Horrible screan tearing only in fullscreen

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Superdux

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Hey guys. So ive done a heap of research on screan tearing, and what causes. But im sttill a little confused.

I get SERIOUSLY BAD screan tearing in full screen, horrific, on any game, over or under my monitor refresh rate it doesnt matter.

if I switch to windowed (borderless or not) it goes, I think its actually still there, but I cant see it.

Now I have run several tests, and in windowed mode it isnt capping my frame rate to 30 as some have suggested, if I really really concentrate, I think theres still some screen tearing.

So my question is, what would cause scree tearing to be WORSE in full screen mode? I havnt found anything on any forums to explain this?

THanks in advance

Andrew
 
Solution
When you play in Windowed or Borderless Windowed mode, your game is running in a Window, on the Windows Desktop, therefore, screen refreshes are being handled by the Desktop compositor for Windows, which has it's own method for syncing with the screen to avoid tearing. Windows is actually sampling a frame from the game's window and then compositing it, along with the rest of the visible desktop, which is why you aren't seeing tearing in your game at this point. However, since the compositing for the rest of the Desktop has to be done, whether you see it or not, there is added overhead involved in this method.
If you're not running with V Sync enabled, or a form of adaptive sync such as Free Sync or G Sync, and your screen is being drawn at a rate that doesn't match your refresh rate, you will get screen tearing. The severity is determined by how mismatched the actual frame rate is with your screen's refresh rate.
 

Superdux

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Mar 31, 2015
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FX6300 @4.5ghz and RX470 4gb, 8 GB DDr3. Most AAA games I get 30-80 FPS depending on whether its CPU or GPU dependent, and depending on settings. My moniter is 60 mhz refresh rate.
 

Superdux

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Mar 31, 2015
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No this is with Vsync disabled in all instances. I get what causes screan tearing, its because the refresh frame rate produced by my system does not 'sync' with the refresh rate of the monitor, and as the monitor refreshes the frames horizontally... you get sort of fragments of each frame. My point is, in fullscrean its REALLY bad, horrific, evil. but in windowed, its barely noticeable if there at all (and no its not because windows is locking vsync in on window mode). I have found no resource to help me answer why this might be?
 
When you play in Windowed or Borderless Windowed mode, your game is running in a Window, on the Windows Desktop, therefore, screen refreshes are being handled by the Desktop compositor for Windows, which has it's own method for syncing with the screen to avoid tearing. Windows is actually sampling a frame from the game's window and then compositing it, along with the rest of the visible desktop, which is why you aren't seeing tearing in your game at this point. However, since the compositing for the rest of the Desktop has to be done, whether you see it or not, there is added overhead involved in this method.
 
Solution
If you don't want tearing in full-screen, you must use a syncing method or a frame limiter that is close to your screen's refresh rate. The frame limiter will obviously not always work, as you can easily fall below it's threshold, and syncing methods come with sometimes unbearable input lag. There's no magic fix for this. You just have to pick which technology you're willing to tolerate the limitations of.
 

Superdux

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Mar 31, 2015
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Ahh. That makes some sense, im happy to pay the price with a bit of overhead, as overall the experience is much 'better'.
 

Superdux

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Mar 31, 2015
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I tried the frame limiter to no avail, made no difference. Vsync obv works well, but on most AAA games, my rig wont get me 60fps, so I end up with 30FPS with Vsync on, whcih seems a shame. Running in window borderless is the fix for me as I get the full 50FPS (on average, what my system seems to deliver) without the horrible horrible screen tearing, I just didnt understand why.
 
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