Screen tearing and higher refresh rate monitors

[itsjj]

I have a pretty high gaming rig that's able to play most games on max settings at over 60fps. The only problem is that many games have really awful screen tearing despite the fact that they look great. I've heard people that upgrade to 120hz that eliminate this problem, so I looked in to several choices for those types of displays. But then I got to thinking, is it possible that 60hz is good enough and my monitor is just not the best monitor out there? I mean, how else would thousands of other people use 60hz monitors and not have massive screen tearing issues? Does anyone have any advice on this? If possible I'd rather get a really nice 60hz ips monitor than have to spend $700 to get a tn 120hz screen.

If 120hz is the way to go, which 120hz monitor should I get? I thought http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001472 seemed like a good monitor, but apparently it has some major quality control issues so some people have trouble getting a non defective unit.

But if anyone has had experience eliminating screen tearing just switching to a better 60hz display I'm open to that suggestion as well.

Thanks in advance for the help.


Also my specs:
Intel Core i7 2700k 3.5ghz
MSI Twin FROZR GTX 580 2gb
16gb ddr3 RAM
256gb Corsair C4 ssd
1tb WD Caviar Black hdd
Samsung EM23TS 60hz 1080p 5ms response HDTV/Monitor

 

[rocknrollz]

The problem seems to be that you are getting over 60 FPS. Since your current monitor can only display 60HZ, that means it will only display 60FPS. (Still with me?)

If you are getting around 90 FPS, and you are using the 60HZ monitor, you will only be seeing 60FPS and the other "30" will mess up your refreshes. (Screen tearing).

You have two options to solve this:

1. Activate "V-Sync". This will make it so you FPS won't go over your monitors MAX refresh rate and stop the screen tearing.

2. If you are getting 20-30 FPS over 60 FPS on all your games, then get the 120HZ monitor. As there is a noticeable difference between 60FPS and 90FPS.

 

[itsjj]

Oh I forgot to mention, some of the games I'm having tearing in do not have vsync options, and forcing vsync and triple buffering in nvidia's control panel doesn't seem to help.

So you're saying that the 120hz screen should eliminate my tearing? There seems to be a lot of debate on that from what I looked up. Has anyone done this themselves to confirm?

 

[rocknrollz]

How many FPS over 60 do you get when you experience screen tearing?

 

[itsjj]

Even just a small amount over gives me screen tearing. In Crysis 2, for example, I can either play one high settings and get ~70fps but experience bad screen tearing, or crank the graphics up to ultra and get only about 50fps which eliminates tearing but is less smooth.

 

[jerseygamer]

Oh I forgot to mention, some of the games I'm having tearing in do not have vsync options, and forcing vsync and triple buffering in nvidia's control panel doesn't seem to help.

So you're saying that the 120hz screen should eliminate my tearing? There seems to be a lot of debate on that from what I looked up. Has anyone done this themselves to confirm?

First dont buy anything yet.

Buying a 120hz display will NOT stop the tearing. Forcing vsync on will. You can do this using 3rd party apps that are easily found using any decent search engine. Alot of times they do what the official control panet will not. Sounds like in your case you should consider trying some.

You have to figure out what your output is. Chances are you are on hdmi or dvi. More then likely you are capped at 60hz because of your graphics card and/or your output type. Keep this in mind when you shop for a new display.

120hz is a gimmic. Its just another way for these venders to sell new displays. Most of them dont even support anything over 60hz inputs. This is not to say that all 120hz hardware is junk just that its another way for the company to convay that the display is the latest and greates. The industry is still using a 60hz standard. Things like displayport and other more advanced options have not become standard yet and the hardware that uses those capabilities is much more expensive then your average gaming display.

For the record your display is a pile. Its about the worst choice you could make for a gaming monitor. If you tried to run a good 2-3ms gaming display next to it you would be amazed how bad that display you are using is for gaming or anything for that matter. There are 2ms lcd displays all over the place that will blow that display out of the water for less then 160$ at 23 inches.

Get vsync working even if you have to call msi to do it. Save lots of money!

 

[itsjj]

So you're saying it's that I'm in 60hz it's that my monitor sucks? I'd still like to purchase a larger monitor. Would you recommend just purchasing a 60hz 2ms monitor instead? Do you have any suggestions?

 

[rocknrollz]

@Jerseygamer

Your "opinion" about the 120HZ monitor is just that, and opinion. I, along with many others can honestly say that a 120HZ monitor does do a lot for visual appeal. (As long as you can achieve 90FPS or higher) It may be wise to state such a harsh statement as an opinion, and not as a fact that simply isn't true.

 

[citycity0603]

Hey I just have a question to ask you because I'm encountering the same problem.
Does the tearing still happening to you when your FPS is lower than your screen refresh rate?

 

[itsjj]

Hey I just have a question to ask you because I'm encountering the same problem.
Does the tearing still happening to you when your FPS is lower than your screen refresh rate?

