Screen tearing...

[Converge]

Hey guys,

i was just curious, if you have v-sync enabled that stops screen tearing correct?

So if you dont, is it dependant on the graphics card whether you get it badly not so badly, or not at all... or is it the monitor itself, sorry if that seems a bit of a daft question!

 

[helmutcheese]

Yes it stops tearing but I have never had tearing ever but do not game on LCD.

 

[mame]

Your monitor captures frames at 60fps (or whatever you have you refresh rate set to) Your graphics card renders and sends as many frames as fast as it possibly can. Without v-sync, you get max fps but as the 2 things are out of sync you can get tearing as the monitor is capturing a frame while the gfx card can be in-between rendering 2 frames. How bad this looks depends on your setup and what game you are playing. Just how well they all get on really. Some games might show little tearing while others might suffer. With v-sync on, your graphics card renders a full frame and then waits untill your monitor is ready to take the next frame. The full image is then sent with no tearing. The only downside of this is, if you are playing a game that might run at 40-50fps without v-sync, and then you enable v-sync, the fps can suffer quite a bit as your graphics card is forever just missing 1 frame to send to your monitor and so just waits for the next 1. If a game runs at high fps 60+ all the time, then i use v-sync. If i'm playing a game that runs at 50fps or lower then i leave v-sync off as the higher fps is worth having even with tearing.

 

[Converge]

Ok thanks mate, that really helps me out, cheers

 

[Skeeter]

One thing ive noticed with mine is that it seems to jump from full to half frames?

Ive got a HannsG HW191D 19" Widescreen and a 7800GT. ITs running at 75 Hertz, so Vsync limited to 75fps. Thing is, it seems if a game starts to drop below this, it then will drop straight down to 37/38 (i suppose 37.5) fps... there doesnt appear to be middle ground. This is most apparent ins CS, bust also seems to appear in most other games.

On the other side of things however, I can run UT2004 at 120 fps and there is no tearing at all (the reason Vsync is on is due to tearing in most games)

 

[Greebo]

Enable Triple Buffering as well.

With a 60Hz refresh rate on a monitor this enables the fps to drop to 45fps if it drops below 60fps. If it drops below 45fps then it will go to 30fps.

So I guess in your case you would then drop to 56 fps. Only if you dropped below 56fps would you then drop to 37/38.

Tearing varies from game to game. Some games I have to have it switched on even though I only get 70+ fps. In others running at 100+ fps I have no tearing at all.

Just switch both v-sync and triple buffering on for the games where you are affected by tearing.

Hope that helps