Is stuttering and tearing that bad with PC gaming?

[trooptrade]

I am about to build a computer:

i7-4770k
8GB Corsair Vengeance
780ti Superclocked
With an ASUS VG287HE
https://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-vg278he

But I have been reading about GSync monitors being such a game changer. My question isn't if they're worth the wait because supposedly they are - but rather is screen tearing and stuttering really that bad with PC gaming that people are so anxious for GSync monitors? And what about my setup? If I went with a 60hz monitor would it be better or worse?

 

[Poprin]

erm.... what?

lol none of my games stutter or tear? I think you've been reading too much NVidia marketing material!!

 

[Zodiakku]

Screen tearing and stuttering shouldn't be an issue with your rig,as it's quite powerful.Don't waste money on a G-Sync monitor.
Stuttering is more common when doing SLI/xfire configurations.
I think you'll be just fine with a regular 1080p(maybe 1440p) monitor

Edit: with your setup you could go higher than 60Hz(i'm thinking 100Hz at least).

 

[Murissokah]

Tearing and stuttering are not PC exclusives, consoles suffer that too. The difference is that, since consoles use the same config for everyone, it is easier to test and fine tune the game for the hardware so that these issues are hardly noticeable.

As long as you are okay with a little trial and error, you can get considerably better image quality without tearing/stuttering, especially with a PC like the one you described.

 

[Plusthinking Iq]

screen tearing is not much an issue on high end gaming pc. just keep away from dual gpu's and above. an high hz monitor help a bit too.
144hz monitor would utilize you pc better btw. g-sync is my next monitor ofc, less inputdelay and less tearing is better and soon cheap enough to be worth it. its the v-sync people that would benefit the most from g-sync technology.
you could just buy the i5 4690k and get same gaming performance as the i7, and use the cash to get a 144hz monitor instead.

 

[trooptrade]

Well the ASUS I may get is actually 144hz refresh rate. I guess this makes my next question is it more future proof to get a 144hz monitor or 60hz? Because in three years when the 780ti isn't the latest and greatest I won't be pushing that many FPS

 

[Eggz]

Tearing happens when VSYNC is off. Just turn it on.

Stuttering happens when you run two or more cards in parallel (i.e. Xfire or SLI).

. . . How tearing happens: Regular monitors love when their source feeds frames at the same rate as it displays because each frame gets a chance to fully feed into the display before the next one appears. Frames feed into the monitor in rows. If your monitor is 1080p, then creating one frame entails feeding 1080 rows of pixels into the display. Once 1080 lines feed in, the display goes back to the first row and feeds the next frame. When the next frame feeds in before the first finishes, that's why you get tearing.

Say you shift the image really fast (e.g. drag a window across the screen, or look around a scene in a first person shooter, etc.), and assume your monitor feeds rows in from the top down. If you move something across the screen, you'll see the new frame on the top of your monitor and the previous frame on the top of your monitor. This is called tearing, since it looks like a tear along the row where the old and new frame misalign. It can also happen where you get parts of more than one frame on the screen as in the image below:

With VSYNC, the monitor will not load a new frame until the current one finishes loading. That forces only one frame to display at once, and there will be no tears. It creates a new problem, though, because the source won't feed frames in with perfect timing. Running at 60 fps requires exactly one full frame every 16.7 ms. If that's not satisfied, the monitor will miss a frame. The solution is frame buffer, which forces your video card to render and store frames in VRAM until the exact moment when your monitor requires a frame. When you see "triple buffering" options, that will let you card pre-render up to three frames in reserve to increase the chances that a frame will be ready at the perfect moment. It makes VSYNC work more reliably.

Now, this whole setup exists because video cards render frames at variable rates (slower during complex scenes and faster during simple scenes), but monitors display frames at a constant frame rate. In normal 60 Hz monitors, there is literally a window that opens and immediately shuts every 16.7 ms for a frame to either enter or miss its opportunity to be displayed. Frames that don't get fed at the right moment never get displayed because the monitor doesn't "catch" them.

Gsync is cool because it gets rid of the need for frame buffers altogether. Somehow, it allows the monitor to display at whatever rate the video card gives off. If you're running Crysis 3 in a complex scene, the monitor will catch every single frame, even if your card is only putting out 51 fps. Nothing gets missed. The same applies if your card is putting out, say, 127 fps because you are looking up at an empty sky. The monitor will display up to 144 fps with Gsync. I'm excited to see a sample. In theory, it sounds good, AND reviewers report that it seems to actually work. Cool stuff!

 

[anbello262]

Still, tearing is really hard to see for me. As you can imagine, that photo that Eggz showed would only last for 1/60 of a second (about 17 miliseconds). If you have really quick perception, you will probably be bothered by it, or in some kind of games. But if you're not that easily bothered by detaiils like that, you will probably not even notice it. It's not that big of a problem, usually.

 

[Eggz]

Still, tearing is really hard to see.

Tearing bugs the crap out of me! Each tear will only last a split second, but it looks like a weird little flicker. Also, when you pan the screen, or when you see a scene that shakes (e.g. characters talking on a bouncy car ride), tearing makes things look like an old-school television broadcast. Yeah, the tears in the image above come and go very quickly, but other tears pop up as soon as other disappear.

Take a look at this video to see for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElE_8OY91FA

Tearing blows! It really takes away from the suspension of disbelief, the kind of immersion you get when you're watching a movie. Everything's going really well, you're rooting for the main character, and then - BOOM - your little brother sits on the remote and accidentally changes the channel. What makes that annoying? Its that you had to stop the imaginary mental space the movie helped you occupy. Tearing prevents you from getting all the way into that space to begin with.

Given how much OP will spend on his setup with those parts, he'll definitely want to prevent tearing if he can.

 

[anbello262]

Sorry, I edited the original post to really reflect the meaning I intended.

In my case, it's really easy for me to get inmersed on anything, so I just don't notice that kind of artifact...

 

[Plusthinking Iq]

v-sync is worse than tearing so i dont get why v-sync is an option anyways. no one recommends v-sync. if tearing is a problem then its time to get a new pc, no v-sync is going to fix anything, just replace tearing with inputlag and 60 and 30fps fps locks.

 

[Eggz]

v-sync is worse than tearing so i dont get why v-sync is an option anyways. no one recommends v-sync. if tearing is a problem then its time to get a new pc, no v-sync is going to fix anything, just replace tearing with inputlag and 60 and 30fps fps locks.

Another reason why Gsync will be sweet. No more choosing between tearing or lag

 

[sizzling]

I have just built my first gaming PC in over 8 years, its a similar system to the OP but with a 780GTX. I have got into Titanfall and have limited knowledge of modern games but this game when I started playing had awfully bad screen tearing to the point it was unplayable in my opinion. I have had to turn V-Sync on to make the game playable but this does give me the occasional stutter but this I find far easier to live with than the tearing. With V-Sync on @60 fps and the game maxed out on all detail my GPU runs at 70-80% and has occasionally peaks at 92% so I know any stuttering is not a GPU performance issue.

I am going to pay a lot of attention to the G-Sync tech and if it really does improve gameplay.

 

[Eggz]

I find [VSYNC] far easier to live with than the tearing.

So do I. The lag is not noticeable to me, and having everything synced at a constant 60 fps is amazing! Again, though, Gsync is supposed to give that smoothness illusion at any frame rate fast enough to give the illusion of motion, so long as it is less than 144 fps. It will be cool when the prices go down and availability increases. It will also be cool for AMD users if they can use the technology. Monitors should not be proprietary.