Screen ripping problem

[Zer01ne]

I was running NoMachine on my Arch Linux server just fine with the onboard Intel graphics.  I installed a new video card (nVidia GTX 1050ti) and now I’m getting horrible screen Ripping with black bars that flicker and make it almost impossible to use.  I tried recompiling NoMachine and I’ve logged in from my phone, tablet and 2 computers all with the same issues.  Is there a known issue or is there something I’m overlooking?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks

Will

[fra81]

Hi Will,

it looks like a problem with video drivers. I would try to install latest from nVidia. But before that, please tell what is the Xorg version and more info about installed drivers:

# lspci

# nvidia-smi

# lshw -C display

[Zer01ne]

fra81, thanks for getting back to me and sorry for the delay.  Here is the information that you requested.  I will say that I have tried with the LTS kernel on Arch Linux and with the latest.  What is posted is the latest kernel and most up-to-date nvidia driver available.  As for Xorg, I also posted below.  Thanks again for your help and really appreciate it.

Xorg Version:

X.Org X Server 1.20.0
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux Arch Linux
Current Operating System: Linux banshee 4.14.41-1-lts #1 SMP Wed May 16 15:10:39 CEST 2018 x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-linux-lts root=UUID=497549f5-faaa-4cf6-ae73-5bf922fccbcd rw quiet
Build Date: 16 May 2018 05:24:07PM

Current version of pixman: 0.34.0
Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.

lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 07)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H USB 3.0 xHCI Controller (rev 31)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H CSME HECI #1 (rev 31)
00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H SATA controller [AHCI mode] (rev 31)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #5 (rev f1)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #9 (rev f1)
00:1d.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #10 (rev f1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H LPC Controller (rev 31)
00:1f.2 Memory controller: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H PMC (rev 31)
00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H HD Audio (rev 31)
00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Sunrise Point-H SMBus (rev 31)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

nvidia-smi:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 396.24                 Driver Version: 396.24                    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 105...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 29%   32C    P5    N/A /  75W |    254MiB /  4036MiB |     35%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0       551      G   /usr/bin/X                                    54MiB |
|    0      1276      G   ...ts/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam   197MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

lshw -C display:

  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a1
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=nvidia latency=0
       resources: irq:125 memory:de000000-deffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff memory:d0000000-d1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:c0000-dffff

[fra81]

Hi Will,

I see another process using the graphics card besides the X server:

 0      1276      G   ...ts/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/steam   197MiB

Could you try to turn Steam off and see if anything change? In the meanwhile we will try to reproduce in our labs with same distro and card.

[Zer01ne]

Fra81,

I would, but that’s the desktop environment I’m running.  (It’s the big screen version that you can run as X instead of on an additional desktop.  It was working on the Intel driver, so I’m sure you are right in that it’s an nVidia driver issue.  If you’d like, I can terminate it and launch another desktop (openbox or xfce) and let you know the results.

Will

[Zer01ne]

So, I ran openbox without steam launched, and it went away.  So I started experimenting; any time I get an app (steam or anything thing that uses accelerated graphics) into a fullscreen mode, the lines appear.  If it’s windowed with a desktop, then there is no ripping.  Also, if I am running steam fullscreen and the NoMachine notification bubble (from the panel) is on the screen, no ripping, but once it goes away, the ripping starts.

[Zer01ne]

I did a fresh install of the entire OS and the issue is still there.  I noticed another interesting thing, when I log into NoMachine remotely, it changes the resolution of the output on the servers display.

[Zer01ne]

So, for anyone having the issue with Steam big screen as the desktop, to fix the ripping issue, I found that if you run Xfce as your desktop environment and then launch Steam in big screen mode (I autostart it), the ripping issue goes away.  I’m not sure why or how, but it fixed it.

[fra81]

Hi Will,

nice to hear you found a solution. In fact this is not something that could be fixed on NoMachine side 😉

[Author]

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