Screen tearing on Desktop, not games?

[Takashiwolf]

At the beginning of January I bought a new Zotac 960 on a pretty good deal. Swapped it in and updated to the newest GeForce drivers and no issues. Then a month later when I installed updated drivers I noticed that I was starting to see tearing lines while using Firefox (Scrolling through webpages of both text and photos cause tearing), panning around the canvas in Sketchbook pro, Steam itself while scrolling through community pages, and some other apps. But funnily enough not everything was affected. Such as watching DVD’s and video files, while YouTube videos were tearing, video from disc and file sources did not. Scrolling through documents and spreadsheets in Microsoft office also flawless. I can also click and drag around windows on the desktop without tearing or artifacting, same goes for scrolling through anything in file explorer.

Things go even more bizarre when playing games, that is nothing at all wrong there. I never have any tearing issues when playing games. In fact opening up the Steam overlay and using the browser there no tearing whatsoever while scrolling through webpages. It’s like as if Windows had a Vsync option and it was turned off for certain programs somehow.

So with the tearing starting to become apparent, I thought maybe it was just a bad batch of drivers. The next ones that came out I updated again and it got even worse. This was also around the time where some really bad drivers were being pushed out, some were claiming it was even killing their cards or damaging. So I waited a few months until the dust settled, just grunting through my desktop tearing. The most recent driver for GeForce, 365.10, seems to have somewhat mitigated the tearing, but its still very noticeable. During these past months I tried several things:

-Trying different modes on monitor, i.e. gaming mode, Adobe RGB, Standard, etc.
-Tested using another monitor, same issues.
-Tested using other outputs on the card; DVI, HDMI, display port, no improvement.
-Every driver for GeForce has been a fresh clean install. Wipe the driver, reboot, install, restart again.
-All other drivers and motherboard BIOS is current, all Windows updates installed, etc etc.
-Same goes for most current version of Steam, Firefox, Skethbook Pro, etc.

Since games are running fine, the card is never overheating or causing driver crashes, and half the programs I use are not causing tear, I believe physically the card is sound, hence why I haven’t returned the card. But I can’t figure out what is causing this selective per App screen tearing in the desktop environment? I’ve researched that reverting back to older drivers (particularly 362.00 is a favorite among most GeForce users currently) would probably solve this, but I’m currently a big The Division player and older drivers make the game run poorly and glitch often. Plus I hope to be hopping on some new releases here soon.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Could it be something else software bassed other than the GeForce driver?

Quick system specs:
Windows 10 64bit home
Core i5 3Ghz
12gig system mem
Zotac GeForce 960 2gig (The non OC amped version)

[Hatman]

Wow, such a wall.
Really it's not bizarre or anything. It's really simple.

Nowadays with Aero the desktop is a 3D application itself. You have VSync disabled in your global 3D application setting in nvidia control center. Enable it and tearing will stop.

The reason your not seeing tearing in video material is because videos run at fixed framerates lower than your screens refresh rate.


PS: You're not using HDMI, right? That causes all kinds of issues. Try DVI or DP.

[Takashiwolf]

Originally posted by Hatman:

Wow, such a wall.
Really it's not bizarre or anything. It's really simple.

Nowadays with Aero the desktop is a 3D application itself. You have VSync disabled in your global 3D application setting in nvidia control center. Enable it and tearing will stop.

The reason your not seeing tearing in video material is because videos run at fixed framerates lower than your screens refresh rate.


PS: You're not using HDMI, right? That causes all kinds of issues. Try DVI or DP.

Yeah I know its a wall but I had to make it this way in order to detail whats going on, as its not just a simple issue. I've talked to many tech savy people and they can't get a pluse on whats up. I tried turning on Gobal settings in the Nvidia pannel but no dice. Also using DVI since forever really.

[_I_]

if you enable areo, it can use vsync on the desktop
check the gpu driver settings, and set vsync to on (not adaptive)

if areo is disabled, there is no way to force vsync on the desktop 2d modes

[LazerVolk]

Originally posted by _I_:

if you enable areo, it can use vsync on the desktop
check the gpu driver settings, and set vsync to on (not adaptive)

if areo is disabled, there is no way to force vsync on the desktop 2d modes

LOL mate thanks , just enabling Aero is enough to solve the problem .

[Takashiwolf]

Originally posted by LazerVolk:

Originally posted by _I_:

if you enable areo, it can use vsync on the desktop
check the gpu driver settings, and set vsync to on (not adaptive)

if areo is disabled, there is no way to force vsync on the desktop 2d modes

LOL mate thanks , just enabling Aero is enough to solve the problem . :eli:

This is no longer an option in Windows 10, but as an update newer Nvidia drivers have fixed, most, of these issues I've been having. Proving its just crummy divers, classic Nvidia.