Fixing Screen Tearing on Linux (running Nvidia GPU)

Introduction

It’s the beginning of the new semester of university and I’m taking a course on game development using Unity.

However, when I downloaded it on my Arch Linux system, I ran into screen tearing issues.

This short blog post is about how I fixed it.
Note: The second method is what actually fixed this particular issue.

My current set up

• Arch Linux
• DWM (using X11 of course)
• GRUB boot-loader
• I have a laptop with a Nvidia GPU (it also includes an integrated Intel GPU but I have disabled it).

Attempt 1: Adjusting kernel parameters to load DRM

This requires you to be using the grub boot-loader, and generating the configuration file for it using grub-mkconfig. If you are running something else, please have a look through this: Kernel parameters (Arch Wiki).

1. Open your grub configuration file: sudoedit /etc/default/grub (this is where it is on my system).

   • Note that sudoedit will open up your default editor as sudo. It should be the default way you edit text files if you need root access.
   • You will see a line that will contain the variable:
     GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=[some options]

2. You will need to paste in the following line between the double quotes: nvidia_drm.modeset=1.

   • For me, it looks like this (after the modification): GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=3 quiet nvidia_drm.modeset=1 rcutree.rcu_idle_gp_delay=1".

3. After that, you should run the command grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

   • This will regenerate your grub boot configuration.

Small Note

This actually did not fix my screen tearing issues. However, this should be a good thing to do anyways (if you have a Nvidia graphics card). Because it also apparently prevents screen tearing issues.

Attempt 2: Fix screen-tearing using a compositor (Picom)

I never bothered to download and install a compositor because I did not like the idea of having an unnecessary program that serves no purpose besides prettifying my screen. But it turns out I was wrong and a program called Picom can actually fix screen-tearing issues!

1. Download and install Picom from your Linux distributions package repository.
2. This step may be optional but I downloaded someones Picom configuration file and moved it into ~/.config/picom/.
   • You can find many configuration files if you just search picom configuration on Github.
3. I edited my xprofile file to ensure that it loads picom after dwm starts. This file is found in your home directory (if you have not moved it). It is essentially a script that loads up stuff you want for your session.
4. Rebooted my computer (you can also just restart your x session), and voila! No more screen tearing whilst I mess around on Unity.