Screen Tearing Still Rampant

[Trivvy™]

I have a 144Hz monitor, and I'm running in Borderless mode. Putting on VSync (despite setting the refresh rate to 144) caps the FPS at 60, and introduces some odd minor frame drops at times. Though screen tearing isn't noticeable, if there at all.

I turn off VSync, and set a frame cap using nVidia inspector to 120 FPS, yet I'm still getting screen tearing, despite that frame rate being under the refresh rate of my monitor.

I have only ever noticed screen tearing in SOMA, when I play any other game with VSync off, or at frame rates higher than my monitor can output, I've never noticed any screen tearing.

So is there an explanation as to why screen tearing is so prominent in this game? Even when it technically shouldn't even be occuring?

[MattyD242]

Try turning off vsynch in the game options and forcing it in the Nvidia control panel. This fixed the tearing for me, but I suppose it depends on your system.

[Revelene]

Just because frame rate is less than the refresh rate does not mean there will be no tearing. It's a little more complicated than that... Vsync does a lot more than limit frame rate as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

[trek554]

its hard to believe that people are so still damn ignorant about vsync and screen tearing. tearing can happen any time you are not using vsync regardless of your frame rate.

[CanadianPsychoStepDadOnMeth]

Originally posted by Trivius™:

I have a 144Hz monitor, and I'm running in Borderless mode. Putting on VSync (despite setting the refresh rate to 144) caps the FPS at 60, and introduces some odd minor frame drops at times. Though screen tearing isn't noticeable, if there at all.

I turn off VSync, and set a frame cap using nVidia inspector to 120 FPS, yet I'm still getting screen tearing, despite that frame rate being under the refresh rate of my monitor.

I have only ever noticed screen tearing in SOMA, when I play any other game with VSync off, or at frame rates higher than my monitor can output, I've never noticed any screen tearing.

So is there an explanation as to why screen tearing is so prominent in this game? Even when it technically shouldn't even be occuring?

OMG Thank you I finally found an fps limiter

[Trivvy™]

Originally posted by trek554:

its hard to believe that people are so still damn ignorant about vsync and screen tearing. tearing can happen any time you are not using vsync regardless of your frame rate.

Is it really hard to believe, or are you just being pretentious? I wouldn't consider the intricacies of V-Sync to be common knowledge. As far as I understand, V-Sync caps the game's FPS to the refresh rate of your monitor to prevent screen tearing. The fact that V-Sync is more complicated than that interests me though, so I'll be looking into it.

Originally posted by Kawaii Deleuze and Guattari:

Try turning off vsynch in the game options and forcing it in the Nvidia control panel. This fixed the tearing for me, but I suppose it depends on your system.

Tried that, still caps it to 60 instead of 144. Monitor is definitely set to the 144Hz refresh rate as well.

Originally posted by Revelene:

Just because frame rate is less than the refresh rate does not mean there will be no tearing. It's a little more complicated than that... Vsync does a lot more than limit frame rate as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_tearing

Thanks, I'll take a read of this.

Post-Read Edit: Interesting. So is it something to do with the game engine that's causing so much screen tearing, where in other games I receive none? And is their implementation of V-Sync just fairly poor? I recall using V-Sync in other games and not having juddering issues or input lag.

[Cask]

Here is what I've tried playing with:

FPS
C:\Users\******\Documents\My Games\Soma\Main
Look for <Engine LimitFPS="true". Change true to false. This removes the FPS Limit.

Screen Tearing
Forcing Vsync and turning on Triple Buffering in Nvidia CP removes the screen tearing. Turning on/off VSync in the game will make no difference as long as you force it through the Nvidia CP.

Stuttering
Removing the FPS limiter causes serious stuttering. Looks like we'll have to live with 60fps. Not the end of the world.

@devs - Shader Cache and Pre-rendered frames tweaks you advised on does not make any difference on my specs. Just FYI.

