I'm currently using an old ATI FirePro V4900 to run my 3 displays - 1x 2K and 2x 1920x1200. I've been seeing glitches in some Gtk applications for a while now (running on Plasma X11), and I'm getting pretty tired of them.[1] This card uses the old radeon driver, so I'm thinking that it might be time to bite the bullet and move to something a bit more modern.
I do not do any gaming. I simply want to be able to run my preferred desktop (Plasma) with compositing and a few effects turned on.
NVIDIA is out, because of the "just works" requirement, so I'm looking at AMD options. Is the RX550 a good choice for my use case?
Thanks!
[1] The glitch takes the form of the contents of new windows not being shown, only the frame. It only seems to happen with Gtk apps, primarily Thunderbird. I've tried futzing around with the Xorg acceleration settings, and I've been able to reduce but not eliminate the problem.
On Fri, Sep 2, 2022 at 11:47 AM Ian Pilcher arequipeno@gmail.com wrote:
I'm currently using an old ATI FirePro V4900 to run my 3 displays - 1x 2K and 2x 1920x1200. I've been seeing glitches in some Gtk applications for a while now (running on Plasma X11), and I'm getting pretty tired of them.[1] This card uses the old radeon driver, so I'm thinking that it might be time to bite the bullet and move to something a bit more modern.
I do not do any gaming. I simply want to be able to run my preferred desktop (Plasma) with compositing and a few effects turned on.
NVIDIA is out, because of the "just works" requirement, so I'm looking at AMD options. Is the RX550 a good choice for my use case?
It should be fine. I still like my RX 580. I was going to recommend the 6400/6500 if budget allows just to get something "current" but both seem to only have two ports...
Thanks, Richard
On 9/2/22 11:44, Ian Pilcher wrote:
I'm currently using an old ATI FirePro V4900 to run my 3 displays - 1x 2K and 2x 1920x1200. I've been seeing glitches in some Gtk applications for a while now (running on Plasma X11), and I'm getting pretty tired of them.[1] This card uses the old radeon driver, so I'm thinking that it might be time to bite the bullet and move to something a bit more modern.
I do not do any gaming. I simply want to be able to run my preferred desktop (Plasma) with compositing and a few effects turned on.
NVIDIA is out, because of the "just works" requirement, so I'm looking at AMD options. Is the RX550 a good choice for my use case?
Thanks!
[1] The glitch takes the form of the contents of new windows not being shown, only the frame. It only seems to happen with Gtk apps, primarily Thunderbird. I've tried futzing around with the Xorg acceleration settings, and I've been able to reduce but not eliminate the problem.
Hey, Ian! Good to see you, hope you're well!
Are you using DVI monitors? The RX550 will do what you need, but the WX 2100, 3100, or 3200 will all do three or more DisplayPort monitors if you're using DisplayPort, and use native drivers.
Thomas
On 9/2/22 13:46, Thomas Cameron via users wrote:
Hey, Ian! Good to see you, hope you're well!
Same here! (IIRC, you were the person who recommended the FirePro V4900 to me back in the day.)
Are you using DVI monitors? The RX550 will do what you need, but the WX 2100, 3100, or 3200 will all do three or more DisplayPort monitors if you're using DisplayPort, and use native drivers.
The 2 1920x1200 displays have DVI and DisplayPort inputs (no HDMI). The 2K display has DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI, but the HDMI input only supports an older standard (1.4?), and it doesn't seem to work well at 2560x1440, 60Hz.
If I purchased something like this[1], I would use the DisplayPort output for the 2K display, the DVI output for one of the 1920x1220 displays, and the HDMI output (with either a dongle or an HDMI-DVI cable) for the other 1920x1200 display.
This would allow me to use at least 2 of my existing cables. (If you recall, my case is positioned a fair distance away from my displays, so cables can be somewhat expensive.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/RX-550-Computer-Graphics-DisplayPort/dp/B08VHWFWSD/re...
On 9/2/22 15:05, Ian Pilcher wrote:
On 9/2/22 13:46, Thomas Cameron via users wrote:
Hey, Ian! Good to see you, hope you're well!
Same here! (IIRC, you were the person who recommended the FirePro V4900 to me back in the day.)
I think that's right! I loved mine, and it lasted for a LONG time. Yours has lasted longer, though! 😮
Are you using DVI monitors? The RX550 will do what you need, but the WX 2100, 3100, or 3200 will all do three or more DisplayPort monitors if you're using DisplayPort, and use native drivers.
The 2 1920x1200 displays have DVI and DisplayPort inputs (no HDMI). The 2K display has DVI, DisplayPort, and HDMI, but the HDMI input only supports an older standard (1.4?), and it doesn't seem to work well at 2560x1440, 60Hz.
If I purchased something like this[1], I would use the DisplayPort output for the 2K display, the DVI output for one of the 1920x1220 displays, and the HDMI output (with either a dongle or an HDMI-DVI cable) for the other 1920x1200 display.
This would allow me to use at least 2 of my existing cables. (If you recall, my case is positioned a fair distance away from my displays, so cables can be somewhat expensive.)
[1] https://www.amazon.com/RX-550-Computer-Graphics-DisplayPort/dp/B08VHWFWSD/re...
I do remember! Yeah, your idea makes more sense. And that card is priced really well! Hard to go wrong with an AMD card. As mentioned on another response, the native drivers are pretty stellar. I really regret having bought the NVidia card I have now, it's something of a pain to keep up with the drivers. The RPM Fusion akmod drivers have been very, very solid, though, so it's bearable. Next big system I build will absolutely use an AMD video card. NVidia kinda sucks with Linux.
