General Information

Fixing screen tearing in KDE.

Checklist

• KDE Plasma (KDE 5)

Full screen repaints sometimes fix issues. (There is a warning that there is performance impacts, not sure how much)

• Open “System Settings”
• Under “Hardware”, click “Display and Monitor”
  • Click “Compositor”
  • Next to “Tearing prevention (vsync):”, click the drop down box and select “Full screen repaints”
  • Click Apply

The Kwin environmental variables solution does not impact performance like other solutions on the internet suggesting Full Composition Pipelining.

• Create a new file and add some environmental variables.

  sudo vim /etc/profile.d/kwin.sh
   
  #!/bin/bash
  # Prevents screen tearing with NVIDIA Drivers (Only enable 1 at a time)
  export __GL_YIELD="USLEEP"
  #export KWIN_TRIPLE_BUFFER=1

  • Try first with USLEEP.
  • If that doesn't help, comment out that line and uncomment the Triple Buffer line.

• Source the file to pick up the new variables

  source /etc/profile.d/kwin.sh