Video tearing with KMS (no video overlay available)

[salva]

[Problem]
Videos tear (show portions of two consecutive frames simultaneously) when KMS is used. In Karmic it did not do this because of video overlay, which is not yet available with KMS.

[Workarounds]
a) Turn off kernel modesetting by using the radeon.modeset=0 option on the kernel boot line.

or

b) Use xvattr to set XV_BICUBIC to 0. Note that some IGPs are not powerful enough to support bicubic filtering so turning it off may help.

[Original Report]
Reproducing video with totem or mplayer does not go smoothly, consecutive frames are mixed. It looks as if that double buffering was not being use or the buffer swapping was not synchronized with video vertical sync.

It happens both in full screen and in window mode.

I didn't have this problem with Ubuntu 9.10.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Jan 29 12:17:36 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
DkmsStatus:
 virtualbox-ose, 3.1.2, 2.6.32-12-generic, x86_64: installed
 virtualbox-ose, 3.1.2, 2.6.32-11-generic, x86_64: installed
 virtualbox-ose, 3.1.2, 2.6.32-10-generic, x86_64: installed
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20091209)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP dx5150 SFF
Package: xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:6.12.99+git20100126.e5933fd7-0ubuntu1
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-12-generic root=UUID=564eb7dd-0d11-4482-b882-f3794a37eb34 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-12.16-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.5+1ubuntu2
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.7-0ubuntu8
 libdrm2 2.4.17-0ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.1-1ubuntu3
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-ati
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-12-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 02/24/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix Technologies, LTD
dmi.bios.version: 1.13
dmi.board.name: 09AC
dmi.board.vendor: MSI
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CZC62933NH
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenixTechnologies,LTD:bvr1.13:bd02/24/2006:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPdx5150SFF:pvr:rvnMSI:rn09AC:rvr:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP dx5150 SFF
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
glxinfo: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: x86_64kernel: 2.6.32-12-generic

[lspci]
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 [Radeon Xpress 200G Series] [1002:5954]
     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device [103c:3009]

[salva (sfandino)]

Playing video with mplayer or totem does not run smoothly. Consecutive frames appear mixed. It looks as if double buffering was not being used or the redraw/buffer swapping was not synchronized with the monitor vertical sync.

If happens with any video I have tried both at full screen and in window mode.

Video reproduction used to work fine with Ubuntu 9.10 on the same computer.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

Thanks for reporting this bug to help making the -ati graphics driver
better. We hear from upstream that a number of bugs (possibly including
this one) have been fixed in the newer DRM code from the 2.6.33 kernel.
I don't know if your bug is one of the ones fixed in this release,
though, but we've prepared a PPA with this DRM update. Would you mind
installing this, rebooting, and testing if the original issue can be
reproduced with it or not?

The DRM PPA is here:

    https://edge.launchpad.net/~apw/+archive/red

Note there could be new bugs... please file these as new reports using
the command 'ubuntu-bug linux' (for kernel or DRM or KMS bugs) or
'ubuntu-bug xorg' if you suspect them to be X.org issues.

[salva (sfandino)]

I have tried with the new kernel from your PPA and the latest xserver packages and the issue remains.

[Vikram Dhillon (dhillon-v10)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 03/05/2010 05:58 PM, salva wrote:
>
> ** Attachment added: "xserver log"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/40284209/Xorg.0.log
>

Since salva has tried the ppa and no good results, changing this to
confirmed. Thanks.

 status confirmed.

- --
Regards,
Vikram Dhillon

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[Vikram Dhillon (dhillon-v10)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 03/05/2010 05:58 PM, salva wrote:
>
> ** Attachment added: "xserver log"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/40284209/Xorg.0.log
>

Since salva has tried the ppa with no good results, marking this one
confirmed. Thanks.

 status confirmed

- --
Regards,
Vikram Dhillon

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[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Can you test xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.191-1ubuntu1 from my PPA [1]?

[1] https://launchpad.net/~bdrung/+archive/ppa

[salva (sfandino)]

Installing that package did not solve the problem either.

(I have tested it with the currently most recent kernel available for Lucid, 2.6.32-16-generic, and with the one supplied by Bryce Harrington).

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

salva - I've forwarded this bug upstream to https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27192 - please subscribe yourself to this bug, in case they need further information or wish you to test something. Thanks ahead of time!

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

I cannot set XV_BICUBIC to 0, because its always switches back to 2. How can I set it properly?

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

Problem solved with: sudo xvattr -a XV_BICUBIC -v 0 -p 64

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

Setting XV_BICUBIC to 0 doesn't solve tearing for me.

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

Enabling compiz and ticking sync to vblank in compizconfig-settings-manager works.

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

I think this bug should be tracked in maverick because it will likely use 2.6.35 and a git snapshot of xserver-xorg-video-ati after may 7th where kms dri2 sync and swap will be available and tearing will gone. http://lists.x.org/archives/xorg-driver-ati/2010-May/015597.html

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

would this also be the reason for tearing in Flash as well? (BBC iplayer 720p HD streams - not too bad but noticable).

Dave

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Yes, Flash will probably tear too. I am using the free (open source) ati driver since Ubuntu 9.10 because of this bug.

[Lollerke (pumba88)]

Fixed in Maverick.

[Fausto Piovesan (faustop)]

This bug should be re-opened as it is NOT fixed in Maverick. I'm running Maverick on a system with a RS482 [Radeon Xpress 200M] and I still see tearing on the top left corner of my screen when playing full-screen videos.

Note: compiz is turned off as it is not supported on my hardware.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[penalvch (penalvch)]

As per https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=27192#c27 .