Thomas
On 9/2/22 11:44, Ian Pilcher wrote:
[1] The glitch takes the form of the contents of new windows not being shown, only the frame. It only seems to happen with Gtk apps, primarily Thunderbird. I've tried futzing around with the Xorg acceleration settings, and I've been able to reduce but not eliminate the problem.
I've been seeing some weird X glitches similar to this a lot lately, both on a corporate laptop that runs Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS with Intel video and also a Fedora 36 workstation running with NVidia drivers with a Geforce RTX 2080 Super. Same thing. Click on a Thunderbird message and I just see the outline of the message until I click on it or move the window a little.
I am not sure the issue you are seeing is 100% related to the video card or old driver. It's worse on the Ubuntu/Intel machine but I definitely also see it on the Fedora/NVidia machine with Thunderbird.
Thomas
On 9/2/22 13:55, Thomas Cameron via users wrote:
I am not sure the issue you are seeing is 100% related to the video card or old driver. It's worse on the Ubuntu/Intel machine but I definitely also see it on the Fedora/NVidia machine with Thunderbird.
Aargh! That's no fun.
On 9/2/22 20:55, Thomas Cameron via users wrote:
On 9/2/22 11:44, Ian Pilcher wrote:
[1] The glitch takes the form of the contents of new windows not being shown, only the frame. It only seems to happen with Gtk apps, primarily Thunderbird. I've tried futzing around with the Xorg acceleration settings, and I've been able to reduce but not eliminate the problem.
I've been seeing some weird X glitches similar to this a lot lately, both on a corporate laptop that runs Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS with Intel video and also a Fedora 36 workstation running with NVidia drivers with a Geforce RTX 2080 Super. Same thing. Click on a Thunderbird message and I just see the outline of the message until I click on it or move the window a little.
Similar problem here for many years through many Fedora versions, plasma-desktop on Intel integrated graphics (both with nouveau enabled or disabled for the discrete card in this laptop).
After some days of activity it looks like things are randomly not pasted onto the screen, refreshes are missing, scrolling only refresh some zones etc. I usually use Shift-Alt-F12 twice to disable and enable compositing. This usually mixes things enough to work around the issue for a while, but the problem never goes away. It may be something related to buffer/pixmaps/something allocations, there was a suspicion that having a chat program with a constantly blinking icon would show up the problem faster.
No idea how I can investigate or report this.
Regards.
Roberto Ragusa composed on 2022-09-04 17:46 (UTC+0200):
Similar problem here for many years through many Fedora versions, plasma-desktop on Intel integrated graphics
...
It may be something related to buffer/pixmaps/something allocations, there was a suspicion that having a chat program with a constantly blinking icon would show up the problem faster.
No idea how I can investigate or report this.
I haven't yet looked myself, but I've seen reports in various places that one answer should be found in QT's or libyui's bug tracker. see e.g.: https://github.com/libyui/libyui/pull/81
Ian Pilcher composed on 2022-09-02 11:44 (UTC-0500):
I'm currently using an old ATI FirePro V4900 to run my 3 displays - 1x 2K and 2x 1920x1200. I've been seeing glitches in some Gtk applications for a while now (running on Plasma X11), and I'm getting pretty tired of them.[1] This card uses the old radeon driver
It doesn't have to use only Radeon drivers. Try removing the ATI/Radeon Xorg driver rpm (xorg-x11-drv-ati). That will cause it to fallback to the newer technology, upstream default, "modesetting" DIX display driver, along with the radeon kernel driver, and I think r600 Mesa DRI driver.
On 9/2/22 14:11, Felix Miata wrote:
It doesn't have to use only Radeon drivers. Try removing the ATI/Radeon Xorg driver rpm (xorg-x11-drv-ati). That will cause it to fallback to the newer technology, upstream default, "modesetting" DIX display driver, along with the radeon kernel driver, and I think r600 Mesa DRI driver.
Trying that now. Results seem positive thus far.
Thanks!
On 9/2/22 16:56, Ian Pilcher wrote:
On 9/2/22 14:11, Felix Miata wrote:
It doesn't have to use only Radeon drivers. Try removing the ATI/Radeon Xorg driver rpm (xorg-x11-drv-ati). That will cause it to fallback to the newer technology, upstream default, "modesetting" DIX display driver, along with the radeon kernel driver, and I think r600 Mesa DRI driver.
Trying that now. Results seem positive thus far.
I'm super curious if that weird "outline only window" thing pops up again. I've noticed it across multiple distros and video cards, never heard anyone else have it.
Thomas
On 9/2/2022 7:02 PM, Thomas Cameron via users wrote:
On 9/2/22 16:56, Ian Pilcher wrote:
On 9/2/22 14:11, Felix Miata wrote:
It doesn't have to use only Radeon drivers. Try removing the ATI/Radeon Xorg driver rpm (xorg-x11-drv-ati). That will cause it to fallback to the newer technology, upstream default, "modesetting" DIX display driver, along with the radeon kernel driver, and I think r600 Mesa DRI driver.
Trying that now. Results seem positive thus far.
I'm super curious if that weird "outline only window" thing pops up again. I've noticed it across multiple distros and video cards, never heard anyone else have it.
Thomas
I have an nvidia card, and I get that happening in Thunderbird when I am using the nouveau drivers with X. It's the reason I use the RPMFusion drivers, as otherwise the nouveau drivers seem to work good enough for my purposes. I also am using KDE desktop.