nvidia-glx-180.35 and above drivers exhibit 3d glitches

Further testing shows that the weird polygons are only being drawn in the 1680x1050 resolution - if I drop it down to 1400x1050, objects are rendered fine. It's still a regression from 180.29 though where everything worked at the full resolution.

The video card is:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8600M GT (rev a1)

The 180.41 driver is a slight improvement - see attached image, which is of a couple of cars. However, the first level is still unplayable.

The 180.44 driver is a further improvement, but the regression is still there (see attached - this screen used to be drawn as three grey polygons, but now there are just a few extra spikes).

[This is an automated message]

In Jaunty (9.04), we have just updated to the latest
nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package from nVidia, version 180.44.

This package provides fixes for a large number of bugs, and we need your
assistance in testing if it fixes the issue you reported.

To do this, please do the following:

 a. Update to the 180.44 version of -nvidia using your favorite update
     method

 b. Attempt to reproduce your bug

 c. If your bug still remains, please simply reply to this email
     indicating so.

 d. If your bug is now solved, you can help us by setting your bug
     report to Fix Released:
     * In launchpad, go to your bug report
     * Click on the downward pointing arrow under Status
     * Set the Status field to 'Fix Released'
     * Comment on the change, such as, 'Verified fixed in 180.44'
     * Click 'Save Changes'

 e. If the original problem is solved but there are now other problems,
     please close the original bug and open new ones for those issues.

Thank you!

For details on the changes in this version of -nvidia, please see:

   http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_180.44.html

The bug still remains although its impact has been reduced (see comment #8).

Someone in the nvidia forums has found a workaround (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=1985255). The following settings in xorg.conf fix the problem (I tested with 185.19 and ran glitch-free):

    Option "RenderAccel" "True"
    Option "NoLogo" "True"
    Option "NoRenderExtension" "False"
    Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
    Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
    Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
    Option "AllowSHMPixmaps" "1"
    Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "True"
    Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "True"

Perhaps one or more of the defaults for these changed in 180.35 and is causing the problem.

I've posted a new version of the -nvidia driver to our xorg-edgers PPA,
would you mind testing it either on Jaunty or Karmic and see if it
resolves this bug?

Get nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 - 185.18.14 here:

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa

185.18.14 in Jaunty fixes the glitches, thanks.

This bug was fixed in the package nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 - 185.18.14-0ubuntu1

---------------
nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 (185.18.14-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * New upstream release (LP: #376067):
    - Fixed a Xinerama drawable resource management problem that can
      cause GLXBadDrawable errors in certain cases, such as when Wine
      applications are run.
      (LP: #344721)
    - Fixed XineramaQueryScreens to return 0 screens instead of 1
      screen with the geometry of screen 0 when XineramaIsActive
      returns false. This conforms to the Xinerama manual page and
      fixes an interaction problem with Compiz when there is more
      than one X screen.
    - Moved kernel module loading earlier in the X driver's
      initialization, to facilitate more graceful fallbacks if the
      kernel module cannot be loaded. Removed the LoadKernelModule X
      configuration option.
    - Added support for new horizontal interlaced and checkerboard
      passive stereo modes.
    - Fixed an OpenGL driver crash while running Bibble 5.
    - Fixed a DisplayPort interaction problem with power management
      suspend/resume events.
    - Fixed occasional X driver memory management performance
      problems when a composite manager is running.
      (LP: 294925)
    - Fixed a bug with VT-switching or mode-switching while using
      Compiz; the bug could lead to a corrupted desktop (e.g., a
      white screen) or in the worst case an X server crash.
    - Fixed a bug that could cause GPU errors in some cases while
      driving Quadro SDI products.
    - Fixed a several second hang when VT-switching while OpenGL
      stereo applications were running on pre-G80 Quadro GPUs.
    - Added support for multiple swap group members on G80 and later
      Quadro GPUs.
    - Fixed the behavior of the NV_CTRL_FRAMELOCK_SYNC_DELAY
      NV-CONTROL attribute on Quadro G-Sync II.
    - Fixed a problem with Quadro SDI where transitioning from
      "clone mode" to "OpenGL mode" would fail.
    - Fixed VDPAU to eliminate some cases of corruption when decoding
      H.264 video containing field-coded reference frames on G84, G86,
      G92, G94, G96, or GT200 GPUs. Such streams are commonly found in
      DVB broadcasts.
    - Slightly improved the performance of the VDPAU noise reduction
      algorithm.
    - Enhanced VDPAU to validate whether overlay usage is supported by
      the current hardware configuration, and to automatically fall
      back to the blit-based presentation queue if required.
    - Fixed error checking in VdpVideoMixerRender, to reject calls
      that specify more layers than the VdpMixer was created with.
    - Modified VDPAU's VDPAU_DEBUG code to emit a complete backtrace
      on all platforms, not just on 32-bit Linux.
    - Improved interaction between VDPAU and PowerMizer; appropriate
      performance levels should now be chosen for video playback of all
      standard resolutions on all supported GPUs.
    - Fixed a bug in VDPAU that sometimes caused "display preemption"
      when the VdpDecoderCreate function failed.
    - Fixed a potential segfault in the VDPAU trace library, triggered
      by a multi-threade...