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How to Fix Linux screen tearing on Intel graphics

Updated - May 4, 2018 by Arnab Satapathi

Screen tearing in Linux could be a major issue with non-compositing window managers.

Even many compositing window manager could show tearing while dragging windows.

Seems like lots of technical jargon, so to simplify the matter let's discus about basics.

Contents

Show / Hide
    • What is a compositing window manager?
    • What is Screen tearing?
  • Fix Linux screen tearing
  • Conclusion and thoughts

What is a compositing window manager?

Basically stacking window managers like kWin, Mutter, XFWM, Compiz with the capability of-screen buffering. They've functionalities like window shadow, 3D animation, transparent windows, anti-aliasing, blur background and many more.

They're much more visually appealing than simple window managers, read more here.

What is Screen tearing?

You may often notice that a part of the video/graphics/window is torn apart from the main section. It's is glitch related with video or graphics rendering, when the input video is not in sync with the refresh rate of the display. That's called Screen tearing and on LCD displays, horizontal screen tearing is much prominent.

Screen tearing happens mostly when you're playing a video and dragging/moving or maximizing/minimizing a window.

Fix Linux screen tearing

It's rather easy if you're using KWin or Mutter as window manager, there's always an option to enable vsync.

If you're using KDE or minimal KWin, use the instruction below.

  1. Open up the System Settings application.
  2. Go to the Display and Monitor option under the Hardware section.
  3. Then on the Tearing prevention option, set it to Full screen repaints. img

kwin fix linux screen tearing

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XFWM also has an option to enable vsync to prevent tearing, that never works !

You can also use a compositing manager like compton or xcompmgr with Openbox or XFWM window manager. But there's  another little tweak to prevent linux screen tearing efficiently on Intel graphics.

First create a new X11 configuration directory, mkdir -p /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/, if already not exists.

Create a configuration file 20-intel.conf there with your favorite text editor as root. sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf 

Put the configuration below there, and save the file, and exit the test editor.

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

Finally restart your X11 session by logging out and logging in again, or simply reboot the PC.

However you may need to add other few extra option like Option  "AccelMethod" "uxa" or Option  "TripleBuffer" "true" in the 20-intel.conf file.

Checked with 2nd generation Intel HD3000 graphics and 5 generation HD5500 graphics, both worked without those options.

Conclusion and thoughts

So, that's all about fixing screen tearing in linux with Intel graphics, hope it helped you.

Enabling vsync decreases the graphics benchmark performance, so next I'll experiment with the TripleBuffer and completely disable vsync and compare the difference.

If you've any question or suggestion, just leave a comment. Also don't forget to share if you've found this tutorial worthy to share.

Filed Under: hardware, how to Tagged With: gpu

Your comments

  1. ItsAnArse says

    January 10, 2019

    Thank you very much for this, exactly what I needed on my Haswell-based laptop running bunsenlabs. Cheers

    Reply
  2. Allen says

    January 9, 2019

    Just thought i would chime in. This works great on Arco Linux!, thanks for the share.

    Reply
  3. Richi Amaro says

    October 10, 2018

    Thanks the config file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf works great on fedora 28 in a dell inspiron 5000 series.

    Reply
  4. J says

    September 26, 2018

    Thanks!

    Reply
  5. Rainer Halstenbach says

    August 5, 2018

    Thank you VERY MUCH for that superb little help. I had exactly these kind of problems with my new Acer Swift5, where i replaced the pre-installed Windows10 by an Ubuntu Mate. This X setting helped me out (the Option "TearFree" already did the job".

    Reply

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