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Display tearing in CS 6 persists - anyone else experiencing this?

May 21, 2012 4:17 PM

Hi all,

 

I posted about this issue before. I am experiencing severe display tearing/refresh rate issues in AE CS6. These issues happen regardless of whether or not I am playing back from the timeline, or merely panning around. Even slow panning around in the composition window results in very obvious tearing. (screen tearing - wikipedia)

 

Since I last posted, I purchased and installed an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 from MacVidCards. The card works perfectly in all aspects of OS X, and in all other programs, but the screen tearing is still there in After Effects. I installed Nvidia drivers, CUDA developer drivers, and also tried adding the card to the list of raytrace supported cards, but none of these things helped.

 

(As an aside, the card works beautifully for GPU accelerated raytracing, despite being unsupported for that purpose, once it has been manually added to the raytracer_supported_cards.txt file)

 

I tested in both 10.7.3 and 10.7.4. I also created a clean fresh install of 10.7.1 on a new drive, and installed CS 6 from scratch, with no plugins or any OS modifications. No difference.

 

A friend with a newer 12-core Mac Pro tried AE CS 6 under Snow Leopard with the same card, and experienced the same problem. When he booted into Windows 7 on the same machine, again with the same card, the issues were entirely gone.

 

Machine: Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon, 16 gb ram

 

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? It strikes me that this must be conflict or bug in Adobe's handling of the GPU drivers on Mac OS.

 

Thanks for reading!

5359 Views   29 Replies   Latest reply: Todd_Kopriva, Apr 4, 2013 11:08 AM
 
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  • ViperJPB
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    1. ViperJPB,
    May 22, 2012 11:36 AM   in reply to pkroll
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    I am indeed getting the same horizontal display tearing as you are. I have an older Mac Pro 2,1 with an ATI Radeon HD 4870. I noticed the tearing right away after installing CS6 Master last night. Same project in CS5 has no tearing whatsoever. Not encouraging to hear that even with a different video card you are experiencing the same issue. I have seen this issue on the creativecow forums and elsewhere on the adobe forums. Hopefully someone has an answer soon.

     
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  • vsk227
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    2. vsk227,
    May 22, 2012 12:25 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    I have this problem too.

     

    My machine is set up for DaVinci resolve - it has a flashed 470, same as above posted, and an officially supported GT120. After Effects will use whichever one the main monitor is plugged into for OpenGL - and both cards display massive tearing when dragging the comp preview window and playing back.

     

    Running Snow Leopard 10.6.8

     
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  • pkroll
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    3. pkroll,
    May 23, 2012 9:39 AM   in reply to pkroll
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    We have one more report coming in on this other thread as well...

     

    This is obviously a real problem. The question is - will Adobe take notice? Todd... are you out there? I know you sometimes chime in... curious to hear your thoughts on this.

     

    regsquires wrote:

     

    This was the first thing I noticed on my MacBook Pro laptop. It's a 17" with 8Gb of Ram. I did a small project in AE CS5 nothing fancy but playback was perfect. The exact same project produces the video tearing, not hugely but definately distracting enough to notice. The whole point of RAM preview is to see what you are going to get and if that gives you glitches it's not ideal

     
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  • Dave LaRonde
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    4. Dave LaRonde,
    May 23, 2012 9:45 AM   in reply to pkroll
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    Have you considered filing a bug report?

     
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  • pkroll
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    5. pkroll,
    May 23, 2012 9:53 AM   in reply to Dave LaRonde
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    I can certainly do so, although I feel that more immediate attention is required. It appears that this issue may be at least moderately widespread. I'm going to try a support call soon.

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    6. ViperJPB,
    May 23, 2012 9:56 AM   in reply to Dave LaRonde
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    I just filed an official bug report. But I'm of the same mind and have posted this in multiple places.

