Need help: sudden screen tearing when playing games

[thepesterer]

Hello to all tech savvies, this is my first post in this forum, so please bear with me with this one.

I'm running games on a laptop, i7 4710hq, 8GB ram, and gtx860m, just yesterday I got this sudden screen tearing problems that I've never had before, fps seems fine, but it's noticably more jittery than usual.

I do realize that I can eliminate this with vsync, but it introduces input lags that I'm not content with, especially not since I've been playing without severe screen-tearing without using vsync the whole time, thus I really don't wanna be using vsync.

I have tried reinstalling and rollbacking the driver multiple time to no avail. Any idea what else could be causing this other than the driver? Could the problem lie in the hardware instead?

thank you in advance

 

[Sasqui]

Sounds like a background process is eating into your CPU or GPU time... assuming you really never had tearing previously.

 

[Ebo]

Mabye roll back to an older driver for GFX ?.

 

[qubit]

There's always screen tearing and judder without vsync, it's simply more noticeable in some circumstances than others.

Your hardware won't be at fault here. However, the myriad of updates to the drivers, Windows, game and graphics settings can cause this. In particular, if something is causing the framerate to drop, then it would tend to be more noticeable.

Run Fraps to measure your framerate.

www.fraps.com

 

[Gasaraki]

There's always screen tearing and judder without vsync, it's simply more noticeable in some circumstances than others.

Your hardware won't be at fault here. However, the myriad of updates to the drivers, Windows, game and graphics settings can cause this. In particular, if something is causing the framerate to drop, then it would tend to be more noticeable.

Run Fraps to measure your framerate.

www.fraps.com

That is correct. If you never used v-sync then you always had tearing. Certain games you would notice it more. For me playing Andromeda, the tearing is super fuckin annoying. No other games made me feel that way.

 

[thepesterer]

There's always screen tearing and judder without vsync, it's simply more noticeable in some circumstances than others.

Your hardware won't be at fault here. However, the myriad of updates to the drivers, Windows, game and graphics settings can cause this. In particular, if something is causing the framerate to drop, then it would tend to be more noticeable.

Run Fraps to measure your framerate.

www.fraps.com

I didn't run fraps, but the games that I was playing do keep track of my fps (was playing arma3, world of tanks, and gta5 yesterday), and the fps figures did look just like any other day, but I did notice that the tearing actually got worse after I did the 2nd reinstall of my driver, do you think it's a legitimate cause? is there any way to remedy this?

 

[P4-630]

Run Fraps to measure your framerate.

Running fraps fps counter caused fps drops on my gaming laptop, I quit using it.
Best is using Steam built-in fps counter if your games are on steam.

 

[qubit]

I didn't run fraps, but the games that I was playing do keep track of my fps (was playing arma3, world of tanks, and gta5 yesterday), and the fps figures did look just like any other day, but I did notice that the tearing actually got worse after I did the 2nd reinstall of my driver, do you think it's a legitimate cause? is there any way to remedy this?

Well, as I said, there's so many variables that can alter rendering behaviour that it's impossible to pin it down to one thing. Certainly the driver version can have an effect. The solution is just to use vsync or you'll always get tearing to some degree or other.

The only other way to reduce the effect without vsync is to have a high refresh monitor eg 144Hz and have the game render at something like 250fps+. The tears and judders at those rates are so small, that they're hardly noticeable. Oh and responsiveness is amazing. NVIDIA FastSync available on 9 and 10 serioes cards takes advantage of this to give you the best of both worlds.

Of course, this level of hardware all costs money and this level of performance isn't always possible to maintain. On your laptop, your best bet is just to use vsync as you'll be on a hiding to nothing otherwise.

 

[P4-630]

On your laptop, your best bet is just to use vsync

Couldn't agree more, it's just a GTX860M, in some games you might want to use RTSS to lock the fps resulting in a more smooth gameplay,
I do this on my gaming laptop (GTX770M) as well in certain games, stable fps means good gameplay.

 

[thepesterer]

Well, as I said, there's so many variables that can alter rendering behaviour that it's impossible to pin it down to one thing. Certainly the driver version can have an effect. The solution is just to use vsync or you'll always get tearing to some degree or other.

The only other way to reduce the effect without vsync is to have a high refresh monitor eg 144Hz and have the game render at something like 250fps+. The tears and judders at those rates are so small, that they're hardly noticeable. Oh and responsiveness is amazing. NVIDIA FastSync available on 9 and 10 serioes cards takes advantage of this to give you the best of both worlds.

Of course, this level of hardware all costs money and this level of performance isn't always possible to maintain. On your laptop, your best bet is just to use vsync as you'll be on a hiding to nothing otherwise.

