How do I prevent screen tearing? and what is it.
Screen tearing is a common problem that occurs when displaying video. From a technical point of view, this happens when the display shows images from several frames at once. But screen tearing is something else.
To understand screen tearing, you must understand how monitors display images.
How Monitors Work
To understand what screen tearing is, you need to understand how monitors display information. The physical screen is divided into pixels, and each pixel will glow red, green, or blue. The computer tells the monitor how much of each color to display.
Images are displayed as a single still frame, which is then redrawn over and over with slight changes to indicate movement. The rate at which this new image is drawn is called the refresh rate.
Most modern monitors have a 60Hz refresh rate, which means they refresh 60 times per second. High-performance monitors update at a faster rate, up to 360 times per second.
The device that drives the display is called a GPU or GPU. This is often referred to as a video card. Most motherboards have on-board (or integrated) GPUs, while gaming machines require a dedicated (or discrete) GPU.
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Interaction between GPU and monitor causes screen tearing.
What is Screen Tearing?
Screen tearing occurs when the monitor is out of sync with the GPU. The monitor does not display images instantly, and if it receives a new image from the GPU while it is still in the process of rendering the current image, it will start rendering a new image with new information.
This results in image confusion or screen tearing. While this happens when the monitor and GPU are out of sync, it doesn’t matter if the monitor updates faster or slower than the GPU. The difference in speed is enough to break the screen.
A torn screen isn’t always as simple as a slightly out of sync image. In some cases, this will show up as a slight distortion on the screen, as in the image above. In other cases, colors will not be aligned or the edges of the image will stutter.
The GPU needs to send new images at a multiple of the monitor’s refresh rate, or it needs to be 1 / X of the refresh rate. The key to dealing with screen tearing is GPU and monitor synchronization.
How to Combat Screen Tearing
There are several ways to stop screen tearing (or at least minimize it). Both G-Sync and FreeSync can help reduce or eliminate screen tearing while gaming. Both services do this using VESA Adaptive V-Sync technology.
G-Sync is one of the most effective ways to deal with screen tearing, but it does come with certain technical requirements. To be specific, you must have an NVIDIA graphics card in order to use G-Sync.
G-Sync makes the monitor and GPU sync with each other. This ensures that a new frame is drawn only when the last one is completed. All this happens in the so-called “frame buffer”. The frames are only placed on the display after completion, which completely prevents screen tearing.
FreeSync is similar to G-Sync but is a version of AMD’s service. In the end, you need an AMD graphics card. FreeSync synchronizes the refresh rate of your monitor with the frame rate of the game you’re playing. This means that simple games may not need FreeSync at all, and more demanding games may drop the monitor refresh rate below the minimum.
Low Framerate Compensation
This is possible thanks to what is known as low frame rate compensation, a technology that compensates for when monitors drop below their intended minimum refresh rate.
However, there are also disadvantages. While G-Sync is designed to eliminate screen tearing, it generally comes at a higher cost due to the cost of the components involved. FreeSync is cheaper, but uses VESA Adaptive-Sync and is not always as efficient.
How do I prevent screen tearing? and what is it
How do I prevent screen tearing? and what is it.