vsync howto

UberLord · Aug 31, 2005, 05:56 PM

First off, kudos to ATI for embracing DRI

Second off, thanks for not telling anyone about the new vsync setting (not in the release notes afaik)

Starting with fglrx-8.16.20, you can now use the xdriinfo command. Lets ask the fglrx driver what options it has

Code:

uberpc roy # xdriinfo options fglrx
<driinfo>
<section>
<description lang="en" text="Performance"/>
<description lang="de" text="Leistung"/>
<option name="swap_on_vblank" type="bool" default="false">
<description lang="en" text="Synchronize buffer swap with vertical blank"/>
<description lang="de" text="Synchronosiere Pufferwechsel mit vertikalem R�cklauf"/>
</option>
</section>
</driinfo>

Weeeeeee - the vsync setting!
Now lets create /etc/dirrc or ~/.drirc to change it!

Code:

<driconf>
	<device driver="fglrx">
		<application name="all">
		    <!-- Always synchronize with vertical refresh to avoid tearing -->
			<option name="swap_on_vblank" value="true"/>
		</application>
	</device>
</driconf>

Now you can remove that nasty 'Option "Capabilities" "0x00000800"' line from /etc/X11/xorg.conf

All done

NOTES: Why is this better than xorg.conf? You can change settings on the fly, no need to reboot or restart X or the PC. Also these settings are per device, per screen or per application or a combination of all 3. Note the per application bit - suck that Windows users! Hopefully ATI can put ansio and fsaa settings there too

Why vsync? Because my system is fast enough not to need it and LCD without vsync looks awful!

jec0s · Sep 14, 2005, 10:35 AM

Or you can just install DRIconf off http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/DriConf and use the nice GUI to setup profiles for vertical sync.

Don't get too crazy with vsync b/c Stepmania sure won't run playably with it on.