Asus Z-97 Pro | Corsair HX1000 | i7-4790k@4.6ghz | GTX 690 | G.SKILL Ripjaws 2133Mhz 16GB | Samsung 850 Pro 256GBx2 in Raid0 | BenQ XL2411T (144hz) | QPAD MK-50 | Razer Ouroboros | Sennheiser G4ME ONE

[trek554]

Originally posted by SP Cask:

C:\Users\******\Documents\My Games\Soma\Main
<Engine LimitFPS="true"

Change true to false. This removes the FPS Limit.

Forcing Vsync and turning on Triple Buffering in Nvidia CP removes the screen tearing.

The only problem now is the stuttering. It's REALLY bad.

EDIT: Do not take off the FPS Limiter, It causes the stuttering. Looks like we'll have to live with 60fps. Not the end of the world.

yeah leave the cap on as turning it off certainly makes the game stutter.

[CrunchyBiscuit]

Originally posted by trek554:

its hard to believe that people are so still damn ignorant about vsync and screen tearing. tearing can happen any time you are not using vsync regardless of your frame rate.

I find it very hard to believe as well, but yes, appearently people still don't know much about it, there are a lot of misunderstandings. Explaining it in a civilized manner is better than calling people 'damn ignorant' though :D

Indeed. Tearing WILL occur when v-sync is disabled, whether the frame rate is higher or lower than the refresh target and whether the user is aware of it or not. There are no exceptions.

When the frame rate fluctuates much, more people will start to notice the tearline because it flickers a bit and keeps resetting at the bottom/top at uneven intervals. I think this is what people mean when they mention SOMA's tearing. Other games produce a very steady tearline which doesn't flicker much and moves at predictable intervals. There's always tearing though, unless v-sync is enabled (or if the gamer is on G-Sync/FreeSync). Personal tolerance levels will vary.

[Collaboradev]

I found the same screen tearing issues with my build which I found surprising. This is definitely looking like a game engine issue to me. I'm running i7 12 core 4.2 GHz With 128 Gb RAM and dual NVidia GTX 1080 SLI. I was very surprised to see any issues like this running this level of hardware. The fix for me was to open the NVidia control panel and set a configuration for this game with triple buffering on and vsync on.

[trek554]

Originally posted by godlikemouse:

I found the same screen tearing issues with my build which I found surprising. This is definitely looking like a game engine issue to me. I'm running i7 12 core 4.2 GHz With 128 Gb RAM and dual NVidia GTX 1080 SLI. I was very surprised to see any issues like this running this level of hardware. The fix for me was to open the NVidia control panel and set a configuration for this game with triple buffering on and vsync on.

your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware has NOTHING to do with screen tearing. AGAIN screen tearing happens when vsync is off. damn at the level of ignorance around here.

[Trivvy™]

Originally posted by trek554:

your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware has NOTHING to do with screen tearing. AGAIN screen tearing happens when vsync is off. damn at the level of ignorance around here.

Take a chill pill dude, you're literally getting triggered by a discussion about VSync on the internet.

[trek554]

Originally posted by Trivvy™:

Originally posted by trek554:

your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hardware has NOTHING to do with screen tearing. AGAIN screen tearing happens when vsync is off. damn at the level of ignorance around here.

Take a chill pill dude, you're literally getting triggered by a discussion about VSync on the internet.

yes because the guy that just posted is not only ignorant as hell he did not even read the comments right in front of him.

[Revelene]

Originally posted by godlikemouse:

I found the same screen tearing issues with my build which I found surprising. This is definitely looking like a game engine issue to me. I'm running i7 12 core 4.2 GHz With 128 Gb RAM and dual NVidia GTX 1080 SLI. I was very surprised to see any issues like this running this level of hardware. The fix for me was to open the NVidia control panel and set a configuration for this game with triple buffering on and vsync on.

Not a game engine issue. Screen tearing is exactly what happens when the frames are not sync'd. The screen tearing went away when you enabled a form of syncronization.

Next time, before necroing a thread from over a year old, you might want to read over a few of the comments or do a little research beforehand.