compiz dropshadows around menu over video surfaces show up as solid black instead of gradiently more translucent

[Stefan K.]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-ati

Hi, I've got an ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 and I am using Compiz (on Ubuntu Jaunty). Everytime I open a menu in the video player, the gradients below the menu will leave a black black bar beside them. Since I can't make screenshots (the video frame won't come up in it) of this, the attached screenshot is manipulated. I saw it working as expected today, after a Mesa update (today being May 14) was installed, however in the next session, everything was back to the broken.

[lspci]
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller [8086:3340] (rev 21)
     Subsystem: Wistron Corp. Device [17c0:4010]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10] [1002:4e50]
     Subsystem: Wistron Corp. Device [17c0:2061]

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

@Aaron Strontsman. Can you please run this command:
apport-collect 376625
(it will attach more data about your graphics card and exact versions of the installed software etc)

[Stefan K. (astron)]

Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.1-0ubuntu2
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersion: Linux version 2.6.28-11-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.3.3 (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) ) #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686
UserGroups:

[Stefan K. (astron)]

Something that's weird which caught my eye when looking at Xorglog was that apparently my video card is configured as a "ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]", although I can back up with old press articles that it was sold as a notebook having a Mobility Radeon 9700 installed.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

See screenshot to understand the bug. The compiz dropshadows around dropdown menus gets rendered as solid black when they appear over video surfaces.

Happens with -ati but not on another version using -intel.
Is this the kind of stuff that fixes itself when we get DRI2 for radeon?

[agd5f (agd5f)]

Please attach the screenshot and your xorg log and config. If you are using the video overlay, switch to using the textured video adapter for Xv. Alpha blending with the overlay is not possible due to the way overlays work.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

btw, this is the upstream version of the follow Ubuntu bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/+bug/376625

The original downstream bug reporter experiences the bug with the default Ubuntu config (no changes in xorg.conf and no special versions). I can also repro the bug on the pre-release version of Ubuntu (both of us have r300 chipsets and we use the -radeon driver). To keep things simple I'd attach _my_ logs and versions only though.

Question; How can I switch between overlay video and textured video (I was using totem when I found the bug, but I can try other video players as well if that makes testing easier)?

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

Created an attachment (id=25939)
xorg.log

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600] [1002:4150]
Linux zueco 2.6.30-5-generic #6-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 11 19:56:30 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
libdrm2 2.4.9-2ubuntu1
xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.7.0-1ubuntu2
libgl1-mesa-dri 7.4.1-1ubuntu1
libgl1-mesa-glx 7.4.1-1ubuntu1
(==) RADEON(0): Using EXA acceleration architecture

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

Created an attachment (id=25940)
bug happens with empty xorg.conf

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

When I move my video player the actual playing "movie surface" stays put (but the clipping changes as I move the window). I guess that means I'm currently using overlay video?

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

DDX driver version is (sry for posting the -intel version above, I did it out of habit since my main machine uses -intel... there is no intel card in this machine though):

ii xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.2-1ubuntu1

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

If I launch gstreamer-properties and set the video output to "X Window System (No Xv)" then the bug goes away (I get a clean properly rendered dropshadow under the menus in totem) however the CPU load is very very high so it's not something we can use as a default solution for Ubuntu.

If I set the video output to "X Window System (X11/XShm,/Xv)" then I see the buggy solid dropshadow again and the normal setting in Ubuntu is "Autodetect" which I think means the latter since the default is buggy.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

I just noticed that textured vs. overlay can be configured in gstreamer-properties as well.

When I try textured video I get a perfect experience meaning "low CPU usage", "movie playing surface follows window smoothly when I move it" and "the menu dropshadow is rendered correctly".

Is there any drawbacks to using this "textured video" as the default for Ubuntu? Does it work for all radeons?

[agd5f (agd5f)]

(In reply to comment #8)
> I just noticed that textured vs. overlay can be configured in
> gstreamer-properties as well.
>
> When I try textured video I get a perfect experience meaning "low CPU usage",
> "movie playing surface follows window smoothly when I move it" and "the menu
> dropshadow is rendered correctly".
>
> Is there any drawbacks to using this "textured video" as the default for
> Ubuntu? Does it work for all radeons?
>

No drawbacks and it's supported on all radeons. In fact on r5xx and newer radeons, there is only textured video Xv. The overlay is still exposed on chips that support it (r1xx-r4xx) however since some users prefer it and the overlay filtering is probably better on chips that can't support bicubic filtering in shaders (r1xx/r2xx chips). Textured video also has the advantage of showing up on multiple heads while the overlay can only be sourced to one crtc at a time.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

I can repro consistently this on karmic (updated to may 17th) using a machine that has:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600] [1002:4150]

I believe it might be one of those bugs that goes away with DRI2? Not sure though...

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

upstreamed at https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21780

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.2-1ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 LANG=en_DK.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.30-5.6-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu20
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.4.1-1ubuntu1
 libdrm2 2.4.9-2ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.7.0-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.2-1ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 2.6.30-5-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip floppy fuse lpadmin plugdev video
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: i686kernel: 2.6.30-5-generic

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

@Aaron Strontsman, if you have a powerful enough CPU you can workaround this problem by launching gstreamer-properties and setting the video output to "X Window System (No Xv)". Of course, we'd like the default to "just work" and not tax the CPU that heavily.

[Martin Olsson (mnemo)]

@Aaron Strontsman, actually... after messing around a bit more with that dialog I noticed that you can get a lot better experience if you set it to XV and then enable textured video. With that config I get:

* reasonable CPU usage
* movie surface follows totem window when I move it
* dropshadow is properly rendered

I wonder why textured video is not set as the default for radeon on Ubuntu?

[Stefan K. (astron)]

@M. Olsson: Thanks for trying all these options!
With textured-video option: maybe I'm hallucinating (it's late), but I think I see more image tears and images quality appears to degrade a bit when watching video at non-native size. Maybe someone with finer eyes can look at it again..? Otherwise it works beautifully for me.
With No-Xv option: Yeah, it's a tad hefty on CPU.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

According to the discussion on the upstream bug report, it sounds like this is a configuration issue that textured video should be used by the video player, and not an X issue? If I'm wrong, and the issue can still be reproduced on Karmic, feel free to reopen the bug and explain in more detail what needs done.