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Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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jmgibson1981
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Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#1 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Recently moved to Debian. First real problem. Screen tearing on video playback. Also happened after video playback stopped and on Kodi menu, flickering and tearing about.

Tried something about adding TearFree to the amdgpu xorg file and didn't work out to well.

Code: Select all

lshw -c video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Kabini [Radeon HD 8400 / R3 Series]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]
       physical id: 1
       bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0
       version: 00
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
       resources: irq:49 memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d07fffff ioport:f000(size=256) memory:ffb00000-ffb3ffff memory:c0000-dffff

Code: Select all

inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Kabini [Radeon HD 8400 / R3 Series]
           Display Server: X.org 1.19.2 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 80x24 Advanced Data: N/A for root out of X
*EDIT* Not sure tearing is the right word. The video stutters around a bunch. The audio is perfectly fine.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#2 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Have you installed the non-free firmware required by your video card?
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debiman
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#3 Post by debiman »

jmgibson1981 wrote:*EDIT* Not sure tearing is the right word. The video stutters around a bunch. The audio is perfectly fine.
could be a more general performance issue.
what sort of video? resolution?
could also be a codec issue. wouldn't happen to be HEVC a.k.a. h265?

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#4 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Installed firmware-linux-nonfree. Also have installed the same package from backports as well as the backports kernel.
The tv and kodi interface is at 4k, the media is all dvd rips with handbrake or downloaded files. Nothing above 720p. All H.264 mkvs, save for the downloaded .mp4 files.

I'm fairly certain it isn't a hardware issue as I had no trouble with the same hardware on Ubuntu using the same configuration. My googling is leading me toward a Kodi issue. i'm hoping it's a setting I can switch or something else if it's a software or hardware issue how or what I can change.

What's interesting is the first video will playback just fine, all the way through. As soon as it moves to the next one though the screen starts jittering all over the place.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#5 Post by stevepusser »

Please rerun "inxi -G" as a standard user, not as root, and break that bad habit of running commands as root when not specifically instructed to.

This seems to be really common with inxi...is it just because it's easy to spot?

Code: Select all

           tty size: 80x24 Advanced Data: N/A for root out of X
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#6 Post by smoki »

jmgibson1981 wrote: What's interesting is the first video will playback just fine, all the way through. As soon as it moves to the next one though the screen starts jittering all over the place.

Maybe some decoder introduced bug on switching these videos. Try switching video decoding methods in Kodi. Kodi and driver supports VDPAU or VA-API or even without using UVD (hardware decoder).

If some works, but some don't at least you should know which method introduced an issue.

If it is broken with all methods maybe try to change driver too... newer mesa is available in backports.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#7 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Installed mesa-va-drivers & mesa-vdpau-drivers from backports. Now Kodi throwing a segfault anytime try to play a video file, regarldess of format.

I've since removed the backports of these drivers and rebooted. Back to the original behaviour. It works somewhat. We are able to watch movies. Just seems to be an issue with playlist playback.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#8 Post by Wheelerof4te »

Have you installed the required codecs?

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apt install ffmpeg gstreamer1.0-libav
Which DE are you using? If you are on GNOME, try loging out and loging back in using Wayland.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#9 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Code: Select all

$ inxi -G
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Kabini [Radeon HD 8400 / R3 Series]
           Display Server: X.org 1.19.2 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,vesa)
           tty size: 80x24 Advanced Data: N/A out of X
No DE. Straight Kodi launch on boot via systemd service.

Don't think codecs are the issue. First file plays fine every single time. After that they get jittery. Do I need to install those from backports as well to access the mesa drivers?

*EDIT* Any commands I run to get info are being run over ssh by the way. Don't know if that gives different results.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#10 Post by jmgibson1981 »

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=324924

Found this which describes perfectly. Except its intel. Could this be the issue, and how would i adapt to amd or radeon?

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#11 Post by stevepusser »

Wheelerof4te wrote:Have you installed the required codecs?

Code: Select all

apt install ffmpeg gstreamer1.0-libav
Which DE are you using? If you are on GNOME, try loging out and loging back in using Wayland.
Kodi has its own codecs, it doesn't need outside ones...and has zip to do with gstreamer, too.

What relation do codecs ever have to do with tearing, anyway? Symptoms would be just the video not playing!
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#12 Post by stevepusser »

Inxi says you are using the radeon driver, not amdgpu. Have you tried adjusting your xorg.conf file to this?
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#13 Post by Wheelerof4te »

^Yes, it is a driver problem. I have the same tearing while using X with kernel 4.14.

OP will have to switch to amdgpu driver, but the one in Stretch is very much outdated. Kernel is defaulting to radeon because it's more mature in Stretch.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#14 Post by debiman »

jmgibson1981 wrote:My googling is leading me toward a Kodi issue.
can't you troubleshoot that?
try running the same videos through a normal media player instead of kodi?

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#15 Post by jmgibson1981 »

I followed the Kodi angle for awhile. Found lots of reports about this behavior on 17.1 (Debian's version). No resolutions though. Then I found a page talking about Stretch with 17.6 and the same problem. Led me to believe that it can't be Kodi, 17.6 is the official ppa version and I never had a problem with it on Ubuntu Xenial. So that leaves Debian. Driver, firmware, some setting that I don't know enough about. Not sure. Based on the link above it only shows it's head when you run a video playlist. The 2nd file played back the video glitches and jitters all over. The audio is perfectly fine.

I know the files themselves are fine. They played flawlessly back on Ubuntu with Kodi. Never a hitch. They playback fine on my laptop with VLC. The files are fine.

This problem is a bit of a showstopper. Going back to Ubuntu is my absolute last resort. I'd rather fix this for myself as well as anyone who may be trying the same thing. Based on my research it seems people don't use video playlists very often so the problem is fairly obscure. Hence the lack of solutions I've found. As I posted above the link dealing with the Intel driver was the closest thing I found that describes exactly what is happening for me. But I'm on AMD so that isn't of much use other than a description of the issue.

*EDIT* An update on total things tried.

* Tried adding the tear free option to radeon / amdgpu - Both resulted in no X not loading.
* Have installed kernel and firmware-linux-nonfree from backports.
* Tried mesa-va-drivers & mesa-vdpau-drivers from backports. Result was Kodi segfault when trying to play a video file.

I can't find much on this problem, at least no solutions directly. Just suggestions, none of which have worked. After an attempt and fail I revert the system to how it started. At this point the only difference from a stock Stretch install is the backport kernel & firmware-linux-nonfree.
Last edited by jmgibson1981 on 2018-07-09 01:24, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#16 Post by stevepusser »

Depends on the kernel, AMD GPU, and if some mystic commands you add to the kernel boot work. I think you'll find those if you search these forums for "amdgpu".
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#17 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Found via search. Tried it. No change whatsoever. Still jittery. Inxi -G shows using amdgpu driver. Both drivers have hte issue. Wondering if it's somewhere else.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#18 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Still searching for an answer on this. Any other possibilities? Both drivers have the same problem, thinking elsewhere but no clue where to look.

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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#19 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

You could try using a compositor to smooth the tearing, for example:

Code: Select all

compton -b --backend glx --vsync opengl-mswc
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#20 Post by jmgibson1981 »

With Compton as above the tearing is through all video files, not just the second one played.

I can also confirm not Kodi version. Backported 17.6 from Sid and same thing.

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