Screen Tearing with PS3 & 360 games.

Black Dog

Black Dog

Black Dog

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Hi,

just wanted to discuss with people about an issue that is really annoying the hell out of me and that's v-sync issues with the next generation consoles.:mad:

I have noticed that nearly every game I have on the PS3 has annoying screen tearing, it annoys my so much that I don't really want to play the game anymore. Drakes Fortune and Logo Starwars are prime examples. Why is this? I understand they do it to keep the game running smoothly when the frame rate drops but why is the frame rate dropping in the first place? The games are specifically designed to play on the console so why doesn't the game run perfectly? if the game is going to slow down they need to optimize the game before releasing it. Maybe a few frame rate issues will be present if the game is a lazy port from another console but the screen tearing really grates on me. I thought it may just be the PS3 but many 360 games also have this problem.
The other day I opened up my newly bought Lego Starwars and started playing it to discover to my horror screen tearing from the word go. I mean the games isn't exactly pushing the PS3 to it's limits but the tearing is present on every level, the only way to stop the tearing is to change to 576P resolution but it looks crap. Resistance fall of Man & Ratchet & Klank both run beautifully without any problems so I know the developers can do it if they want.
I have had many consoles in the past and played hundreds of games any not one has had v-sync issues. Why is it that with the 360 and PS3 have these issues and will they ever sort it out?:mad:

Does it annoy anyone else or is it just me? :confused:
 
I haven't noticed much tearing on recent 360 games but the tearing on Uncharted was really doing my head in, there's no need for it! :(
 
more people notice it than others, certain HDTV are worse than others. Me personally don't find it too distracting, ceratinly never really noticed it on Drakes for ps3 or lego Starwars on 360, but there have been a few culprits in the past
 
more people notice it than others, certain HDTV are worse than others. Me personally don't find it too distracting, ceratinly never really noticed it on Drakes for ps3
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Are you serious? the screen tearing is so bad on Drakes that anyone would notice it!
 
Black Dog said:
Why is it that with the 360 and PS3 have these issues and will they ever sort it out?:mad:
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It's all down to the developers and their (sloppy!) programming.

To get a nice 60fps, they render the frame, wait for the v-sync (the start of the picture being sent to the telly), swap frame buffer, and start again. What's important that the next frame is rendered within 16.666 milliseconds. If so, they can get a nice clean 60fps.

They render too much, or try to do too much per frame, and it takes longer than the 16.666ms so it can't achieve a clean 60fps, and they don't want to run at an even (but slow) 30fps (giving them 33.333ms per frame), so instead they swap framebuffers whenever the next rendered screen is ready - so the switchover can happen at any position on screen so the TV displays part of one frame, then part of the next - hence the nasty tear.

It doesn't matter what sort of TV either (as some people think), TV's are dumb creatures and only display what is sent to them. They are not responsible for tearing.
 
wyrdo said:
I haven't noticed much tearing on recent 360 games but the tearing on Uncharted was really doing my head in, there's no need for it! :(
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Recent games, Mass Effect is bad as well. So far though the games on the 360 are much better for it than they where say 12-18 months ago.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Recent games, Mass Effect is bad as well. So far though the games on the 360 are much better for it than they where say 12-18 months ago.
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Yes! I was trying to think a 360 game I'd been playing that had tearing, I can't believe I forgot Mass Effect although that hasn't bothered me too much but it is there.
 
wyrdo said:
Yes! I was trying to think a 360 game I'd been playing that had tearing, I can't believe I forgot Mass Effect although that hasn't bothered me too much but it is there.
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Yeah it's harder to notice in Mass Effect because your too busy laughing at the combat in between screen freezes ;)

Maybe its not tearing but interference from the defib my wife had to keep shocking me with after some of the dialogue ;)
 
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