I tried upping my settings in some games, like for instance, I cranked up the settings until I got like 40fps in BF1, yet I'm still getting the screen tearing. This had never been the case before, only after I did multiple reinstall of the driver. I'm rather convinced something is seriously wrong with my driver setup, but even doing a clean reinstall didn't solve the problem

 

[P4-630]

I never really had this problem.
What if you lock the fps with RTSS?

(Lock it at the lowest number of fps you see when gaming)

 

[qubit]

I tried upping my settings in some games, like for instance, I cranked up the settings until I got like 40fps in BF1, yet I'm still getting the screen tearing. This had never been the case before, only after I did multiple reinstall of the driver. I'm rather convinced something is seriously wrong with my driver setup, but even doing a clean reinstall didn't solve the problem

At 40fps of course you'll see screen tearing, big obvious tears too if your monitor refresh is 60Hz. Less so at 100Hz and up. Upping the quality settings will obviously drop your framerate. There's nothing here that suggests to me anything wrong with your setup.

 

[RejZoR]

For me, locking framerate using GPU Tweak or MSI Afterburner creates even worse tearing... Use Fast V-Sync if you have a newer NVIDIA card. If you're on AMD, I have no clue. They don't have any such features yet.

 

[Vya Domus]

There is something you do not seem to understand , as long as you do NOT use V-sync you will get tearing no matter what.

I would suggest using Adaptive-sync , this keeps your screen tear free as long as the frame rate machetes or exceeds the refresh rate of the monitor.

Fast Sync should only be used when you have a game that runs at a much higher frame rate than the monitors refresh rate , otherwise you will get a stutter fest.

 

[qubit]

For me, locking framerate using GPU Tweak or MSI Afterburner creates even worse tearing...

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that you lock the game engine at a particular framerate rather than vsync it to the screen refresh? In that case, yeah. you'll see big, ugly tears the whole time. Locking to 60fps on a 60Hz monitor would likely lead to a "standing" tear that slowly drifts up or down the screen as the relative rates between the game and screen refresh drift. I must try it sometime and see exactly what effect I get.

 

[RejZoR]

Yeah, locking framerate to exact screen refresh doesn't fix tearing. It also doesn't fix it if I set refresh rate to 60 fps on a 144Hz screen. It just doesn't work at all. It's what forces me to stick with NVIDIA really until AMD adds something like Fast V-Sync to their graphic cards. On reddit someone posted me a very cryptic reply that RX Vega is suppose to have such tech, but it's all very uncertain. I sure hope it will coz there is no way in hell I'll ever look at a single image tear. And I also want to buy Radeon again. I want to have bloody options, not be forced to use just one because it's the only with such feature.

 

[thepesterer]

some updates:

So I tried running games with onboard GPU with predictably bad FPS (like around 10fps), and I'm still getting screen tearing.
But something interesting happened, I accidentally put the game (it was GTA5) on windowed mode, the screen tearing is all but gone.
I tried doing that with the actual GPU, and it turned out to eliminate most of the tearing as well.

So the tearing only happens when I'm on full screen.

Any thoughts about this?

 

[Vya Domus]

some updates:

So I tried running games with onboard GPU with predictably bad FPS (like around 10fps), and I'm still getting screen tearing.
But something interesting happened, I accidentally put the game (it was GTA5) on windowed mode, the screen tearing is all but gone.
I tried doing that with the actual GPU, and it turned out to eliminate most of the tearing as well.

So the tearing only happens when I'm on full screen.

Any thoughts about this?

Like I said you will ALWAYS get tearing if you don't use V-sync no matter what. Not sure why you can't understand that.

The reason you get no tearing when you run in windowed mode is because what you are seeing is within Windows's frame buffer which forces V-sync , however you will experience quite a lot of stuttering and inconsistent mouse input this way.

We've been on this for too long , everything is working the way it's supposed to.

 

[erocker]

GTA V is notorious for screen tearing with Nvidia GPU's. You need to use VSYNC.
It's possible VSYNC was on previously in the driver. If you do another reinstall of your driver, run DDU (display driver uninstaller) before installing new drivers.

 

[RejZoR]

Also be aware that NVIDIA has seriously screwed up V-Sync in latest 2 drivers. It's terrifyingly bad. In my case even Youtube video is tearing like insane in full screen. Abnd when Fast V-Sync (or even Adaptive V-Sync) is enabled, video is not only tearing, it's also all messed up with whole segments flashing. I really don't understand how they could screw it up so badly all of a sudden.

 

[natr0n]

Lock your fps to 57-58 perhaps.