What's V-sync?

What does this do? Will my performance be better or worse with this tunred on? It's the only setting I don't understand haha.

It prevents screen tearing. It may lower FPS.

It locks your fps to your refresh rate and it's submultiples. Basically if you have a 60Hz monitor, you'll only be able to play games at 60, 30, 15, 7.5, etc values for your fps. If you don't use it, you'll have screen tearing because the FPS will not match the refresh rate (example: 40 or 70 fps in a 60Hz monitor will cause tearing).

Basically, your performance will be worse, but there'll be no screen tearing. Vsync also causes a delay to all inputs (mouse, keyboard, controller...) which can bother some people.

Any fps value that is not your refresh rate (either higher or lower than it) or one of it's submultiples, will cause screen tearing

Google it, my dear friend.

V-sync is vertical sync: How I understand it is that it synchronises the refresh rate of your monitor with the moment on screen, in order to prevent screen tearing. Frame buffering will always happen, but this helps to mitigate it.

It locks your fps to your refresh rate and it's submultiples. Basically if you have a 60Hz monitor, you'll only be able to play games at 60, 30, 15, 7.5, etc values for your fps. If you don't use it, you'll have screen tearing because the FPS will not match the refresh rate (example: 40 or 70 fps in a 60Hz monitor will cause tearing).

Basically, your performance will be worse, but there'll be no screen tearing. Vsync also causes a delay to all inputs (mouse, keyboard, controller...) which can bother some people.

Any fps value that is not your refresh rate (either higher or lower than it) or one of it's submultiples, will cause screen tearing

Lox_Cropek

I'd say this is a good summation. I use v-sync all the time as my monitor is a 60 hz one and I hate the screen tearing and I much rather have 60fps with no tearing than 100+ with the tearing, but it's preference really.

Google it, dumbass.

Am_Confucius

The only dumbass here is you, he just asked a simple question.

Vertical synchronisation

as they say Locks down the fps

Beware of input lag with it though. Most times it's fine but if you want to play an FPS online like BF3 the Vsync could have a slight delay on your mouse movements

Stops screen tearing brah.

Google it, dumbass.

Am_Confucius

Rofl.

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]

Google it, dumbass.

KillerJuan77

The only dumbass here is you, he just asked a simple question.

It also adds a lot of input lag, disable it for any FPS... and some say triple buffering helps, I don't think it really does help at all, even for open gl. Just leave it disabled. And with 120hz monitors, you never have to worry about vsync again.

It limits your FPS to 60 to avoid screen tearing.guildclaws

It also adds a lot of input lag, disable it for any FPS... and some say triple buffering helps, I don't think it really does help at all, even for open gl. Just leave it disabled. And with 120hz monitors, you never have to worry about vsync again.

JigglyWiggly_

Google it, dumbass.

Am_Confucius

It also adds a lot of input lag, disable it for any FPS... and some say triple buffering helps, I don't think it really does help at all, even for open gl. Just leave it disabled. And with 120hz monitors, you never have to worry about vsync again.

JigglyWiggly_

I'm not sure if it's just my setup, but triple buffering also adds quite a bit of input lag for me. :?

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]

Google it, dumbass.

KillerJuan77

The only dumbass here is you, he just asked a simple question.

Agreed, normally we have the best-behaved users in the PC forum.topsemag55

That depends... were you here when F.E.A.R. 2, GTA IV, Cryostasis, Crysis 2 and Dragon Age II got released? The PC forums of every gaming website went nuts with those games (Negatively of course).

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

It also adds a lot of input lag, disable it for any FPS... and some say triple buffering helps, I don't think it really does help at all, even for open gl. Just leave it disabled. And with 120hz monitors, you never have to worry about vsync again.

Lox_Cropek

No Vsync: Tearing

Double Buffering: No tearing, performance hit, input lag

Triple Buffering: No tearing, no performance hit, even more input lag

When your framerate is higher than your monitors refresh rate (Hz=refreshes per second), your monitor is forced to show multiple images on the screen simultaneously, which creates what looks like "tearing" across the center of the screen (screen tearing). V-Sync prevents your framerate from going higher than your monitors refresh rate, and prevents multiple images from being forced onto the screen at once.. So to put it more simply, V-Sync prevents the incredibly annoying screen tearing that occurs when multiple frames are forced to be shown at once...superclocked

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]

It also adds a lot of input lag, disable it for any FPS... and some say triple buffering helps, I don't think it really does help at all, even for open gl. Just leave it disabled. And with 120hz monitors, you never have to worry about vsync again.

