Comment 0 for bug 1673194

Revision history for this message
Removed by request (removed3338318) wrote :

This affects all versions and derivatives of Ubuntu on any Optimus laptop (to the best of my knowledge).

After enabling restricted/closed NVidia driver on an Optimus laptop (Intel and NVidia chips), there are terrible screen tearing issues because Prime Synchronization is not being used. An easy way to test is to enable the restricted/closed NVidia driver on an Optimus laptop and view this YouTube video in full screen: screen tearing test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xkNy9gfKOg.

Prime Synchronization has been since NVidia 370.23 (https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957814/linux/prime-and-prime-synchronization/). It, unfortunately, requires some manual setup. Since Ubuntu is famous for its automagic, and the restricted/closed driver tool does automation anyways, it would be nice for this to be enabled/setup automatically when a user enables the NVidia driver. The consequences of not doing this are horrendous because it makes Ubuntu (and Linux in general) look bad visually when compared to Windows.

I have been able to get Prime Synchronization setup and working using drivers downloaded from www.nvidia.com and manually changing xorg.conf and Grub. I haven't been able to get this working on Ubuntu (not sure why) but I can get it working on Fedora (blasphemy!).

I've attached some files for research purposes. I'll try making a legit patch if I have time and can figure it out.