I’ve noticed serious stuttering while using OpenGL applications (games in Steam, glxgears, etc). I’ve got a GTX 970 and currently running driver version 351.21. My Samsung monitor has a reported refresh rate of 60 Hz.
With Sync to VBlank and Allow Flipping off, glxgears reports ~13411.539 FPS. There is visible stuttering in the gear movement.
With Sync to VBlank and Allow Flipping on, glxgears reports ~55.785 FPS. The stutter seems even worse than with these settings off.
Xrandr reports:
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1200, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 connected primary 1920x1200+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 518mm x 324mm
1920x1200 60.0*+
1600x1200 60.0
1280x1024 75.0 60.0
1280x960 60.0
1152x864 75.0
1024x768 75.0 70.1 60.0
800x600 75.0 72.2 60.3 56.2
640x480 75.0 72.8 59.9
So… If Sync to VBlank is on shouldn’t glxgears and other programs use the 60 Hz refresh rate? Why does it fluctuate be twee 53 FPS and 56 FPS (and is this the reason for the big stutter)?
Not sure if it’s relavant but my Xorg.0.log is flooded with:
I installed Mate and gave that a go but it produced the same result. Next I may need to try a clean install of Mate only. Still, strange it’s about 5 FPS off from the monitor refresh.
Ok, so I did a clean install of Mint 17.2 RC with the Mate desktop. Out of the box with the nouveau drivers playback is smooth. Once I switch over to the NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-352.21 driver I again get the ~55 FPS with stuttering.
Maybe this evening I’ll get time to try and capture a bug report or revert back several driver versions and see if it works.
Another quick edit… I just reverted back to NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-343.22 and it fixed the problem! I’m now at ~60 FSP which matches my monitor resolution. There still seems to be a slight stutter but it’s nothing compared to before.
Anecdotally I’m not sure that Mint’s desktop stack is particularly well written, it’s like a fork of a fork of Ubuntu’s already somewhat flaky compiz/lightdm setup. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tweaked something that causes issues for Nvidia drivers.
I’ve narrowed down the window of when the behavior started.
It happened between the 343.36 and the 346.35 release. 343.36 was the last “good” driver before the stuttering and FPS / refresh rate difference. I’ve not yet tried the 346.22 beta between those two drivers.
I hope this helps! Looks like for now I’m sticking with 343.36.
LostDog, On what are the games you are observing Stuttering ? Is any specific settings are done in game or steam? Is it possible to share video recording that shows the issue?
Sorry, I’ve been out of town and missed this reply. Any game at all (or any program like glxgears) will cause this. Later today I’ll switch to the latest drivers and get a recording.
This is the glxgears application. Notice in nvidia-settings the monitor refresh rate is 60. Also notice the reported fps in the console. When using the nouveau drivers playback is extremely smooth not even a slight stutter. With any NVIDIA-XXX.XX driver there is a small amount of stutter but it is REALLY bad with drivers above 343.36.
@LostDog: Do you use an xorg configuration file?
If it’s the case, could you please share it’s content, I think I’ve had the same problem not too long ago.