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Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

Graphical Environments, Managers, Multimedia & Desktop questions.
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stevepusser
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#21 Post by stevepusser »

I'm pretty certain Kodi uses the openGL video output by default, as do mpv and the 3.X versions of VLC. Can you reproduce the same playback issues with those players?

I also found in my own experiments with a newer Mesa stack that for va-api acceleration to work with my new Coffee Lake Intel GPU, I had to rebuild the ffmpeg libraries against that new stack, then rebuild the players against the new Mesa and ffmpeg, leading to what's in this repository: http://mxrepo.com/mx/experimental/pool/test/ including a kodi 17.6 rebuild.

I don't know if stretch-backports went to the same lengths, though.
MX Linux packager and developer

jmgibson1981
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#22 Post by jmgibson1981 »

If that type of thing was the issue wouldn't it be consistent all the time though? Every video file should have problems. But they don't. It's only the videos after the first in a given playlist. And it's not the same ones, if I start with the second one, it plays fine and 3-* are jittery. If I start with the 5th one, it plays fine and 6-* are all jittery.

Also should mention I don't do anything else with this box. I'm not running a usable desktop on it. Lightdm auto logs into Openbox, which in turn starts Kodi fullscreen. Not sure if that would have an effect on compositing as well. I have the same problem with standalone via the systemd service.

*EDIT* The problem disappears with Windowed mode.

*EDIT 2*

Code: Select all

root@megalith:/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d# cat radeon.conf 
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Apu"
        Driver "radeon"
	Option "TearFree" "on"
EndSection
This solves the issue, no jitter when moving to next video on a playlist. However Kodi movement isn't fluid with this active. Wondering if I can get both. Not good at Xorg files.

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#23 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

jmgibson1981 wrote:Lightdm auto logs into Openbox, which in turn starts Kodi fullscreen
You can run Kodi without openbox or lightdm, that might help.

First, add this line to the end of ~/.profile:

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[ "$(tty)" = "/dev/tty1" ] && exec startx $(which kodi)
^ This autostarts Kodi fullscreen if the user logs in at the console in TTY1 (all other TTYs will log in normally).

Then disable lightdm with:

Code: Select all

# systemctl set-default multi-user.target # graphical.target will bring lightdm back
A reboot should then show a console log in at TTY1 and this should autostart Kodi for your user, without lightdm or openbox running.
deadbang

jmgibson1981
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#24 Post by jmgibson1981 »

I can try it but if it requires a person to log it in on boot then it's useless. For all intents and purposes this box is headless. It has no keyboard, no mouse. It is not a usable system in the typical sense. The only way I do anything with it is either in Kodi with the Kore app on my phone, or over ssh. Having to manually log in on boot defeats the purpose of an HTPC I would think.

For what it's worth when I first discovered this problem I was using the systemd service file included to start it rather than lightdm & openbox. However the Kodi people say standalone isn't supported, hence why I don't use it. I had the exact same problem using the systemd service file as I do with the DM / WM combo.

If it's a driver problem, as assumed via the tear free option working but no fluidity in the kodi menus, can I simply backport xserver-xorg-video-ati and install and work with current xserver or would I need to backport all of xorg?

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Head_on_a_Stick
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#25 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

jmgibson1981 wrote:I can try it but if it requires a person to log it in on boot then it's useless.
Well if you had mentioned that then I would have linked you to http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=123694 — it was written for jessie but still works for stretch.
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jmgibson1981
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#26 Post by jmgibson1981 »

Okay. Tried and still stuttering. At this point I'm wondering if it's just something I'll have to live with. Price I pay for AMD hardware instead of Intel.

At this point I have tried thus far
- Backports kernel, mesa-va-drivers, mesa-vdpau-drivers, firmware-linux-nonfree
- AMDGpu & Radeon both
- Systemd service, your link above, and starting Kodi in a supported method with the DM / WM ( lightdm & openbox respectively)

So far the only thing to have an effect was the xorg.conf modification for adding

Code: Select all

Option "Tear Free" "on"
to the radeon driver but that caused Kodi itself to not be fluid. I'd call it micro stutter when moving through the menu options.

Still no dice. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. I'm sure this can be solved. When I reinstalled Debian the other day I did so with LVM. So tomorrow I will drop Ubuntu 16.04 on it in another LVM partition to get my playlists back. I won't be giving up on this. I will continue to pursue, and keep this thread updated on my progress or check back for suggestions.

I do appreciate everything everyone has suggested. I'll bookmark this thread. Thank you all for your help so far. Wish I had more to offer the community. Still learning. But loving it, even when it doesn't always work out right.

Absolute worst case scenario, by reinstalling Debian and redoing my ssd with LVM I can go back to Ubuntu, and snapshot before an upgrade and or just create another volume and install to the new volume being able to boot back to a working image anytime I want or need to. It's something I guess.

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debiman
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#27 Post by debiman »

jmgibson1981 wrote:Okay. Tried and still stuttering.
wait, you wrote this less than 2 hours after HoaS made the suggestion?
no additional information, no output, just "didn't work"?
somehow i doubt you are putting in the effort required.

jmgibson1981
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#28 Post by jmgibson1981 »

I've been working on this for a few weeks now. Not the required effort? Did you see the OP date? Did I say I gave up? If you have nothing to add then don't post please.

Wheelerof4te
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#29 Post by Wheelerof4te »

The only other option I see, if you really, really want to use Linux, is to install AMD's proprietary drivers:
https://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articl ... stall.aspx

The above instructions work for Ubuntu, but there are drivers for CentOS, too.
Of course, this does not matter if you want to use Debian.
Good luck.

kevinthefixer
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Re: Amd Kabini Quad APU Screen Tearing

#30 Post by kevinthefixer »

just re-read the whole thread. Nobody has mentioned increasing Kodi's buffer size. Not sure where to find that in Kodi, as I don't use it, but I'll bet that's where the problem lies. Find the buffer size setting and triple it, see if that doesn't help dramatically.

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