Is there a better way to reduce screen tearing

[SmokeDarKnight]

Gaming on my Laptop i assume that the monitor is restricted to 60HZ so i quite often get a lot of screen tearing.

I know that V-synch reduces screen tearing but does that also hinder the graphics performance of the card?

Guild wars 2 for examply with V-synch off i get 80fps which drops to 65 sometimes

With V-synch on i obviously get a constant 60 however it drops to 45 to 50 sometimes.

Has anyone got better methods for controlling screen taring? Am i correct in thinking this would still be a problem if i used an external monitor because the motherboard gpu connections on a laptop only alllow for 60hz?

 

[Kalisnoir]

Gaming on my Laptop i assume that the monitor is restricted to 60HZ so i quite often get a lot of screen tearing.

I know that V-synch reduces screen tearing but does that also hinder the graphics performance of the card?

Guild wars 2 for examply with V-synch off i get 80fps which drops to 65 sometimes

With V-synch on i obviously get a constant 60 however it drops to 45 to 50 sometimes.

Has anyone got better methods for controlling screen taring? Am i correct in thinking this would still be a problem if i used an external monitor because the motherboard gpu connections on a laptop only alllow for 60hz?

Have you tried triple buffering?

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

Have you tried triple buffering?

NNNNNNNNooooo. i don't think so, i've only seen it in Tomb Raider.

I'll have a look in CCC tonight.

Some of the forms suggested D3DOverrider but havent had a chance to try it yet.

 

[Grimezy]

I don't really understand screen tearing.. I get that it's when like the bottom half of the screen doesn't keep up with the top half but I've never actually experienced it :\

Does it happen in all games for you? I'd assume it would be better to keep v-sync on and help reduce the issue. Your frame rate may drop now and then but unless it's visually noticeable when it drops then it may be better in the long run to keep it on?

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

Happens in most of my games. As far as I can tell its if your graphics card is more powerful than the screen I.e the gpu can handle over 60hz but the monitor cant and as a result you get screen tare. I get it a lot on sleeping dogs. Just wandered if vsync was restricting my graphics performance when switched on and if so if there was a better form of mitigating the tearing

 

[NilSatis]

You can do a few things to stop screen tearing in some games; normally vsync would be the best bet; but you need to make sure that the card can keep the action at 60 or it will get drops. Another way to do it would be to cap the framerate with a tool such as Msi Afterburner, and leave vsync off ingame. That way you can also use Afterburner to set a custom fan profile aswell which is far more effective that the one the driver will install, if you spend a few mins to set one up.

If capping the framerate, make sure to use the osd available in Afterburner to determine what your framerate is during the game anyway, and it would be worth capping it somewhere near the 60 mark to avoid screen tearing. Some screens/games have a slightly different refresh rate, either 59/60 and occaisionally vsync struggles. I must admit I dont have a problem with many games, but some have awful problems implementing vsync. Mount and Blade Warband for example: if frames arent limited and vsync is used runs like a dog; without vsync I get 200fps on maximum settings on a 7970; so I obviously need to frame cap. Luckily that game comes with options to do exactly that, which means i can set it to a certain number of fps and eliminate the problem. Strangely because of the problems mentioned above, capping at 60 would introduce screen tearing; anything above or just below it works just fine.

So with your card, best bet is to try and use vsync in game at lower settings so that even when on, you can hold 60 solid fps. If this is not possible, then you will get more lag than not and sometimes jumps down to 30fps; it will either run it at 60 or 30. Id imagine if anything like my girlfriends, that 6990m will run 40-50 fps on pretty much max most things (apart from the latest games out...tomb raider etc) so best bet would be to cap framerate somewhere the card can handle, or use vsync at lower settings, or simply try vsync on most games and see how it feels. You need to monitor games fps in game to know. Again Afterburner is ideal. Triple buffering will definitely help too in some cases with reducing input lag.

Mainly vsync is good to use (on cards that exceed 60fps in games) unless you can feel input lag. Input lag becomes a bit of an issue with vsync enabled. The delay introduced increases the difference between when something actually happened (when the frame was drawn) and when it gets displayed on screen. Input lag always exists (it is impossible to instantaneously draw what is currently happening to the screen), but the trick is to minimize it. Games like Skyrim (which have a built in frame limiter) run much much better whilst using Afterburner to cap the framerate to 58 for me. I cant tell exactly why; but some games seem to prefer this method to others. Have an experiment.

 

[adator]

Have you tried putting v-sync to adaptive?

It "Adaptive VSync in essence dynamically changes between VSync on and off automatically to deliver no tearing above the refresh rate, yet no FPS drop. Quite simply, with Adaptive VSync VSync is turned on, capping the game to the refresh rate of your display. It will cap to 60 FPS on 60Hz displays, or 120 FPS on 120Hz displays. This eliminates tearing. Secondly, if the framerate drops below your refresh rate VSync shuts off and allows your framerate to run in real-time. Then, when the FPS gets back up to your refresh rate, VSync kicks on and keeps the image from tearing. "


Edit: Just saw above you have a AMD card I don't think they have adaptive v-sync :/