Hi all! Please help Linux newbie… I have a problem (very) similar to one described in this thread. Basically, flash videos are played with no sound problems, but video gets periodically garbled where pixelation, artifacts and vertical stripes build up, then picture gets almost clear (normal) and immediately a new cycle of artifacts build-up starts (cycle lasts some 3-5 seconds). I disabled hardware acceleration in flash and Firefox as suggested on web, but no luck. Also, I tried to follow solution that was suggested in post mentioned on top, but since I have an Ati card (and could not relate file */etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf *mentioned in solution to anything other than /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-device.confon my system, which is empty), I am not sure how to proceed and which file to edit.
I’m running openSUSE 13.1_x64 GNOME, with open source Radeon driver on Asus A52Jr laptop (Intel i5 450M CPU, Ati Mobility Radeon 5470 dedicated GPU with 1GB of VRAM and 6GB of RAM). Also, to make things more complicated, I tried running flash video (youtube) on fresh Mint 16 installation, again same result.
Any help or hint is greatly appreciated.
Have you tried the proprietary ATI driver?
Hi gogalthorp! Thank you for your reply.
I did try proprietary driver, but I am not sure of the results. There is a problem with Ati proprietary drivers versions higher than 13.04 and my laptop. Driver basically works but not the backlight, so the screen is completely black and I am not able to login and use the laptop. It is same situation on Windows.
I can try a quick install of openSUSE 12.3 with Ati 13.04 drivers if you think it might help.
Regards!
I just tried youtube on openSUSE 12.3_x64 with Ati 13.04 proprietary driver. Same problem as described in first post. 
On 2013-12-15 12:06, gkurel wrote:
>
> I just tried youtube on openSUSE 12.3_x64 with Ati 13.04 proprietary
> driver. Same problem as described in first post.
I avoid AMD/Ati drivers, so I’m not conversant with their drivers. But I
do know that some cards are simply too old and do not get up to date
proprietary drivers. The cards fail to work correctly with the open
source drivers, they fail to work with the old proprietary drivers
because current X is not compatible, and do not have modern proprietary
drivers. A very unfortunate situation.
I do not have a list of such cards, sorry.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Hi Robin. Thank you for your insight, but I don’t think that problem lies in video driver in general because I tried openSUSE 13.1_x64 on old Radeon HD 3200 and it works flawlessly. Even my old Atom desktop board with Intel GMA 3150 works fine. Could it be some specific setting in driver or some internal in flash itself? Everything else works without a problem, videos in VLC work great, and when I remove flash plugin, HTML 5 youtube video works with no artifacts or glitches (however, not all videos are playable without flash plugin - some explicitly require flash plugin). I am totally puzzled with this problem…
On 2013-12-15 16:36, gkurel wrote:
>
> Hi Robin. Thank you for your insight, but I don’t think that problem
> lies in video driver in general because I tried openSUSE 13.1_x64 on old
> Radeon HD 3200 and it works flawlessly.
Well, it is not the same hardware, you can not compare both. Your other
machine has «Ati Mobility Radeon 5470 dedicated GPU»
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Yes Robin, you are right. Obviously there is something wrong with my setup, otherwise I would not have this problem :). I was referring to part that Radeon HD 5470 video card is too old. Radeon HD 3200 is older than 5470 but it works OK. Having this in mind, 5470 should be better supported, but it seems this is not the case. I just hope that something is wrong with configuration on application level, rather than hardware or driver level.
I downloaded a few versions of same video from youtube, but with different video encoding and tried to play it in VLC. I get the same problem when playing H264 (H264-MPEG-4 AVC part 10, to be exact) version, while other versions (3gp, Vorbis, …) are played without problem. I’ll keep on digging…
On 2013-12-15 22:46, gkurel wrote:
> Yes Robin, you are right. Obviously there is something wrong with my
> setup, otherwise I would not have this problem :). I was referring to
> part that Radeon HD 5470 video card is too old. Radeon HD 3200 is older
> than 5470 but it works OK. Having this in mind, 5470 should be better
> supported, but it seems this is not the case. I just hope that something
> is wrong with configuration on application level, rather than hardware
> or driver level.
