Having more FPS than Refresh rate cause tearing?

[tshrjain]

Will there always be screen tearing while playing games at FPS more than the refresh rate of the Monitor?

For e.g. I have a monitor with refresh rate of 60Hz, and I have to enable VSync so that my games are limited to 60 FPS. If I turn off VSync, I always get screen tearing.

 

[Snipergod87]

Yes it will, your screen it getting more frames than it can display, which can cause 2 frames to be displayed at the same time causing tearing.

 

[TJ Hooker]

You will get screen tearing anytime your fps is not synchronized to your refresh rate, which implies that that fps is equal to refresh rate, or a fraction/multiple thereof. Whether or not it's noticeable/how bad it is will vary though.

Edit: oops, I forgot about triple buffering, as pointed out below.

 

[techgeek]

Unless you have a Pascal GPU and have Fast Sync enabled. This Vsync option uses three buffers as swappable framebuffers and allows the GPU to render as fast as possible. Then when the monitor signals the GPU for the next frame, the GPU uses the most recently completed buffer as the framebuffer. It's not quite as good as Vsync off in respect to input lag, but it's much better than Vsync on.

 

[tshrjain]

Does that mean if someone buys a Titan X or a 1080 GPU and has a very high quality monitor but with refresh rate of 120 Hz, they would be limited to 120 FPS? Else they'll have screen tearing? Also, if that's true, how do reviewers test games on a GPU without VSync enabled and how are they able to get FPS crossing 200+ although the refresh rate of their monitors is 144Hz most of the time.

PS: CS: GO is one of the games that gives refresh rate of 200+

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

You get screen tearing even below 60 FPS on a 60 Hz monitor, to answer your original question.


All the best!

 

[techgeek]

If Vsync is on, then your framerate is throttled back to the refresh of the monitor regardless of how fast the refresh is, assuming the GPU can render faster than the refresh. So if you are playing CS:GO and your GPU is capable of rendering at 200+fps but you have VSync enabled on a monitor with a refresh of 120Hz, then you are going to get 120 FPS. If you shut off VSync, then it will render at 200+ FPS, but you will have tearing.

However in the case of Fast Sync which I mentioned earlier, it will render at 200+ FPS, but because of how they handle the buffering, you eliminate tearing and you get the latest complete render displayed on the monitor. This reduces the input lag that is normally associated with traditional VSync, and eliminates the tearing experienced with VSync off. The only cards that officially support Fast Sync are the 10 series nVidia cards and the newly released Titan X (2016).

 

[SinxarKnights]

Does that mean if someone buys a Titan X or a 1080 GPU and has a very high quality monitor but with refresh rate of 120 Hz, they would be limited to 120 FPS? Else they'll have screen tearing? Also, if that's true, how do reviewers test games on a GPU without VSync enabled and how are they able to get FPS crossing 200+ although the refresh rate of their monitors is 144Hz most of the time.

PS: CS: GO is one of the games that gives refresh rate of 200+

That is generally how it works. Even though the GPU can output higher frame numbers than the refresh rate, it still renders them anyway, causing tearing. As stated above, it also occurs at framerates below the refresh rate of the monitor although typically it isn't as noticeable.

Revewers can test a GPU with vsync off because the GPU is in fact rendering the frames regardless if the monitor can display them all quick enough or not.

This is why gsync and freesync were invented, to eliminate the tearing with vsync off and get rid of the input lag of vsync.