glx screen tearing

[Zerogaku]

Platform

Artix Linux

GPU, drivers, and screen setup

lspci:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] (rev a2)

glxinfo -B

name of display: :0 
libGL error: glx: failed to create dri3 screen 
libGL error: failed to load driver: nouveau 
display: :0  screen: 0 
direct rendering: Yes 
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer): 
    Vendor: Intel (0x8086) 
    Device: Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) (0x416) 
    Version: 23.1.7 
    Accelerated: yes 
    Video memory: 1536MB 
    Unified memory: yes 
    Preferred profile: core (0x1) 
    Max core profile version: 4.6 
    Max compat profile version: 4.6 
    Max GLES1 profile version: 1.1 
    Max GLES[23] profile version: 3.2 
OpenGL vendor string: Intel 
OpenGL renderer string: Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) 
OpenGL core profile version string: 4.6 (Core Profile) Mesa 23.1.7-arch1.1 
OpenGL core profile shading language version string: 4.60 
OpenGL core profile context flags: (none) 
OpenGL core profile profile mask: core profile 
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 23.1.7-arch1.1 
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60 
OpenGL context flags: (none) 
OpenGL profile mask: compatibility profile 
OpenGL ES profile version string: OpenGL ES 3.2 Mesa 23.1.7-arch1.1 
OpenGL ES profile shading language version string: OpenGL ES GLSL ES 3.20 

pacman -Q | grep ^xf86-video

xf86-video-intel 1:2.99.917+923+gb74b67f0-1

pacman -Q mesa

mesa 1:23.1.7-1

Environment

dwm

picom version

vgit-b700a

picom --diagnostics

**Version:** vgit-b700a 
### Extensions: 
* Shape: Yes 
* XRandR: Yes 
* Present: Present 
### Misc: 
* Use Overlay: Yes 
* Config file used: /home/will/.config/picom/picom.conf 
### Drivers (inaccurate): 
Intel 
### Backend: glx 
libGL error: glx: failed to create dri3 screen 
libGL error: failed to load driver: nouveau 
* Driver vendors: 
 * GLX: Mesa Project and SGI 
 * GL: Intel 
* GL renderer: Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) 
* Accelerated: 1 
### Backend: egl 
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen 
libEGL warning: failed to get driver name for fd -1 
libEGL warning: MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information 
libEGL warning: failed to get driver name for fd -1 
* Driver vendors: 
 * EGL: Mesa Project 
 * EGL driver: crocus 
 * GL: Intel 
* GL renderer: Mesa Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) 

Configuration:

