Explicit sync support

[LazarusCat59]

Description

As the linux-drm-syncobj-v1 wayland protocol MR is ready to merge, and the wlroots implementation (wlroots!4262 and wlroots!4260) is pretty much complete, I would like to request explicit sync support in the compositor too. For NVIDIA users like me this is really important since it gets rid of lot of flickering and artifacts in apps like Steam and Spotify and a bunch of games, since the driver lacks support for implicit synchronization. Thanks a lot for the awesome work you've done here, and I hope this can be implemented soon!

[irldoggo]

Ever since I moved on from the 535 drivers it has been hell. I know the pieces are coming together so I do hope we can have this resolved soon.

[HirschBerge]

Since NixOs has now moved the production nvidia drivers to 550, this has pretty much blocked me from being able to game on my desktop.

[vaxerski]

no need to leave pointless comments - I can't force our Lord and Savior Simon Ser the Great to merge everything right away. Leave a 👍 and be patient.

Feel free to ping me here if the wlroots implementations get merged and I forget about this / don't notice.

[fxzzi]

The compositor does not REQUIRE explicit sync support for these patches to work AFAIK. It will just fix edge cases and provide optimal performance. I've tested with these patches and they have fixed things without changes in Hyprland (has not fixed everything ofc, that would require a driver update and POSSIBLY this being implemented in Hyprland)

[akshitgaur2005]

@HirschBerge Wait it is because of 550 version that I am not able to game. Should I switch to stable?

[irldoggo]

@HirschBerge Wait it is because of 550 version that I am not able to game. Should I switch to stable?

I rolled back to the 535 drivers. That more or less solves the horrid desync issues in the meantime. However it seems that we won't have to wait much longer. The 555 drivers next month(ish) along with most of the explicit sync patches being mainlined (mesa, xwayland, xdg) should solve the problems we are facing. At least this one. My misinformed self was under the impression that it was a problem with Hyprland, but it really isn't. The problem really seems to be with the aforementioned packages and the lack of explicit sync support. There isn't really anything the Hyprland team can do about it until these changes roll out.

[LazarusCat59]

The 555 drivers next month(ish) along with most of the explicit sync patches being mainlined (mesa, xwayland, xdg) should solve the problems we are facing. At least this one.

Actually, the explicit sync changes won't be in the NVIDIA driver until 560. See here. I sure hope the wlroots changes don't take too long though, the MR has been active for quite a long while.

Edit: I think explicit sync changes for Wayland Vulkan programs is the one meant for 560, rest of the changes will be in 555.

[fxzzi]

The 555 drivers next month(ish) along with most of the explicit sync patches being mainlined (mesa, xwayland, xdg) should solve the problems we are facing. At least this one.

Actually, the explicit sync changes won't be in the NVIDIA driver until 560. See here. I sure hope the wlroots changes don't take too long though, the MR has been active for quite a long while.

Edit: I think explicit sync changes for Wayland Vulkan programs is the one meant for 560, rest of the changes will be in 555.

Correction:

It'll be there for Xwayland / X11, EGL Opengl etc but not for vulkan.

[diniamo]

With Hyprland having its own wlroots fork, is there a chance we can get preemptive patches of the 2 MRs (see the original post for links), and a Hyprland implementation (if there needs to be one)?

[vaxerski]

right now, no, too busy with other stuff. In the near future, I'd hope to either do this or rewrite the backend altogether.

[SamuelGogarty]

right now, no, too busy with other stuff. In the near future, I'd hope to either do this or rewrite the backend altogether.

To clarify, we shouldn't be expecting explicit sync support being added to hyprland when nvidia 560 gets released?

[vaxerski]

You shouldn't. Nvidia drivers don't matter here.

If someone wants to write an impl based on the not-yet-merged two wlroots MRs and gets it working, sure I can merge it. But I probably won't write it because (busy as can be seen) and I don't even have the hardware (nvidia) to like... fully verify it's working.

When (if) I will be rewriting the backend I will have a stab at it in the new backend, but that will not be that soon I am afraid.

[diniamo]

I don't think you would have trouble with testing this, since this is the single most important change for nvidia, a lot of people would volunteer.

[vaxerski]

just like we can see with 5902 this approach sucks. I hope I can at least in some way verify this on my rig whenever I get to it.

But yea, if anyone wants to write this with the wlroots MRs be my guest