Screen Tearing and input lag

[camohflage]

hey ive never played any dark souls game on pc so im a bit of a noob with this but i noticed insanely bad screen tearing on ds2 (probably due to my monitor being 144hz). i tried fixing it by putting my hz to 60 but that didnt fix anything and then i tried turning vsync on but that gave me input lag that is even more annoying than the screen tearing. is there a way to not have screen tearing without any input lag?(gsync doesnt seem to be an option for me either)

[ShiroiŌkami (白い狼)]

I remember having a similar issue as I own a 75hz monitor, and since ds2 is capped at 60fps, there is a bug that makes your game stutter if your machine can display more than that at a higher refresh rate.
My game would stutter just a bit to 58 or 59-60fps, and as a very sensitive person for frame rate, it would drive me mad.
I fixed it some time ago and I really don't remember how I did it and how I found the solution, otherwise I'd share it here. I think it had to do with touching some settings on you Nvidia control panel.
Went there and all I can see that I changed is that I locked the max fps to 60 for ds2 and the problem got solved.
Hope this helps, or that someone can come up with a better solution.

[JellyPuff]

Try forcing borderless windowed mode for this game via a third party tool, like "Special K" or "Borderless Gaming". Then G-Sync should work it's magic.

[Zaxx]

Originally posted by Camoh:

i tried fixing it by putting my hz to 60

The game always defaults to 60 hz and that sadly results in pretty high input lag here, especially with vsync on. A lot of it is just the camera controls being really bad though, especially if you're used to the first game's snappiness.

Here's what I did with my 144 Hz monitor to reduce the vsync lag:

- Download "Special K" and follow these instructions in order the run the game at 120 Hz (basically you configure Special K to force the desktop refresh rate so just change your refresh rate to 120 HZ in the control panel and you'll be golden):
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_II:_Scholar_of_the_First_Sin#Run_the_game_at_screen_refresh_rate
IMPORTANT: Don't follow the insturctions regarding the 60 fps lock, there is a better solution for that.

- Donwload Nvidia Profile Inspector if you don't have it already (and if you have an NVidia GPU, there's similar software for AMD but I don't know 'em):
https://github.com/Orbmu2k/nvidiaProfileInspector/releases
This is what I use for limiting the framerate and setting up vsync. All you have to do here is find Dark Souls 2 in the "Profiles" drop down menu (SotFS doesn't have its own profile for some reason), then find the "Vertical Sync" option under "2 - Sync and Refresh" and set that to the "1/2 Refresh Rate" option. Make sure that you leave "Vertical Sync Tear Control" on the "Standard" setting.

What this does is it enables half-refresh rate vsync that's NOT adaptive vsync but your regular, properly frame paced, low input lag vsync that will lock the game to 60 fps in 120 Hz. No tearing, no noticeable input lag (just the game's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ controls :D).

Edit: This is where you can get Special K from if you're not finding it:
https://discourse.differentk.fyi/

[kogskyy]

wow thanks this solved my screen tearing