Image Tearing In Games - Any Help Appreciated!

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Hello all. I recently bought a new computer for gaming. It's pretty good, and far exceeds the recommended specs of every game I play. Currently, I'm playing Gears of War PC and BioShock PC. The games look incredible, and the framerates are very smooth, even with max settings. However, there is some very bad image tearing when I turn around/move the camera around. It looks like it's not VSYNCing correctly. I have tried changing the in game settings, changing the NVIDIA settings, updating my Forceware drivers from the last stable release (169.02) to the newest beta release (169.12). Nothing has worked, and the image tearing still persists. All of my drivers are up to date and running the latest 64-bit versions.

I am kind of bummed out, because I dropped all this money for a new computer, and it can't even run games right. Please help me fix this problem, as I know a computer of my caliber shouldn't be doing this. Thanks in advance!

My system specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (running factory settings 2.66 GHz)
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Motherboard
4 GB of G-Skill DDR2-800 RAM (running factory settings)
BFG OC 512 MB 8800GT (running at factory settings)
Acer 22" 2223W LCD Monitor
Rosewill 600W PSU
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit

 

[JustaGeek]

You will not be able to eliminate it ,due to the monitor's low 60MHz Refresh Rate.

It will be less prominent on a CRT with 85MHz+ refresh rate, but this is obviously not an option. The Video Card produces way more FPS than your Monitor can process at only 60 per second, which leads to tearing.

VSync should help, but then the FPS of Video Card drops dramatically.

Just learn to live with it, and enjoy your new system!

 

[JustaGeek]

A bit of reading material on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

 

[taltamir]

Wait, you said you turned on vsync in the game, and even trying forcing it in drivers?

Bioshock and Crysis are the only two new games that don't let you enable it in game... and both BADLY need it because they are FPS.

Go the nvidia control panel:
3D settings > Manage 3D settings > Vertical Sync
And change it from "application-controlled" to "Force On"

That should completely eliminate tearing in every game.


And justageek.. its not something you should learn to live with, there are solutions...
Turning it on doesn't harm FPS THAT much... having over 60fps is useless anyways since those frames aren't displayed by your monitor (60hz = 60 frames per second) and tearing is MUCH worse on lower FPS.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

I have tried enabling it in both Gears and BioShock, and it didn't do anything. I just changed the NVIDIA settings to force VSYNC with Triple Buffering, so I hope that will help!

And JustAGeek, thanks for the info, but I agree with taltamir here. I have read up on FPS and refresh rate, and the human eye cannot distinguish anything beyond 60 FPS and 60 Hertz. Anything above and beyond that is just gravy to ensure that it stays smooth.

I will report back after trying Gears and BioShock with the NVIDIA VSYNC forced On!

Originally posted by: taltamir
Wait, you said you turned on vsync in the game, and even trying forcing it in drivers?

Bioshock and Crysis are the only two new games that don't let you enable it in game... and both BADLY need it because they are FPS.

Go the nvidia control panel:
3D settings > Manage 3D settings > Vertical Sync
And change it from "application-controlled" to "Force On"

That should completely eliminate tearing in every game.


And justageek.. its not something you should learn to live with, there are solutions...
Turning it on doesn't harm FPS THAT much... having over 60fps is useless anyways since those frames aren't displayed by your monitor (60hz = 60 frames per second) and tearing is MUCH worse on lower FPS.

 

[taltamir]

I am wondering if your monitor could maybe have an atrocious refresh rate... how many ms is it rated for? if it is 12 or under then with vsync tearing shouldn't be an issue.
I don't know about triple buffering. I left mine on off, and I had horrible tearing with crysis (an inch across) until I changed vsync to force on (and left triple buffering off) and then it completely disappeared.

 

[RyanPaulShaffer]

Success! Forcing VSYNC in the NVIDIA control panel removed all the tearing from both Gears and BioShock, and I haven't noticed any performance loss!

As for my monitor's refresh rate, it is 5 MS.

Thanks taltamir! Do you know if Triple Buffering has any side effects? It didn't say in the control panel. I just left it enabled for now.

Off to play Gears online! With no tearing.

Originally posted by: taltamir
I am wondering if your monitor could maybe have an atrocious refresh rate... how many ms is it rated for? if it is 12 or under then with vsync tearing shouldn't be an issue.
I don't know about triple buffering. I left mine on off, and I had horrible tearing with crysis (an inch across) until I changed vsync to force on (and left triple buffering off) and then it completely disappeared.

 

[fluxquantum]

this is good to know. i haven't had too much tearing on my samsung 22" but it does occur occasionally. will give this a try. thanks.

 

[taltamir]

glad you got it resolved. Enjoy your tear free gaming

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Success! Forcing VSYNC in the NVIDIA control panel removed all the tearing from both Gears and BioShock, and I haven't noticed any performance loss!

As for my monitor's refresh rate, it is 5 MS.

Thanks taltamir! Do you know if Triple Buffering has any side effects? It didn't say in the control panel. I just left it enabled for now.

Off to play Gears online! With no tearing.

Using vsync is the only way to avoid tearing, and aside from capping your framerate at 60fps, it won't generally effects your performance as long as you are using triple buffering.

Triple buffering allocates video for a place to store finished frames between refreshes. That allows the GPU to render continuously, like it does without vsync, and instead of stalling as it otherwise would while waiting for vsync. So triple buffering can lead to texture thrashing on the rare chance that a game was already nearly maxing out the VRAM with only double buffering, but otherwise it only helps maintain better framerates with vsync.

Also, 5ms is a mesurment of your monitor's response time, which has nothing to do with it's refresh rate.

 

[JustaGeek]

In my experience, VSync would always adversely affect performance. Doom 3 or Far Cry would have slow-downs, or develop "jittery/stuttery" performance with cards like 7950GT or 7800GS.

Haven't tried it with 8800GT yet, and perhaps this card has enough "headroom" to compensate for lost FPS.

Will give it a try... But honestly, it doesn't really bother me...

A question of personal preference, I guess...

 

[kylebisme]

Nah, vsync can cause what you describe when it is used with only double buffering rather than triple buffering.