Intel HD Graphics screen tearing only in full screen

English Hardware
1

I’ve just installed oS 12.1 KDE on my Dell Inspiron N5010 and have an issue with the screen tearing and low framerates when viewing streams at full screen. I orignially noticed this in VMWare Player with XP and netflix. In full screen mode the graphics would tear and become choppy. When I pause the stream and turn off full screen it plays just fine. I thought it was a glitch in the VM, so I tested it in Firefox with youtube videos. They play fine until I switch them to full screen, then they tear and become choppy. I then thought it maybe be the new Firefox 11, so I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox 10 and that didn’t help. I tried with Opera also but that didn’t help either. I’ve ran Yast to make sure I was up to date and not missing something that could correct this, but still can’t seem to fix it.

Any help with this problem would be appreciated. :slight_smile:

2

Can you give us some more information ? What is the output of typing in a terminal:


 /sbin/lspci -nnk | grep vga -iA2

…
also could you humour me, and reboot, and when the grub boot menu appears, for that boot remove the “vga=0xnnn” (where ‘nnn’ is some number). On my PC is is vga=0x314. Try booting without that and check the video full screen mode. Does that help ?

3

I wanted to add, here is a thread you could look at: http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/467622-full-screen-flash-extremely-slow-intel-i-fixed-sheer-luck.html

4

Not sure I know how to remove the boot entry but i’ll look. Here’s my info you asked for

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:0046] (rev 18)
        Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0447]
        Kernel driver in use: i915
5

I removed the vga entry at boot, it helped but there is still some tearing. Not nearly as bad as it was I can actually watch the videos now, and I regained control in full screen so I can exit it by hitting escape and control volume etc.

I check that other link and see if it helps.

6

I note 8086:0046 which suggests that it is an Intel Arrandale Integrated Graphics Controller. When looking up the 8086:0046 I noted in the Thinkwiki that some Lenovo/Thinkpads have this hardware. In the Thinkwiki they suggest one could also explore/test a few boot options to see if they help (they may make worse or make better) , but those tend to be more for power management:


i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.semaphores=1 pcie_aspm=force

You may have better luck trying some of the items recommended in this thread (that I pointed out previous) : http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/multimedia/467622-full-screen-flash-extremely-slow-intel-i-fixed-sheer-luck.html , such as placing the following two lines in /etc/environment


CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-clipped-redraws:disable-culling
CLUTTER_VBLANK=True

but no guarantees, and if it shows no improvement you should IMHO remove that entry.

7

I just add these clutter_paint and other code at the end of the /etc/environment file? Removing the vga option from boot has shown the best improvement over the rest of these options. I’ll try the i915 boot options, i just type that in terminal?

8

Not sure how to edit the environment file, i kept getting errors it wouldn’t save. I did find that removing the vga=_____ from my boot options works well. I was able to watch youtube videos with no tearing at all. Netflix in the VM worked well, full screen was slightly pixelated but there was no tearing or skipping.

How do i permanently remove the vga option?

9

The /etc/environment file is likely a system file. Hence you need root permissions.

If using kde, open a text editor with:


kdesu kwrite

navigate to the file and edit it.

If using gnome, open a text editor with:


gnomesu gedit

navigate to the file and edit it.

wrt to the i915 boot options, they go in the same place as the vga=…

ie they are boot options, and as soon as the grub boot screen appears (thats the screen where you choose windows, or openSUSE, or openSUSE fail safe, ) and start typing. You will see what you type appear in the options line.

To permanently remove the vga option, you need to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

Be very very very VERY careful when editing that file. If you make the slightest mistake, your PC won’t boot.

10

Thanks for the help, I’ll try this tonight when I get home from work.