Tearing in Chrome/Chromium fullscreen video playback

[Jarno Suni]

Example video: https://youtu.be/ZCPkOpMHB7g (HTML5 player)

lspci -vvv|grep -A 12 "VGA compatible"
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82Q963/Q965 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
 Subsystem: Dell Device 01da
 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 0
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 43
 Region 0: Memory at fea00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
 Region 2: Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 Region 4: I/O ports at ecb8 [size=8]
 Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
 Capabilities: <access denied>
 Kernel driver in use: i915

After I added this in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf, tearing disappeared in Firefox, but not in Chromium:

Section "Device"
   Identifier "Intel Graphics"
   Driver "intel"
   Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: chromium-browser 45.0.2454.101-0ubuntu0.14.04.1.1099
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-66.108-lowlatency 3.13.11-ckt27
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-66-lowlatency x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.15
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Thu Oct 22 21:23:32 2015
Desktop-Session:
 'xfce'
 '/etc/xdg/xdg-xfce:/usr/share/upstart/xdg:/etc/xdg:/etc/xdg'
 '/usr/share/xfce:/usr/share/xfce4:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/:/usr/share'
DetectedPlugins:

EcryptfsInUse: Yes
Env:
 'None'
 'None'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-09-21 (396 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Studio 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.1)
Load-Avg-1min: 1.55
Load-Processes-Running-Percent: 0.2%
MachineType: Dell Inc. OptiPlex 745
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.13.0-66-lowlatency root=UUID=d012c1bd-7e56-4035-b321-38d20cb14421 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/26/2011
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 2.6.6
dmi.board.name: 0RF703
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 6
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr2.6.6:bd06/26/2011:svnDellInc.:pnOptiPlex745:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0RF703:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct6:cvr:
dmi.product.name: OptiPlex 745
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
gconf-keys: /desktop/gnome/applications/browser/exec = b'firefox\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/command = b'sensible-browser %s\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/https/enabled = b'true\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/command = b'sensible-browser %s\n'/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/http/enabled = b'true\n'/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager = b''/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager = b''/desktop/gnome/interface/icon_theme = b'elementary-xfce-dark\n'/desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme = b'Greybird\n'
modified.conffile..etc.default.chromium.browser: [deleted]
mtime.conffile..etc.chromium.browser.default: 2014-09-28T10:04:54.426898

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Two issues here:

1. The intel kernel driver does/did on rare occasions lose vsync. That's a kernel issue which will go away on reboot. But also probably not the main problem.

2. Fullscreen windows in Unity7/Compiz get "unredirected" for performance so they are not composited by Compiz any more. This means they will tear unless "unredirection" is explicitly disabled for them:

    $ sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
    $ ccsm
   General > Composite > General >

Now either add a match for Chromium into "Unredirect Match" (if you can figure out how), or to simply disable the feature for all apps untick "Unredirect Fullscreen Windows". Tearing eliminated.

Also check the default settings for avoiding tearing are in place in CCSM:
   General > OpenGL > General > Always use buffer swapping = ON (means it won't tear)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jarno Suni (jarnos)]

Daniel van Vugt, please cancel your changes and make another bug report about your problem. I am not using Compiz. I am using Xfce. Tearing happens also when playing smaller than full screen video. Besides, I am not using hardware acceleration in Chromium's setting, because of Bug #1409332. However, I noticed, that tearing diminished, if I enabled xfwm4's display compositor in Window Manager Tweaks.

[Jarno Suni (jarnos)]

To be more specific, enabling the xfwm4's compositor helps, if the "TearFree" option is applied under Xorg's configuration.