Can the quality of a monitor cause screen tearing?

[computeguy]

My monitor is a very cheap monitor that I got years ago. It's an Acer monitor, so it's not the best. Pretty sure it's 24" and 60hz. I really hate enabling Vsync, because it lowers FPS, so I tried the Adaptive Vsync that Nvidia cards have, but I'm still getting some screen tearing when the FPS goes below 60. Is Adaptive Vsync supposed to get rid of ALL screen tearing, or is my monitor causing it?

 

[XYMan]

Adaptive Vsync will only work on recent 6xx GTX cards. If you don't have one, it's understandable to have tearing. What you need to know is the bigger the difference between the monitor's refresh rate and the FPS your card is drawing the more intense tearing you're going to see. For example, if your card is drawing 100FPS in a game and your monitor can only run @ 60hz then you're going to see tearing. The logical solution to that problem, which I personally use, is keep cranking up the settings in the game I'm playing until I reach an average of 60FPS. I find that solution better than turning on Vsync to lock games @ FPS because Vsync introduces input latency.

 

[k1114]

Adaptive vsync will turn off vsync when you are below 60fps and screen tearing can occur anytime your monitor and gpu are outputting frames at different rates. Do you have triple buffering on? You may just have to leave vsync on. Your monitor is the issue.

This is off the nvidia site.

Adaptive VSync is supported on all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.

 

[bystander]

As k1114 said, adaptive v-sync turns off v-sync when your FPS drop below your refresh rate. However, I think he may have communicated about when tearing occurs. Screen tearing can occur at any time v-sync is not enabled, but it does happen more when your frame rate is higher than your refresh rate.

Triple buffering is only an option for OpenGL games, which are rare, but most DirectX games automatically use triple buffering.

This is a problem with all monitors, but v-sync is far less troublesome on 120hz monitors.