     
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  • regsquires
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    7. regsquires,
    May 23, 2012 3:03 PM   in reply to ViperJPB
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    I have read elsewhere that this is a graphics card issue, but if CS5 running on the same system can display tear free playback, ( both desktop Mac Pro and laptop) then something is not right

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    8. ViperJPB,
    May 23, 2012 3:10 PM   in reply to regsquires
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    I thought it might be graphics card related as well. However there is no display tearing in CS5. Plus I have seen this reported with GTX 285, GTX 470, Quadro 4000, ATI Radeon HD 4870, and several laptop gpus. The only common thing so far is that it seems to only happen in OS X (both Lion and Snow Leopard) and not Windows.

     
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  • pkroll
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    9. pkroll,
    May 23, 2012 3:11 PM   in reply to ViperJPB
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    Viper, where have you seen it reported on Quadros? Can you link me? I was considering going out and grabbing one of those to test...

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    10. ViperJPB,
    May 24, 2012 12:36 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    pkroll I can't seem to track down that particular link. It was a random google find that I cant seem to re-create. However on the Creative Cow forums there are people using the GTX470, 285, and ATI 4780 with the same issues.

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    11. ViperJPB,
    May 27, 2012 4:58 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    Still no fix in sight huh? This problem is very annoying and I am sticking with After Effects CS5 until the issue is resolved sadly.

     
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  • pkroll
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    12. pkroll,
    Jun 8, 2012 3:36 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    Ok... so I just went out and bought a brand new nvidia Quadro 4000 and installed it.


    Same exact problem.

     

    This card is as supported as a card can be in the new AE CS 6. It's one of the few blessed cards on the tech specs. It's supported for raytracing. Presumably it was tested pretty well.

     

    I tested the new GPU on the same desktop system under my existing OS X 10.7.4 and on a clean fresh install of 10.7.1 on a new drive.

     

    Same tearing issues.

     

    This basically prevents me from using AE CS 6 as the tearing is too annoying to work through.

     
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  • Kevin Monahan
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    13. Kevin Monahan,
    Jun 13, 2012 12:39 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    We know about tearing with certain formats and are working hard on a fix.

     
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  • pkroll
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    14. pkroll,
    Jun 13, 2012 1:12 PM   in reply to Kevin Monahan
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    Hey Kevin,

     

    Thanks. Unfortunately I'm experiencing this problem with ANY kind of footage, and even with no footage at all. I can make a nice standard 1920x1080 comp, 23.976 fps, square pixels, and move a colored solid across it and I'll get tearing.

     

    Please see this video for a demonstration of what I'm getting.

     

    http://youtu.be/DO3-1nF-qek

     

    Here is a link to a test project file I have been using which easily exhibits the tearing, but works just fine in CS 5.5:

     

    https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3581264/test_displaytearing.aep

     

    As I refer to above, and in the other thread I linked to, this has now happened on 3 different cards (one ATI and two NVIDIA, and on two different installs of OS X).

     

    Any word on that from the inside?

     

    Thanks!

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    15. ViperJPB,
    Jun 13, 2012 1:15 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    Same here. Here is a link to some quick snapshots of the problem on my system. I'm running an ATI 4870.

     

    http://forums.adobe.com/message/4490034

     
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  • Kevin Monahan
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    16. Kevin Monahan,
    Jun 13, 2012 1:20 PM   in reply to ViperJPB
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    I see the problem on my MacBook Pro, but not on my PC. See the other thread for details.

    http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1003909?tstart=0

     
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  • davidp158
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    17. davidp158,
    Jun 15, 2012 11:54 AM   in reply to pkroll
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    I am having the same tearing issue in CS6 After Effects on my 6 core Mac Pro, with an ATI 5870 HD card. The same project files display fine in CS5.5. Looking for a solution...

     

    An update to my previous post: I initially saw this with video files (AVCHD MTS) as I had only been testing CS6 with video files. Now I see what others are reporting, with animated solids. The same "tearing" display with RAM previews also happen with animated text. I've spent a few hours trying different settings, but to no avail.

     

    Message was edited by: davidp158

     
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  • Advetel
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    18. Advetel,
    Jun 15, 2012 8:54 AM   in reply to pkroll
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    I don't know if its "tearing" I'm experienceing, but there is certainly some screen rendering problem going on with CS6.

