Screen flicker when Terminal is opened on top of Skype window

[13xforever]

Environment

Windows build number: 10.0.18363 (Windows 10 1909)
Windows Terminal version (if applicable): 0.8.10261.0 (latest Windows Store release)
Built-in Skype app: 14.56.102.0
GPU: Intel HD 530 (desktop skylake) using drivers 100.7463-100.7755, running dual-monitor setup at 1080p each

Steps to reproduce

Open Skype and maximize the window, open Windows Terminal with any profile that is using acrylic effect (I have it set at 0.75 for cmd, for example), observe flicker on repaint.

Not sure if relevant, but I have animated emojis visible in the skype window.

You can also have other legacy windows between skype and terminal (placing some modern app in-between can stop this issue)

Expected behavior

Repaint is unnoticeable

Actual behavior

Screen flickers

[DHowett-MSFT]

Really! If you place Calculator on top of Skype (calculator has a lot of acrylic) without Terminal, does it also flicker?

[13xforever]

Calculator seems to be unaffected, and I haven't noticed any flicker in other apps before for that matter.

Not sure if this would be helpful, but here's a bad video that demonstrates the issue.

Also from tests on other hardware, it seems to be Intel-specific, I couldn't reproduce this on a dedicated nVidia GPU.

[DHowett-MSFT]

Well yep, that's rather bad. Thanks for the report!

[DHowett-MSFT]

I'm concerned this might be related to the use of acrylic in xaml islands. Maybe #778 will make this less bad as we'll be redrawing the entire screen less?

[Priddlesaur]

I'm experiencing a very similar issue which I believe is related to this one.

When I have the Terminal open and overlap it on top of Windows Media Player, it will flicker just like this, but only when the media player controls fade in and out.

I'm running a dedicated Nvidia GPU and an AMD CPU without integrated graphics.

[13xforever]

I was unable to reproduce this on an Intel UHD Graphics 620 (mobile kaby lake-r) with the same drivers (100.7262-100.7755) on Windows 10 2004 (10.0.19041) with a 4K screen.

[vslynko]

I observe the same problem:

• Screen flickering is always happening when terminal is in focus
• No matter whether acrylic effect is enabled or not
• GeForce GTX 1080 with driver 442.50 (but also previous version)
• On light backgrounds the flickering is hard to notice, but still possible. On dark backgrounds it's very annoying
• No matter what other apps are on the screen - VS2019, Netflix, vscode etc, flickering happens only when terminal is in focus.
• Windows 10 64bit latest updates as of time of writing
• Also non of apps need to be full screen, but flickering is visible on the top screen border.

But thanks for doing a great job.

[davefp]

@vslynko this is the exact problem I'm having. Glad it's not just me!

[davefp]

@vslynko I had success turning off G-Sync for Terminal as described in #649, perhaps that will be useful for you too.

[vslynko]

Yes, turning G-Sync off helps. Some issue and some solution also present for Plex.

[vadviktor]

Why turning off G-Sync is a solution? I don't want to go in every time I want to play or want to code into Nvidia's panel to flip switches.

Update: Sorry, I just had to get to this other issue where someone explained a viable solution that may fit most people who play games.

#649 (comment)

I want to add that you will have to set it to full-screen apps only, then turn off G-Sync and back again to pick up the correct settings. It did not work for my monitor to change on the fly while G-Sync was turned on.

[vslynko]

@vadviktor - it was suggested to turn off G-sync only for terminal process, as a workaround.