config file

################################# 
#             Shadows           # 
################################# 
# Enabled client-side shadows on windows. Note desktop windows 
# (windows with '_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP') never get shadow, 
# unless explicitly requested using the wintypes option. 
# 
# shadow = false 
shadow = true; 
# The blur radius for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to 12) 
# shadow-radius = 12 
shadow-radius = 7; 
# The opacity of shadows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.75) 
# shadow-opacity = .75 
# The left offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15) 
# shadow-offset-x = -15 
shadow-offset-x = -7; 
# The top offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15) 
# shadow-offset-y = -15 
shadow-offset-y = -7; 
# Red color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0). 
# shadow-red = 0 
# Green color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0). 
# shadow-green = 0 
# Blue color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0). 
# shadow-blue = 0 
# Hex string color value of shadow (#000000 - #FFFFFF, defaults to #000000). This option will override options set shadow-(red/green/blue) 
# shadow-color = "#000000" 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow. 
# 
# examples: 
#   shadow-exclude = "n:e:Notification"; 
# 
# shadow-exclude = [] 
shadow-exclude = [ 
  "name = 'Notification'", 
  "class_g = 'Conky'", 
  "class_g ?= 'Notify-osd'", 
  "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'", 
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c" 
]; 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow painted over, such as a dock window. 
# clip-shadow-above = [] 
# Specify a X geometry that describes the region in which shadow should not 
# be painted in, such as a dock window region. Use 
#    shadow-exclude-reg = "x10+0+0" 
# for example, if the 10 pixels on the bottom of the screen should not have shadows painted on. 
# 
# shadow-exclude-reg = "" 
# Crop shadow of a window fully on a particular Xinerama screen to the screen. 
# xinerama-shadow-crop = false 
################################# 
#           Fading              # 
################################# 
# Fade windows in/out when opening/closing and when opacity changes, 
#  unless no-fading-openclose is used. 
# fading = false 
fading = true; 
# Opacity change between steps while fading in. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.028) 
# fade-in-step = 0.028 
fade-in-step = 0.03; 
# Opacity change between steps while fading out. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.03) 
# fade-out-step = 0.03 
fade-out-step = 0.03; 
# The time between steps in fade step, in milliseconds. (> 0, defaults to 10) 
# fade-delta = 10 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should not be faded. 
# fade-exclude = [] 
# Do not fade on window open/close. 
# no-fading-openclose = false 
# Do not fade destroyed ARGB windows with WM frame. Workaround of bugs in Openbox, Fluxbox, etc. 
# no-fading-destroyed-argb = false 
################################# 
#   Transparency / Opacity      # 
################################# 
# Opacity of inactive windows. (0.1 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0) 
# inactive-opacity = 1 
inactive-opacity = 0.95; 
# Opacity of window titlebars and borders. (0.1 - 1.0, disabled by default) 
# frame-opacity = 1.0 
frame-opacity = 0.9; 
# Let inactive opacity set by -i override the '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' values of windows. 
# inactive-opacity-override = true 
inactive-opacity-override = false; 
# Default opacity for active windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0) 
# active-opacity = 1.0 
# Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.0) 
# inactive-dim = 0.0 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should never be considered focused. 
# focus-exclude = [] 
focus-exclude = [ "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'" ]; 
# Use fixed inactive dim value, instead of adjusting according to window opacity. 
# inactive-dim-fixed = 1.0 
# Specify a list of opacity rules, in the format `PERCENT:PATTERN`, 
# like `50:name *= "Firefox"`. picom-trans is recommended over this. 
# Note we don't make any guarantee about possible conflicts with other 
# programs that set '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on frame or client windows. 
# example: 
#    opacity-rule = [ "80:class_g = 'URxvt'" ]; 
# 
opacity-rule = [ "100:class_g = 'emacs'" ]; 
################################# 
#           Corners             # 
################################# 
# Sets the radius of rounded window corners. When > 0, the compositor will 
# round the corners of windows. Does not interact well with 
# `transparent-clipping`. 
corner-radius = 0 
# Exclude conditions for rounded corners. 
rounded-corners-exclude = [ 
  "window_type = 'dock'", 
  "window_type = 'desktop'" 
]; 
################################# 
#     Background-Blurring       # 
################################# 
# Parameters for background blurring, see the *BLUR* section for more information. 
# blur-method = gaussian 
# blur-size = 12 
# 
# blur-deviation = false 
# 
# blur-strength = 5 
#blur-method = "box" 
#blur-strength = 6; 
# Blur background of semi-transparent / ARGB windows. 
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior. 
# The name of the switch may change without prior notifications. 
# 
# blur-background = false 
# Blur background of windows when the window frame is not opaque. 
# Implies: 
#    blur-background 
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior. The name may change. 
# 
# blur-background-frame = false 
# Use fixed blur strength rather than adjusting according to window opacity. 
# blur-background-fixed = false 
# Specify the blur convolution kernel, with the following format: 
# example: 
#   blur-kern = "5,5,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1"; 
# 
# blur-kern = "" 
blur-kern = "3x3box"; 
# Exclude conditions for background blur. 
# blur-background-exclude = [] 
blur-background-exclude = [ 
  "window_type = 'dock'", 
  "window_type = 'desktop'", 
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c", 
  "name ~= 'slop'" 
]; 
#blur: { 
#       method: "box"; 
#       size = 10; 
#       deviation = 5.0; 
#}; 
################################# 
#       General Settings        # 
################################# 
# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the man page for more details. 
# dbus = true 
# Daemonize process. Fork to background after initialization. Causes issues with certain (badly-written) drivers. 
# daemon = false 
# Specify the backend to use: `xrender`, `glx`, or `xr_glx_hybrid`. 
# `xrender` is the default one. 
# 
#backend = "glx" 
backend = "glx"; 
# Enable/disable VSync. 
# vsync = false 
vsync = true; 
# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the *D-BUS API* section below for more details. 
# dbus = false 
# Try to detect WM windows (a non-override-redirect window with no 
# child that has 'WM_STATE') and mark them as active. 
# 
# mark-wmwin-focused = false 
mark-wmwin-focused = true; 
# Mark override-redirect windows that doesn't have a child window with 'WM_STATE' focused. 
# mark-ovredir-focused = false 
mark-ovredir-focused = true; 
# Try to detect windows with rounded corners and don't consider them 
# shaped windows. The accuracy is not very high, unfortunately. 
# 
# detect-rounded-corners = false 
detect-rounded-corners = true; 
