Screen tearing while playing graphics intensive games

Ok this is very strange but whenever i'm playing games like GRAW, CoD2 or Oblivion i'm witnessing screen tearing.. Its on my inspiron 9400.. The screen flickers when there is fast movement.. Even in the intro movie of CoD2, its like i'm watching a real low-res movie on a widescreen.. It stops when i enable Vsync in game but the frames drop drastically... Does anyone have a solution or did anyone experience this on their Dell?

 

Graphical tearing occurs whenever the video card is drawing frames too rapidly for the screen to display. V-sync doesnt let the video card draw more frames than the monitor can display. Therefore it stops tearing. You're going to have to accept a max of 60FPS in order to stop the tearing.

 

Lol.. The frames drop to 30 when i turn V-sync on.. They dont exceed tht limit.. I wanna get atleast 50fps for smooth gameplay... Is there any solution? The problem is i witness tearing At 45 or 50fps in GRAW.. And in oblivion at 35fps it starts...

 

Sorry, I was thinking in CRT terms. You're going to be stuck with 30 on a LCD.

You could try rasing the graphics to lower the FPS.

 

Does tht mean my 7900gs is a ******** GPU tht cant display 40-50fps without tearing? OMFG!!!!

 

um, what do you think happens when you run a game at, say, 5000 fps without vsync?
That's right, it updates the screen 30 times per second, and throws the remaining 4570 frames away. Does the game become more smooth? No. Do you get anything other than a bigger number in the FPS counter in the corner of the screen? Nope.

So there's really not much reason to disable vsync typically.

And this is nothing to do with your GPU. It can render plenty of frames, and isn't responsible for tearing.

What happens is that without vsync, your GPU just sends a new frame to the monitor as soon as it's ready. If this is done while the monitor is drawing a frame, the data it reads from is changed halfway through, so the top half of the screen ends up displaying frame #6543, while the bottom half shows #6544. There's no way for the GPU to know this, except by enabling vsync, which simply makes sure that the GPU only sends a new frame when the monitor is ready to start from the top on a new frame, ensuring that the entire screen is drawn with the same frame.

 

So i'm supposed to stick with 30fps is tht wat ur saying? Am i the only one who is experiencing this? And there is a noticable difference between 30fps and 40fps, its a fact! There goes my money for wanting more than 30fps...

 

I've only experienced this a few times, mostly with games like Prey and Doom 3. The 1500M dominates these games and they never go below 59 fps and typically go above 60.

Just leave VSYNC on. You may not need all of the 7900's power for games like GRAW (though you should for Oblivion), but you will some day, so don't worry about it. And technically, 30fps is quite good considering that most movies and console video games are only rendered at 30fps max...

 

Well, you have three options. Either live with the tearing, which will *more or less* give you the desired framerate (at least up to 60FPS, at which point, all you get for having vsync disabled is extra tearing), or run at 30 FPS in games that can't handle 60FPS, or upgrade to something that can run 60FPS or more in *every* game.

The amount of tearing might also vary a bit from monitor to monitor, so buying a different screen could solve part of the problem too.

Nope, it happens to everyone. It's the only way to handle the fact that monitors have limited refresh rates. Either you update the screen when they're ready for it, which limits how often you can update, or you update halfway through a frame and get tearing.

 

all GPU's do that, its your moneter, but all moneters do that too. its just a problem we have right now. As for an lcd having to be below 30, i don't experence any tearing below 60, in fact, it starts tearing at exactly 61, so i don't know where he got the number 30 from...

 

Thts exactly wat i'm trying to ask! Why am i observing this below 60fps? It starts at different numbers for different games. Like i said in Oblivion it starts at 30-35 fps which is strange..

I even tried turning on V-sync in GRAW.. In the resolution drop box i picked 1280x800@60Hz but I'm still experiencing tearing..

 

I believe that I am experiencing this in The Witcher. The screen has horizontal lines that seem to flash when things start to heat up a bit.

My problem is that I don't have an option in the game to turn on/off V-sync.

What should I do, is there anyway to turn V-sync on without it being in the games settings?

Thanks

 

You may force V-sync using the Nvidia control panel, either through the global setting or under the game specific profile for The Witcher.

 

Are you sure there isn't an option under the advanced tab in the game options menu? If there isn't one then do what Dragonpet advises and see if it helps.

 

My 6100 doesnt Tear on Vsync OFF while playing HL2 Mods..

Sorry to sound cheesy but u ll have to try updating video drivers. NO NO wait..
Before that go to manage 3D settings & enable 'Triple Buffering' alongwith Vsync...

It ll improve your framerate.

If it doesnt let me know.

 

I am quite sure it is not in the advanced settings.

Also, how do I get to my Nvidia control panel and force the Vsync?

 

Right-click on the desktop and the nvidia control panel option should appear. Go to "Manage 3D settings" and Vsync force on should appear as an option on the Vsync option around the bottom of the list of changeable items.

 

Got it, thanks