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Thread ID: 94515 2008-11-02 03:45:00 How to prevent page tearing qazwsxokmijn (102) Press F1
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716604 2008-11-02 03:45:00 I've just got a new widescreen 20inch monitor today, and when I play Bioshock I've noticed that I get page tearing. I play the game at 1680x1050, and I find that by turning on vertical sync, the page tearing is almost gone.

Problem with vsync is it locks my FPS at 60 and after reading the internet they say vsync can decrease overall frame rate. Is there any way I could prevent page tearing without turning on vsync?
qazwsxokmijn (102)
716605 2008-11-02 03:50:00 Vsync gets rid of tearing, which is the flickering\rippling effect you see when more than one "frame" is being displayed when your monitor refreshes. The down side is that vsync causes your framerate to either match your refresh rate or be halved if your PC can't keep up (and halved again if it still cant keep up). ie, your refresh rate is 60Hz so your framerate gets rounded down to 60fps, 30fps, 15fps, 7.5fps...

With triple buffering, you get the benefits of vsync without the framerate being rounded down. It still won't be quite as fast as running without vsync, but in some games tearing is extremely obvious and to some people its extremely irritating.
pctek (84)
716606 2008-11-02 04:39:00 Cheers pctek. So does the problem lie in the new monitor or the 8800GT card being unable to make it work with the new monitor? I'm getting a 4870 on Monday or Tuesday, so hopefully the new card will get rid of the problem. qazwsxokmijn (102)
716607 2008-11-02 09:16:00 After reading some things on the net, I found that it's the LCD screens' 60Hz refresh rate that causes tearing. But what I don't get is why it affects some games, all games or none at all?

I play STALKER and though the FPS exceeds 60, I still don't get any tearing. With my old 17" screen, I never got any tearing in any games even when I was getting over 90 FPS in Bioshock. Bioshock is the only game right now having the problem with my new 20" screen.

Any ideas?
qazwsxokmijn (102)
716608 2008-11-02 19:38:00 LCD screens' 60Hz refresh rate that causes tearing.
I play STALKER and I don't get any tearing. With my old 17" screen, I never got any tearing

Combination of things.

And its why CRTs are still better for gaming. Until LCDs can get rid of the 60hz.

Put the resolution in the game down.
pctek (84)
716609 2008-11-02 20:25:00 Thanks pctek. qazwsxokmijn (102)
716610 2008-11-03 09:27:00 whats the monitors native res? kersonan (13264)
716611 2008-11-03 09:40:00 1680x1050, but I use 1440x900 for desktop, the latter for Crysis only and the former for every other games (eg STALKER, Bioshock, Black and White 2).

I haven't tried playing the other games at 1440x900 to see if that gets rid of tearing without Vsync, but I guess 1680x1050 with Vsync on doesn't hurt. I'm gonna see if my new 4870 can get rid of the tearing at 1680x1050.
qazwsxokmijn (102)
716612 2008-11-04 04:04:00 Another option is to save up for a good lcd like the Samsung Syncmaster 22 with 2ms response time Silver_Blade (10144)
716613 2008-11-04 05:03:00 I don't know what the response times do for the performance, but mine is 5ms, which is pretty good. qazwsxokmijn (102)
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