Screen tearing on XPS13 9310, Ubuntu 20.04, Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe]

Question

I know there are many questions regarding this problem, but no solution I have found so far seems to help me with this issue.

This is a brand new Dell XPS 9310 with Intel graphics and Ubuntu 20.04. I have screen tearing every now and then. The following solutions did not work:

1. Switching to Wayland. This helped everything look a bit smoother, but after a short while I noticed the screen tearing still occur.

2. Adding various potential contents into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf or to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel-graphics.conf. For example, I tried the solution proposed in https://askubuntu.com/a/1237079/221347, the one in https://askubuntu.com/a/1237079/221347 and some other I have found across the web. Some did not make any difference, some really destroyed the entire visualization.

3. I tried to use compton. It did not make any difference (or perhaps I did not use it properly).

4. I disabled animations in gnome-tweaks.

5. I switched from Ubuntu to gnome, to gnome-classic and to gnome-xorg.

---

Here is some potential relevant info on my system.

bach@pita::~$ inxi -G
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: fbdev 
  unloaded: modesetting,vesa resolution: 1920x1200~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel Xe Graphics (TGL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3 

and

bach@pita::~$ sudo lshw | grep display -A12
        *-display
             description: VGA compatible controller
             product: TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 2
             bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
             logical name: /dev/fb0
             version: 01
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list fb
             configuration: depth=32 driver=i915 latency=0 mode=1920x1200 visual=truecolor xres=1920 yres=1200
             resources: iomemory:600-5ff iomemory:400-3ff irq:146 memory:6052000000-6052ffffff memory:4000000000-400fffffff ioport:3000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff memory:4010000000-4016ffffff memory:4020000000-40ffffffff

I am using Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS.

bach@pita::~$ uname -a
Linux pita 5.13.0-25-generic #26~20.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jan 7 16:27:40 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Update

I've edited /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf as follows:

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "i915"
   Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
   Option "DRI" "3"
   Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection 

This almost stopped screen tearing, but scrolling is still shaky, and tearing occurs every once in a while.

Screencast

Here's a quick screencast showing a very minor tearing that occurs with this configuration.

Quick update

Wayland does not fix screen tearing, but it does change its behavior. For example, in this video, I do not see the tearing anymore. I do notice when scrolling (Firefox, say), when alt-tab, etc., it seems like part of the window is being drawn a bit too late.

I also feel that the fans work less when I'm on Wayland.

Update: ubuntu-drivers

When trying sudo ubuntu-drivers install I get No drivers found for installation..

Update: xserver-xorg-video-intel

This package is not currently installed. The output of dpkg -l | grep xserver-xorg-video-intel is empty.

Answer 1

Add below lines to nano ~/.drirc

<device screen="0" driver="dri2">
    <application name="Default">
        <option name="vblank_mode" value="0"/>
    </application>
</device>

and replace Option "DRI" "3" with Option "DRI" "2" in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

More info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_graphics#Troubleshooting