Ah, I see.
Well, you will have to wait till the video experts here comment on this.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Strange as I myself have an older ati card (hd4200) and flash works fine here.
Perhaps google chrome can help, as flash for linux is dead and who knows when shumway on firefox will be complete
Thanks on your advice Madman!
I tried Chromium, with same results like in Firefox (lots of artifacts). I did not try Chrome though. I will give it a try as soon as I get home from work and post an update.
No luck with Google Chrome either… same problems.
Maybe try to disable hardware acceleration in flash? (right-click on a flash video and select “Settings”)
And the HD5470 is supported by the latest fglrx driver, so maybe it would be worth a try to install it?
Please note, that you need the latest Beta driver, the current stable 13.4 does not work on 13.1.
Just use the 1-click install on this page and you should get the correct one for your system:
SDB:AMD fglrx - openSUSE
Not sure about that backlight problem though.
On 2013-12-16 14:46, gkurel wrote:
>
> No luck with Google Chrome either… same problems.
It seems a video driver problem, then.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Hi Wolfi! Thank you for your help.
I did disabled acceleration in flash and in Firefox, but with no effect.
You are right, HD5470 is supported and I did try to use it (Ati 13.06 and 13.11 proprietary driver). However, as mentioned, backlight issue makes those driver versions unusable. It happens on Windows too and it is specific just to some laptop models (my A52Jr among them).
It seems a video driver problem, then.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
It is interesting that I have same problem on Mint 16_x64 (different distribution but also kernel ver. 3.11), and on openSUSE 12.3_x64 (kernel ver. 3.7). I guess they have different opensource Radeon driver version and I even tried openSUSE 12.3_x64 with Ati proprietary driver version 13.04. All had the same problem. Unfortunately, I can’t test new Ati 13.11 proprietary driver… I would suspect that it is something hardware related, but I don’t have any problems on Windows. It is very strange situation.
On 2013-12-16 16:36, gkurel wrote:
> It is interesting that I have same problem on Mint 16_x64 (different
> distribution but also kernel ver. 3.11), and on openSUSE 12.3_x64
> (kernel ver. 3.7). I guess they have different opensource Radeon driver
> version and I even tried openSUSE 12.3_x64 with Ati proprietary driver
> version 13.04. All had the same problem. Unfortunately, I can’t test new
> Ati 13.11 proprietary driver… I would suspect that it is something
> hardware related, but I don’t have any problems on Windows. It is very
> strange situation.
openSUSE:Submitting bug
reports
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
I made a bug report, but I will keep on looking for solution. Also, a detail that I just noticed, some random pictures (not all) have bright green dots (pixels) on them. I guess it might be related to problem with flash videos.
An interesting update: I got a hold of Pentium P6200 CPU and plugged it in instead of my i5 450M. Flash videos are playing without a single pixel problem and no more green pixels on photos. Could it be that my CPU is faulty? Or is it something specific to i5 CPU family that has problem with flash/H264 video? Pity I can’t get a hold of another i5 CPU to test…
On 2013-12-19 08:16, gkurel wrote:
>
> An interesting update: I got a hold of Pentium P6200 CPU and plugged it
> in instead of my i5 450M.
On the same motherboard?
> Flash videos are playing without a single
> pixel problem and no more green pixels on photos. Could it be that my
> CPU is faulty? Or is it something specific to i5 CPU family that has
> problem with flash/H264 video? Pity I can’t get a hold of another i5 CPU
> to test…
The i5 has graphics capabilities of its own. I don’t know when this is
used instead of an external graphics card.
I’m not sure about the P6200. :-?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Yes, motherboard is same, i just swapped the CPU.
Here is comparison of P6200 and i5-450M, and both have integrated graphic controler (however, i think that my MB does not use Intel graphic because it is not detected by OS). It does not sound logical but could SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 instructions that i5-450M have cause problems (or some other feature of this CPU)?