Recently I've run into a huge issue that is making my Linux experience a nightmare - screen tearing.
Regardless of the distrobution or desktop environment I constantly get screen tearing (even with Openbox) . I get it when I scroll through web pages. It's especially noticable when I move windows, it fragments on the sides. When I make boxes there are blocky anomolies. I can't play video games either because there is always screen tearing. I would seriously switch to Ubuntu 13.04, in all its spyware glory, as long as it didn't have this issue.
Both of my computers are suffering from this issue. Both run high-end nVidia graphics cards, a GTX 580 and a GTX 765M. Even my laptop, which I purchased from System 76, is having the exact same issues with tearing.
Here's what I've tried-
Tweaking nVidia settings - Prefer Maximum Preformance, OpenGL sync to vblank, Image settings on high preformance, antialiasing Override Application Set to max, Anisotropic Filtering on, also turned to max, Texutre sharpening
Switching Window Managers - Kwin makes it less noticable. I can get it to go away sometimes when I mess with the settings, but most of the time the tearing is back within a few seconds. Major tearing even with Disable Effects for Full Screen Windows is checked.
dcompmgr and Compton - I still get tearing unless I turn them to their most basic settings (with shadows I still get tearing). Both of them turn off when I start a game, rendering them useless.
It's been awhile since I used Compiz, but I can't remember any tearing when I used it. I still have to turn it off if I want to play a Steam game, so I get tearing anyway.
Adding this to /etc/enviroment -
CLUTTER_PAINT=disable-clipped-redraws:disable-culling
CLUTTER_VBLANK=True
Nothing seems to work. With Linux Mint on my laptop it isn't detecting the graphics card and when I sudo apt-get install nvidia-current it won't load the X server when I restart. I'm going to try several other "Buntus" before I just try 13.04 and see how it runs.
Update - The standard Driver Manager in most Ubuntu based distrobutions doesn't seem to be detecting my graphics card on my laptop. It shouldn't be an issue with that, since I've run Arch on it before with the most up to date drivers and still got major tearing.