# Detect '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on client windows, useful for window managers 
# not passing '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' of client windows to frame windows. 
# 
# detect-client-opacity = false 
detect-client-opacity = true; 
# Use EWMH '_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW' to determine currently focused window, 
# rather than listening to 'FocusIn'/'FocusOut' event. Might have more accuracy, 
# provided that the WM supports it. 
# 
# use-ewmh-active-win = false 
# Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is detected, 
# to maximize performance for full-screen windows. Known to cause flickering 
# when redirecting/unredirecting windows. 
# 
# unredir-if-possible = false 
# Delay before unredirecting the window, in milliseconds. Defaults to 0. 
# unredir-if-possible-delay = 0 
# Conditions of windows that shouldn't be considered full-screen for unredirecting screen. 
# unredir-if-possible-exclude = [] 
# Use 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' to group windows, and consider windows 
# in the same group focused at the same time. 
# 
# detect-transient = false 
detect-transient = true; 
# Use 'WM_CLIENT_LEADER' to group windows, and consider windows in the same 
# group focused at the same time. This usually means windows from the same application 
# will be considered focused or unfocused at the same time. 
# 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' has higher priority if detect-transient is enabled, too. 
# 
# detect-client-leader = false 
# Resize damaged region by a specific number of pixels. 
# A positive value enlarges it while a negative one shrinks it. 
# If the value is positive, those additional pixels will not be actually painted 
# to screen, only used in blur calculation, and such. (Due to technical limitations, 
# with use-damage, those pixels will still be incorrectly painted to screen.) 
# Primarily used to fix the line corruption issues of blur, 
# in which case you should use the blur radius value here 
# (e.g. with a 3x3 kernel, you should use `--resize-damage 1`, 
# with a 5x5 one you use `--resize-damage 2`, and so on). 
# May or may not work with *--glx-no-stencil*. Shrinking doesn't function correctly. 
# 
# resize-damage = 1 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should be painted with inverted color. 
# Resource-hogging, and is not well tested. 
# 
# invert-color-include = [] 
# GLX backend: Avoid using stencil buffer, useful if you don't have a stencil buffer. 
# Might cause incorrect opacity when rendering transparent content (but never 
# practically happened) and may not work with blur-background. 
# My tests show a 15% performance boost. Recommended. 
# 
glx-no-stencil = true; 
# GLX backend: Avoid rebinding pixmap on window damage. 
# Probably could improve performance on rapid window content changes, 
# but is known to break things on some drivers (LLVMpipe, xf86-video-intel, etc.). 
# Recommended if it works. 
# 
# glx-no-rebind-pixmap = false 
# Disable the use of damage information. 
# This cause the whole screen to be redrawn every time, instead of the part of the screen 
# has actually changed. Potentially degrades the performance, but might fix some artifacts. 
# The opposing option is use-damage 
# 
# no-use-damage = false 
use-damage = true; 
# Use X Sync fence to sync clients' draw calls, to make sure all draw 
# calls are finished before picom starts drawing. Needed on nvidia-drivers 
# with GLX backend for some users. 
# 
# xrender-sync-fence = false 
# GLX backend: Use specified GLSL fragment shader for rendering window 
# contents. Read the man page for a detailed explanation of the interface. 
# 
# window-shader-fg = "default" 
# Use rules to set per-window shaders. Syntax is SHADER_PATH:PATTERN, similar 
# to opacity-rule. SHADER_PATH can be "default". This overrides window-shader-fg. 
# 
# window-shader-fg-rule = [ 
#   "my_shader.frag:window_type != 'dock'" 
# ] 
# Force all windows to be painted with blending. Useful if you 
# have a glx-fshader-win that could turn opaque pixels transparent. 
# 
# force-win-blend = false 
# Do not use EWMH to detect fullscreen windows. 
# Reverts to checking if a window is fullscreen based only on its size and coordinates. 
# 
# no-ewmh-fullscreen = false 
# Dimming bright windows so their brightness doesn't exceed this set value. 
# Brightness of a window is estimated by averaging all pixels in the window, 
# so this could comes with a performance hit. 
# Setting this to 1.0 disables this behaviour. Requires --use-damage to be disabled. (default: 1.0) 
# 
# max-brightness = 1.0 
# Make transparent windows clip other windows like non-transparent windows do, 
# instead of blending on top of them. 
# 
# transparent-clipping = false 
# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should never have transparent 
# clipping applied. Useful for screenshot tools, where you need to be able to 
# see through transparent parts of the window. 
# 
# transparent-clipping-exclude = [] 
# Set the log level. Possible values are: 
#  "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error" 
# in increasing level of importance. Case doesn't matter. 
# If using the "TRACE" log level, it's better to log into a file 
# using *--log-file*, since it can generate a huge stream of logs. 
# 
# log-level = "debug" 
log-level = "warn"; 
# Set the log file. 
# If *--log-file* is never specified, logs will be written to stderr. 
# Otherwise, logs will to written to the given file, though some of the early 
# logs might still be written to the stderr. 
# When setting this option from the config file, it is recommended to use an absolute path. 
# 
# log-file = "/path/to/your/log/file" 
# Show all X errors (for debugging) 
# show-all-xerrors = false 
# Write process ID to a file. 
# write-pid-path = "/path/to/your/log/file" 
# Window type settings 
# 
# 'WINDOW_TYPE' is one of the 15 window types defined in EWMH standard: 
#     "unknown", "desktop", "dock", "toolbar", "menu", "utility", 
#     "splash", "dialog", "normal", "dropdown_menu", "popup_menu", 
#     "tooltip", "notification", "combo", and "dnd". 
# 
# Following per window-type options are available: :: 
# 
#   fade, shadow::: 
#     Controls window-type-specific shadow and fade settings.
# 
#   opacity::: 
#     Controls default opacity of the window type. 
# 
#   focus::: 
#     Controls whether the window of this type is to be always considered focused. 
#     (By default, all window types except "normal" and "dialog" has this on.) 
# 
#   full-shadow::: 
#     Controls whether shadow is drawn under the parts of the window that you 
#     normally won't be able to see. Useful when the window has parts of it 
#     transparent, and you want shadows in those areas. 
# 
#   clip-shadow-above::: 
#     Controls whether shadows that would have been drawn above the window should 
#     be clipped. Useful for dock windows that should have no shadow painted on top. 
# 
#   redir-ignore::: 
#     Controls whether this type of windows should cause screen to become 
#     redirected again after been unredirected. If you have unredir-if-possible 
#     set, and doesn't want certain window to cause unnecessary screen redirection, 
#     you can set this to `true`. 
# 
wintypes: 
{ 
  tooltip = { fade = true; shadow = true; opacity = 0.75; focus = true; full-shadow = false; }; 
  dock = { shadow = false; clip-shadow-above = true; } 
  dnd = { shadow = false; } 
  popup_menu = { opacity = 1; } 
  dropdown_menu = { opacity = 1; } 
}; 

