Hey Folks,
If you are getting screen tearing, even if you fixed it previously, before you do anything else issue the following terminal command to see what is going on with the graphics driver.
In my case, something has messed with the graphics driver in the last few months. It likely was an update. I spent a bunch of wasted time messing with the xorg.conf file until I did the prior command and saw that the Nvidia driver was listed as unloaded. So I downloaded and installed the latest stable Nvidia proprietary graphics driver.
Please make note that what user SimpleTechGuy mentioned applies, if you have more than one monitor, the command needs to be applied for each monitor. I have never done this before so I was likely getting tear free playback on my main computer monitor, and screen tearing on my HDTV when I watched videos on it. After much tinkering with the xorg.conf file, here is what worked for me:
Code: Select all
Option "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }, HDMI-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }; DVI-I-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 {viewportout=1920x1080+0+60, ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On}, HDMI-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On }; DVI-I-1: nvidia-auto-select +0+0 { ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On };"
I'm not sure how much of this is necessary. There maybe redundant entries here, as I'm not knowledgeable enough to know better than just through the trial and error testing I did. What I found is that the order is important. Entries are separated by a semi-colon, monitors by a comma. If I put the last entry first, then when I boot up LinuxMint with the HDTV connected, it would automatically have the HDTV disabled. Thusly the last entry which is only the main computer powered on is listed last. This corrects that issue. The first entry shows both the main computer monitor and the HDTV connected via HDMI powered on and connected at full native resolution. The main computer monitor native resolution is too large for the HDTV, so the main monitor has to be reduced to 1920x1080 for the HDTV to show the full screen. This is what the second entry is for. Notice that each entry for each monitor gets the "ForceFullCompositionPipeline = On" command issued to it. Otherwise there will be screen tearing in one or more scenarios.
You may have to play around some with your entries, but this should give you the general idea of what to do if you have more than one monitor.