Bug 71601 – nvidia driver + composite: scrolling upward in some windows causes jittery interleaved pixel effect

• Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Tim Macfarlane 2004-11-17 14:07:15 UTC]

The effects of this are somewhat hard to explain in words, but here goes... First of all I'm using ver 1.0.6111-r3 of the nvidia-kernel drivers with a GeForce 4.
What happens is that when I scroll up in some windows, the window's contents get all mucked up, and kinda fuzzy looking - as if part of the window content is being split up and spread over the rest of the window area. It's very noticeable, and the effect obscures the contents of the window.

I first noticed this in firefox, then in in the "Add to Panel" window in Gnome 2.8. So it might be something to do with GTK scrolling, and/or the nvidia driver.

Reproducible: Sometimes
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Get an nVidia GeForce 4, and the 6111 drivers
2. Start gnome
3. Click on "Add to Panel" on one of your gnome panels
4. Start scrolling up and down in that window.

Actual Results:  
The contents of the scrolling area went all fuzzy, jittery, split up.

Expected Results:  
Just normal everyday content scrolling.

Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.2, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.4.20040808-r1,
 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.9-gentoo-r1 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r5
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1
Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.14.90.0.8-r1
Headers:  sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.21-r1
Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r5
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER=""
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3
/env /usr/kde/3.3/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /us
r/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium4 -O2 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp:///ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ http://gent
oo.tiscali.nl/gentoo/ http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/ http://gentoo.mirror.
sdv.fr"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/home/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X alsa apm avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo c++ cdr crypt cups dvd encode esd
 f77 fam flac foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml i
magemagick imlib java jpeg junit libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mozilla mpeg mys
ql ncurses net-www/apache:threads nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png p
ostgres ppds python quicktime readline ruby samba sdl slang spell ssl svga tcpd
tiff truetype usb x86 xml xml2 xmms xv zlib"

[Comment 1 Igor Lev 2004-11-17 20:24:55 UTC]

I have the same exact problem. Whenever I scroll up either by dragging the scroll bar or by using the mousewheel a thin horizontal stripe of the window being scrolled is just duplicated acroos the scrolled area. 

Nvidia-kernel: 1.0.6111
Nvidia-glx: 1.0.6111
xorg: 6.8.0-r1

Portage 2.0.51-r3 (default-linux/x86/2004.0, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.3_pre20040420-r0, 2.4.20-gentoo-r7 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r7 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1800+
Gentoo Base System version 1.5.3
distcc 2.16 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled]ccache version 2.3 [enabled]
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r3
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1
Binutils: sys-devel/binutils-2.14.90.0.8-r1
Headers:  sys-kernel/linux-headers-2.4.22
Libtools: sys-devel/libtool-1.5.2-r5
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
COMPILER=""
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /opt/jetty/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -mcpu=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/ ftp://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/ ftp://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/ http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/www.ibiblio.org/gentoo/"
MAKEOPTS="-j3"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/bmg-main"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="3dnow X aalib adns aim alsa apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo cdr clanVoice crypt cscope cups directfb doc dv dvd eds encode esd exif f77 fbcon flac foomaticdb fortran freetype gdbm gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imagemagick imlib java jpeg junit ldap libcss libg++ libwww lirc log4j mad mikmod mmx mono mozilla moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mpeg mysql nas ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oscar oss pam pdflib perl png pthreads python qt quicktime readline ruby samba sdl slang snmp speex spell sqlite sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype x86 xml xml2 xmms xosd xv zlib"

[Comment 2 Igor Lev 2004-11-17 20:26:18 UTC]

Also I forgot to mention my card is a PNY GeForce4 Ti4200.

[Comment 3 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) 2004-11-18 09:14:20 UTC]

Can you reproduce this with other versions of the nvidia driver and with the "nv" driver?

[Comment 4 Tim Macfarlane 2004-11-18 13:55:04 UTC]

Ok. BTW I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 too, and I'm using xorg 6.8.0-r1.

I've tried nvidia drivers 1.0.6111 and 1.0.6629, both with the same outcome.

But I managed to narrow it down a bit: If the XOrg "Composite" extension is enabled, the problem is reproduceable everytime (using the "Add to Panel" trick).

I've got this tacked onto the end of my xorg.conf file.

Section "Extensions"
	Option "Composite" "Enable"
	Option "RENDER"    "Enable"
EndSection

By commenting out the Option "Composite" line, I could not reproduce the bug. The Option "RENDER" line didn't make any difference (Probably only works with Composite).

I also tried the NV driver. This made screen redrawing damn slow with the composite extension on, and normal speed with it off. However I didn't notice the appearance of the bug in either case.

[Comment 5 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) 2004-11-18 14:01:46 UTC]

As the only nvidia.com person I saw on bugzilla, you get the honor of being CC'd.

[Comment 6 John Nilsson 2004-12-04 08:51:54 UTC]

I have the same problem with a MX440 and the 6629 driver.

A few more mentionings about the problem and how to reproduce:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=139615
http://lists.trolltech.com/qt-interest/2003-02/thread00384-0.html

Will test if this is related:
options nvidia NVreg_EnableAGPSBA=1 NVreg_EnableAGPFW=1

[Comment 7 John Nilsson 2004-12-04 09:00:45 UTC]

Nope, not related (options nvidia NVreg_EnableAGPSBA=1 NVreg_EnableAGPFW=1).

[Comment 8 Rob 2005-02-02 12:23:13 UTC]

Same problem, amd64 and 6800GT. Turning off composite fixes it.

[Comment 9 Rob 2005-02-02 12:28:33 UTC]

I should also note that this happens in ALL progams with scrolling.

[Comment 10 Kris Kersey (RETIRED) 2005-07-07 08:53:01 UTC]

Please see if this problem is fixed in 1.0.7667 which I just checked into CVS.

[Comment 11 Kris Kersey (RETIRED) 2006-02-24 20:23:46 UTC]

No response since I asked last year.  Marking Resolved, NEEDINFO.