Here is a quick tutorial for those experiencing screen tearing with AMD graphics cards. This tutorial only applies to those using the open source Radeon driver; if you’re using catalyst, there is a “tear free” option in the graphical driver setting.
A note from AJ: While this tutorial worked for me and many others, several people reported that this didn’t work and broke their system. So consider yourself warned!
Part 1 (Optional): Updated and Optimized Graphics Drivers (Ubuntu 14.04 and up)
For Ubuntu users, you can add a ppa that provides updated and optimized Radeon drivers. Open a terminal and add the following commands one line at a time:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot
Part 2: Configure the Radeon driver
Like catalyst, the Radeon graphics driver has a “tear free” option, but doesn’t have a graphical interface for changing this setting. What we’re going to do is modify the configuration file. Open the terminal and add the following commands one line at a time.
sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
echo -e ‘Section “Device” Identifier “Radeon” Driver “radeon” Option “TearFree” “on” EndSection’ | sudo tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amd.conf
sudo reboot
After reboot, you will find screen tearing has been eliminate. If you wish to revert the changes, open the terminal and add the following:
sudo rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amd.conf
sudo reboot
As always, I hope you find this tutorial useful. Thanks for reading, and be sure to share this post on social media.
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We’ll thank you for the advise but this killed my sddm.service and the computer wouldn’t boot at all.. I would just see a blinking cursor in the top left corner of my screen.
Luckily, I was able to fix it by going bash .. with CTRL+ALT+F2, then logging in, going sudo su, and removing the modifications proposed..
That brought me back to a normal boot and I am now able to post this comment after having fixed the situation.
Hopefully this helps someone if the above implementation goes south..
I also wasn’t able to reboot with this trick. Black screen. AMD HD6450 on Pop! OS.
PART 1 (OPTIONAL): UPDATED AND OPTIMIZED GRAPHICS DRIVERS (UBUNTU 14.04 AND UP)
For Ubuntu users, you can add a ppa that provides updated and optimized Radeon drivers. Open a terminal and add the following commands one line at a time:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo reboot
!!!First install mesa utilitis if u dont have it!!
sudo apt-get install mesa-utils
Type/Copy this into your terminal (ctrl-alt-t)
sudo apt-get install driconf
——————————————————-
Now to solve the video tearing
Type/Copy this into your terminal (ctrl-alt-t)
sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
echo -e ‘Section “Device”
Identifier “Radeon”
Driver “radeon”
Option “TearFree” “on”
Option “DRI” “3”
Option “AccelMethod” “glamor”
EndSection’ | sudo tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amd.conf
sudo reboot