No Vsync with Hardware Decoding enabled

[GreyZ]

I hope someone can share their experience on this, but when using hardware decoding vsync doesn't seem to work. Even when I am forcing vsync through my drivers I still get screen tearing on the client side.
I have tried every combination of bsync (on both, on only one) on both machines but still get strong screen tearing. Latency, frames etc are all good (ie low).

However when I turn off hardware decoding it instantly works with vsync only enabled on the client side. This on a AMD A10 7850k as client
What's everyone elses experience on this?

[davew_uk]

Unfortunately I have the opposite experience. I get tearing on a client that does not support hardware decoding, and none on a client that does...

[GreyZ]

hm interesting.
Is there any launch argument that can be added to steam to influence if streaming is loaded with vsync or not?
It just doesnt make sense to me that vsync works with hardware decoding disabled but not enabled (or vice versa in davew's case)

[Dr. Allcome]

Which operating system are you using on the client side?

You should only need to enable vsync on the client side. In fact, I even think it's bad to enable it on the server side because then your framerate will drop to 30 fps most of the time, if your server can't handle the 60 fps. If you enable it on the client side only, you will also get intermediate framerates like 49 fps because the client is most likely capable of displaying a 60 fps video.

As screen tearing is a hardware problem (=monitor), it should not be recorded in your video on the server side. So your client just needs to make sure it displays the video frames in sync.

[GreyZ]

I personally have as host win8.1 and as client win7

And yes like you say I disable it on the server side entirely (ie drivers and game).
On the client side I have vsync forced through the driver, but reading through things it seems the AMD driver only enforces vsync in OpenGl, so that probably doesnt help at all.. As a test I also tried forcing it through other 3rd party tools (D3Doverride and Radeonpro) with no success.

So my question here is, should in home streaming be automatically forcing vsync on the client side? If so it doesn't seem to be working with hw acceleration enabled.
If not then is there another way of forcing vsync?

[scix]

Enabling/Disabling Aero on the client might help.

[davew_uk]

For me Aero is already disabled and I'm using software decoding only. The box is a 2006 Mac Mini (1.83ghz Core Duo CPU, Intel GMA950 GPU) running Windows 7 x32 via Boot Camp. Latest drivers etc. I noticed the tearing most in fast moving games like Sonic Colors (running in the Dolphin Wii/Gamecube emulator).

My laptop doesn't have the problem with the same host/same game - it is a 2009 Macbook Pro (2.8ghz Core 2 Duo CPU, Nvidia 9600M GT GPU). It is running Windows 7 x64 via Boot Camp with latest drivers, aero and hardware decoding both enabled.

The host is a Dell XPS 420 (2.4 ghz Core 2 Quad, XFX Radeon 6850 black edition GPU, both overclocked as far as they will go) running Windows 7 x64. Latest drivers etc.

My streaming settings are 480p, 60fps 10mb/s bandwidth - I only pretty much play emulator games over IHS so 480p doesn't bother me too much :-)

Edit: On the host I have vsync in my emulators disabled and vsync is also off in CCC. Having said that I've *never* seen tearing on the host while playing the same games locally.

[GreyZ]

@scix
♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that did it for me! Specifically what I did was:
I enabled Aero and see there vsync works! I was curious though if it was Aero or some other setting it enabled.
So I dug deeper and after narrowing it down I found out it's actually the Desktop Composition setting in Win7 that affected vsync. I found out that my vsync problem didn't actually depend on Aero but simply that Desktop Composition was enabled.
I turned off Aero and turned that back on and now I'm golden!

Thanks for the advice and for anyone interested, the option can be found under

Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System\Advanced System Settings\Performance\Settings\Visual Effects

[davew_uk]

I'll give that a go and report back, thanks!

[NachoHockeyBall]

I have this problem too. I have tried all variations of hardware acceleration, client only,host only, and both. I did notice a frame rate drop when it was disabled on the client. I have window set to high performance in the systems section on the client, which means desktop composition is disabled. Are you saying I should try turning it on, or leave it disabled?

[powerarmour]

I never enable vsync on the host, and my client runs the stream synced fine.

[loler_SK]

I've the same problem. Vsync does not work with hardware decoding enabled (client with Intel HD3000 graphics). Aero does not help, even when it is enabled, I notice screen tearing. Alt+Enter switch somehow helps to temporary enable vsync, but after some seconds/minutes tearing start again.. I've no tearing with HW decoding disabled.