Screen flickers on higher refresh rates

[Richard-Fritsch]

• Sway Version:

  • sway version 1.7

• Debug Log:

  • debug

• Configuration File:

  • config

• Description:

  • When starting sway with a higher refresh rate than 60Hz or changing to it while it is running makes the screen flicker. The flickering occurs at different intensities, being almost unnoticeable on 120Hz, varying on 144Hz and being completely obnoxious on 75Hz.

[bragmore]

Hello,

I'm experiencing the same problem. Using anything above 60Hz causes the screen to flicker. As previously described 120Hz is almost unnoticable. My screen does however support 240Hz and it's flickering like crazy on that refresh rate.

[GrabbenD]

Experiencing this even without VRR.

Are there any workarounds?
Edit: #7087 (comment)

[ozwaldorf]

Getting extremely bad flickering on a 240Hz monitor, which unfortunately does not provide any alternative refresh rate options to workaround the issue

[emersion]

Can you reproduce the same issue on other Wayland compositors?

[ozwaldorf]

Can you reproduce the same issue on other Wayland compositors?

Hyprland works fine, swayfx fork suffers from the same upstream issue though. Can try some other compositors out too if needed (just wlroots based or others as well?)

Also, I don't have any VRR enabled

[GrabbenD]

Anecdotally I've experienced flicking when switching between various Wayland compositors (Sway -> RiverWM -> Hyprland -> Sway) within a short time span. Sticking with Sway for months-on-end usually never triggers this issue.

Workaround(s)

• My monitor supports multiple refresh rates per resolution when inspecting: $ swaymsg -t get_outputs or $ wlr-randr. Changing from mode 3840x1600@119.982Hz to mode 3840x1600@120.045Hz was one way to solve it.
• Next time it happened I unplugged the monitor from the wall socket for 24 hours to let all the capacitors drain.
• With my standing desk the Displayport cable have risk of becoming loose. I've had success fixing intermittent flickering by re-seating the Displayport cable (plugging it out from the monitor + GPU and putting it back in on both ends).
• I believe damage tracking reduces amount of re-draws to conserve power but as a consequence causes my refresh rate to dip to the minimum supported value (which is 8Hz for my specific monitor) when VRR is enabled. Because of this I have to make sure to only use VRR when playing fullscreened video or games to avoid flickering in desktop:
  Automatic VRR management #5076 (comment)