Actually in some games it does come to think of it. Not all of them.

 

[sk1939]

@Jerseygamer

Your "opinion" about the 120HZ monitor is just that, and opinion. I, along with many others can honestly say that a 120HZ monitor does do a lot for visual appeal. (As long as you can achieve 90FPS or higher) It may be wise to state such a harsh statement as an opinion, and not as a fact that simply isn't true.

He is right in the sense that some inputs are limited to 60Hz (HDMI specifically) by the display manufactures for a variety of reasons, although this is more common when it comes to resolutions. The debate is still raging about whether or not 120Hz is worth it, and I'll reserve judgement for when I've tried it myself, but a 120Hz monitor will not necessarily fix the OP's problems, especially if he runs vsync.

 

[Connorvlindsay]

alright so I just made an account on here because I am having a massive frame-tearing problem. I get 250-300 fps in CS:GO and it is virtually unplayable, ive been reading a lot of things online about how to fix this problem and it happens in other games too. Some people say that getting a monitor with a higher refresh rate fixes the problem but others say that the monitor isn't the problem at all. I have tried limiting the fps in games to below 60 (just makes the frame tearing worse), and screwing around with v-sync and other things. most games have this problem, however it is far worse in some games than others. so if anybody could give be some advice on this topic because I don't wanna blow a ton of money on a new monitor to have it not fix the problem. Should I consider getting a new graphics card or is it a problem with other types of hardware. thanks for reading this!!

 

[itsjj]

alright so I just made an account on here because I am having a massive frame-tearing problem. I get 250-300 fps in CS:GO and it is virtually unplayable, ive been reading a lot of things online about how to fix this problem and it happens in other games too. Some people say that getting a monitor with a higher refresh rate fixes the problem but others say that the monitor isn't the problem at all. I have tried limiting the fps in games to below 60 (just makes the frame tearing worse), and screwing around with v-sync and other things. most games have this problem, however it is far worse in some games than others. so if anybody could give be some advice on this topic because I don't wanna blow a ton of money on a new monitor to have it not fix the problem. Should I consider getting a new graphics card or is it a problem with other types of hardware. thanks for reading this!!

This post is from like 4 years ago lol. But my recommendation would be to purchase a g sync monitor. G sync makes it so your display always refreshes at the exact FPS of your game. So if your game fluctuates wildly between say 60 and 120 fps the monitor will change in realtime to match.

G sync completely eliminates screen tearing and doesn't impact performance or input lag like v sync does since it's built into the hardware.

My g sync monitor is the best upgrade I've done to my pc since solid state drives came out.

 

[Jelly_Bowl]

alright so I just made an account on here because I am having a massive frame-tearing problem. I get 250-300 fps in CS:GO and it is virtually unplayable, ive been reading a lot of things online about how to fix this problem and it happens in other games too. Some people say that getting a monitor with a higher refresh rate fixes the problem but others say that the monitor isn't the problem at all. I have tried limiting the fps in games to below 60 (just makes the frame tearing worse), and screwing around with v-sync and other things. most games have this problem, however it is far worse in some games than others. so if anybody could give be some advice on this topic because I don't wanna blow a ton of money on a new monitor to have it not fix the problem. Should I consider getting a new graphics card or is it a problem with other types of hardware. thanks for reading this!!

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, I recommend using Nvidia's "fast sync" if your frame rate is that high. I use it as well, and I get no less than 200 FPS on CS:GO as well, and it completely eliminates tearing. So to enable this option, right click on your desktop> click "Nvidia Control Panel"> "Manage 3D Settings"> scroll all the way down to find "Vertical sync"> select the "fast" option under vertical sync, then after you apply it, you're good to go! Fast sync has the benefits of Vsync, but without the downside of the doubled input lag, and the terrible stuttering when playing under your refresh rate. So when you're under your monitor's refresh rate (frame rate-wise), fastsync is passive, but when you're equal to or over it, it is active. You get a slight input lag increase, but it hasn't been recorded as more than 20% increase over what you currently have, and as a real-time CS:GO player, it works well for me, and the benefit of no tearing is great. The problem is that when you're only slightly ahead of your refresh rate, you may notice very slight choppiness (any monitor above 60Hz likely won't have this), but that's due to awkward frame-times due to the way fastsync works. Aside from the fact that there is a smudge of latency, this is the only real downside. The choppiness will be less apparent with a higher frame-rate, because even in worst-case, you're gonna have short frametimes and it will be nearly the equivelant of Gsync, except instead of adapting refresh rate to framerate, it adapts rendered frames to refresh rate. I personally think that you'll have the best experience with a monitor that's 75hz+ with fast-sync and gsync. When you have frame rates that high, and when you have a refresh rate that high, you won't see any tearing above or under your refresh rate, and the input lag would only be present above your refresh rate at a maximum of 20% increase. Although, when you're dealing with over 120Hz monitors, the input lag is a lot lower than 60Hz monitors, and you'll be getting half the latency even with fast sync.