where i could learn the bash command line?

[MagnusB]

My philosophy is learn while doing, but I heard the for dummies books are pretty good, not sure how good for bash commands though...

[Fred]

s0nicp,

Sorry that didn't work for you. But since it didn't, it pretty well ties the problem to the ati card/driver. I don't know that much about fancy graphics cards, but is there an earlier or later version driver you could try?

By-the-way MagnusB knows a lot more about fancy graphics than I do, so follow his advice and not mine.

Fred

[MagnusB]

How did you install the ATI driver? Envy? Have you tried removing that, and using the restricted driver manager instead?

[s0nicp]

i installed the ati driver using latest envy. i opened restricted driver manager and it said that no components needed restricted drivers.