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Table of Contents
Ubuntu - GPU - AMD GPU - Troubleshooting - Screen Tearing
Screen tearing is an effect seen in moving pictures where the display suffers from distortion due to incorrect rendering of fast-changing images
- Screen tearing occurs when the monitor’s refresh rate and GPU’s frame rate are not synchronized.
- It is characterized as a horizontal split at one or more places in the image.
Screen tearing can be fixed by enabling VSync, Adaptive VSync, Enhanced Sync, Fast Sync, FreeSync, G-SYNC or Variable Refresh Rate, depending on what the PC system and monitor support.
GPU Config File Update
In /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory, edit (or create) a file called 20-radeon.conf (look for amdgpu.conf for users with the amdgpu drivers) with the following contents:
- /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf
Section "Device" Identifier "Radeon" Driver "radeon" Option "TearFree" "on" EndSection
NOTE: The key here is the TearFree option.
- This configuration is effective for many different systems
- It mmay work with Xorg-server or Wayland.
Restart the X server
restart gdm
NOTE: Be sure to save any work and close applications first, as this will log out any users utilizing the graphical front-end.
Alternative configuration utilizing DRI
A modified version of the configuration may also improve performance, by utilizing DRI (direct rendering infrastructure) 3.
- This has certain improvements for the way the X server handles rendering.
- Also enabling Glamor (if not enabled already by default) can improve 2D rendering tasks, performing them through Mesa’s OpenGL libraries.
- Older AMD cards will not support Glamor.
- The enhanced configuration is as follows:
- /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf
Section "Device" Identifier "Radeon" Driver "radeon" Option "TearFree" "on" Option "DRI" "3" Option "AccelMethod" "glamor" EndSection