    I'm on a Windows 7, Quad Core, 2.4 Ghz, 8 GB memory, with Nvidia GeoForce 8500, 521 mb Video ram.  Its been adequate with previous versions, but now, I'm getting this strobing effect, where the program display flickers off an on less than 24 times/sec after I make some change to a graphic.  The change will appear, after 30 sec to 1 minute.  But the program is virtually unusable.

     

    :<)Greg

     
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  • pkroll
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    19. pkroll,
    Jun 15, 2012 10:11 AM   in reply to Advetel
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    Greg, it sounds like that might be a different issue. Does it look at all like the example video I posted above? If not, you might want to start a new thread to document that issue and see if anyone can help you.

     
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  • Advetel
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    20. Advetel,
    Jun 18, 2012 1:58 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    I made a video of what mine looks like:

     

    http://youtu.be/xJK6U7qWKTQ

     
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  • ViperJPB
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    21. ViperJPB,
    Jun 18, 2012 2:04 PM   in reply to Advetel
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    That is not the dsiplay tearing we are speaking of. What we are seeing is only in the AE preview window and are usually horizontal tears or seperations. Yours is a whole screen flickering issue...which may be video card related.

     
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  • dvergotti
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    22. dvergotti,
    Jun 21, 2012 8:51 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    Just filed a bug report, as I have this problem too. Hope we receive a fix asap.

     
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  • natevplas
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    23. natevplas,
    Jul 13, 2012 1:59 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    I'm also having this screen tearing problem on my 2012 Mac Pro 12 core running OSX Lion 10.7.4.  Things were fine on the stock ATI card that came with it, but as soon as I installed a GTX 480 card from MacVidCards on eBay I got screen tearing in both AE CS5 and CS6.  It's not quite as bad as what pkroll shows in his youtube video - just one line that slowly moves down my screen and then repeats - but it's definitely distracting and not ideal.  I get it when ram previewing and moving things around in the viewport.  I'm not sure what to do since it looks like many people are getting this issue, even on "approved" video cards. 

     

    It's been a month since Adobe's post saying they're working on it.  Is it fixed on your end yet, Adobe?

     
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  • davidp158
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    24. davidp158,
    Jul 13, 2012 6:28 PM   in reply to natevplas
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    natevplas - Thanks for posting here. If you haven't already, please send a bug report with your system info to Adobe. Even if they are aware of the problem, providing your info may help them decipher the cause. More bug reports also emphasize the need to fix this sooner than later.

     
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  • BenMarkus
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    25. BenMarkus,
    Jul 16, 2012 3:13 PM   in reply to pkroll
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    Check this thread...

    http://forums.adobe.com/message/4408018#4408018

     

    Looks like the tearing also happens with colored solids.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    26. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jan 5, 2013 12:46 PM   in reply to BenMarkus
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    We've isolated the problem to an issue with how Mac OS deals with vertical sync and OpenGL. We are working on a fix.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    27. Todd_Kopriva,
    Apr 3, 2013 10:50 PM   in reply to Todd_Kopriva
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    See the list of significant bug fixes in the next version of After Effects:

    http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/04/whats-new-changed-after-ef fects-next.html

     

    This issue is fixed.

     
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  • davidp158
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    28. davidp158,
    Apr 4, 2013 10:51 AM   in reply to Todd_Kopriva
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    Todd - This is good news, albeit somewhat late in coming. I was expecting Adobe would have provided a free maintainence fix for the tearing issue months ago. The new features in CS7 AE are impressive, but paying to upgrade to CS7 for "significant bug fixes" to my CS6 Master Collection is an addational cost to bear for buggy software.

     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    29. Todd_Kopriva,
    Apr 4, 2013 11:08 AM   in reply to davidp158
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    David,

     

    No one has said specifically that this bug will or won't also be in an update for CS6. I won't comment on that yet if asked, either. But keep in mind that we have many times released bug-fix updates for a previous version even after releasing a paid upgrade to the next version.

     
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