Game Changer: Force Full Pipeline Composition

Guys. Normally I have my “Hello L1T” introduction, not today.

I have been plagued by occasional to constant screen tearing in most Linux environments. With intel graphics, I can edit the 20-intel.conf file and make it a little better. With nVidia, I just kind of ignored it after a while.

Today it was incredibly infuriating. I was about to abandon my OS all together. I went to check nvidia-settings to see if there was anything I could do, and it looks like the “Advanced” tab had more features since the last time I checked.

Sorry, in my excitement I wasn’t very descriptive.

nvidia-settings > X Server Display Configuration > Advanced

My big monitor was set to “auto” for Resolution and Frequency. I changed it to 2150x1440 and 144hz. The other three monitors defaulted to 1920x1080/60hz… But, there was a Full Pipeline Composition and Force Full Pipeline Composition options in the advanced tab. I checked the first box and hit apply. No changes that I could really tell. I checked the second box and hit apply.

Sweet Mother of God…

Glossy, glass-like scrolling across all browsers. Perfect full screen rendering of videos in 1080p and 1440p. Note, I did NOT have to do this for the 1440p monitor, I just changed the frequency from auto to 144hz.

I vaguely recall performing this adjustments a long time ago, through the CLI/x.org settings. It looks like with recent nVidia driver these settings come built into the nvidia-settings application.

Game changing. Minor stuttering in Firefox in some instances while scrolling (which I’ve always experienced across all machines), but VMs, Chrome, and Sublime Text are beautifully rendered.

I was going to put this in the Small Linux Problem thread, but this has been a huge issue for me for at least more than a year. If the mods deem it necessary, I have no issue with a merge. Just thought I would share!

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