Steps of reproduction

use glx with or without the vsync option turned on

Expected behavior

no screen tearing using the glx backend

Current Behavior

glx backend has screen tearing

Other details

xrender does not have screen tearing, but since i wish to have more options for blurred backgrounds I would like to use glx but screen tearing makes it a pain to use, the blurring backends work well though.

[absolutelynothelix]

try picom built from the latest commit in the next branch.

[Zerogaku]

I honestly thought picom was already built with the next branch in the arch repos, but i tried uninstalling picom and cloning the next branch and building it, then after installing it and running I still had screen tearing with glx.

[absolutelynothelix]

try removing the xf86-video-intel package and rebooting.

[Zerogaku]

well the thing is, removing xf86-video-intel makes the screen tearing go away on glx, but the problem is that I have a hidpi display, and removing xf86-video-intel causes xrandr to no longer be able to resize, this is nothing new for me and has been a constant issue, i have tried searching the ends of the earth for a solution but to no avail.

this error pops up no matter what i do, select resolution, setting a crtc number, creating a new resolution and selecting it: xrandr: Configure crtc 0 failed but then the error immediately disappears when i reinstall it. I've heard that xf86-video-intel has issues and that less work is done on it, and that i should remove it and fallback to the modesetting driver, but I don't know if the xrandr issue is supposed to be normal for modesetting, could i be doing something wrong lol.

[yshui]

so for vsync, all picom can do is play by the rules set out by OpenGL to enable vsync, and expect the driver to do its job and actually sync to vblanks.

from the looks of it there might be a bug in xf86-video-intel that prevents vsync from working, which is out of the jurisdiction of picom, and something they need to fix. but given that project has been inactive for a while, i doubt it will be.

so the suggestion to remove xf86-video-intel and use Xorg's built-in modesetting driver is the right one. but i guess unfortunately for you there is another bug stopping you from changing resolution. that is also not something we can fix, and you have to bring this bug to Xorg

sorry we couldn't help