JigglyWiggly_

Tearing also happens if your fps is lower than your refresh rate if you don't use Vsync

Lox_Cropek

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

Tearing also happens if your fps is lower than your refresh rate if you don't use Vsync

superclocked

[QUOTE="superclocked"][QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

Tearing also happens if your fps is lower than your refresh rate if you don't use Vsync

Lox_Cropek

Wait, triple buffering doesn't affect performance negatively but actually helps it? I've been having issues in games like TF2 where the framerate fluctuates so much - so that could fix itRavensmash

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

[QUOTE="superclocked"]Not true.. You may get stuttering, but screen tearing only happens when multiple images are forced onto the screen at once, which requires that the framerate is higher than your monitors refresh rate...superclocked

Yeah also I used V-sync for most of my games I can't play Counter Strike with v-sync on because of input lag.

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

Am_Confucius

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

Lox_Cropek

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

Am_Confucius

what do people find when they google it? they find topics such as this with people discussing their issue. if everyone on every forum just said google it, it would be hard to find anything.

anyway on topic. seeing as how i mainly play multiplayer games i never use v sync. i would much rather have tearing than input lag. i run counterstrike at 250 fps and black ops at 125 fps on a 75hz moniter, and to be completely honest i barely even notice tearing. i mean if im really looking for it i see it but it doesnt impact my fun/performance in a game whatsoever.

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

xturtle88

what do people find when they google it? they find topics such as this with people discussing their issue. if everyone on every forum just said google it, it would be hard to find anything.

anyway on topic. seeing as how i mainly play multiplayer games i never use v sync. i would much rather have tearing than input lag. i run counterstrike at 250 fps and black ops at 125 fps on a 75hz moniter, and to be completely honest i barely even notice tearing. i mean if im really looking for it i see it but it doesnt impact my fun/performance in a game whatsoever.

i could explain in full detail myself, but i'm too lazy right now and i don't want to.

so i'll just copy/paste from Wikipedia:

Vertical synchronization

Vertical synchronization (Alsovertical syncorV-SYNC) separates the video fields. In PAL and NTSC, the vertical sync pulse occurs within thevertical blanking interval. The vertical sync pulses are made by prolonging the length of HSYNC pulses through almost the entire length of the scan line.

Thevertical syncsignal is a series of much longer pulses, indicating the start of a new field. The sync pulses occupy the whole of line interval of a number of lines at the beginning and end of a scan; no picture information is transmitted during vertical retrace. The pulse sequence is designed to allow horizontal sync to continue during vertical retrace; it also indicates whether each field represents even or odd lines in interlaced systems (depending on whether it begins at the start of a horizontal line, or mid-way through).

The format of such a signal in 525-lineNTSCis:

• pre-equalizing pulses (6 to start scanning odd lines, 5 to start scanning even lines)
• long-sync pulses (5 pulses)
• post-equalizing pulses (5 to start scanning odd lines, 4 to start scanning even lines)

Each pre- or post- equalizing pulse consists in half ascan lineof black signal: 2µs at 0V, followed by 30µs at 0.3V.

Each long sync pulse consists in an equalizing pulse with timings inverted: 30µs at 0V, followed by 2µs at 0.3V.

In video production and computer graphics, changes to the image are often kept in step with the vertical synchronization pulse to avoid visible discontinuity of the image. Since theframe bufferof acomputer graphicsdisplay imitates the dynamics of a cathode-ray display, if it is updated with a new image while the image is being transmitted to the display, the display shows a mishmash of both frames, producing apage tearingartifactpartway down the image.

Vertical synchronization eliminates this by timing frame buffer fills to coincide with thevertical blanking interval, thus ensuring that only whole frames are seen on-screen. Software such asvideo gamesandcomputer aided design(CAD) packages often allow vertical synchronization as an option, because it delays the image update until the vertical blanking interval. This produces a small penalty in latency, because the program has to wait until the video controller has finished transmitting the image to the display before continuing.Triple bufferingreduces this latency significantly.

Two timing intervals are defined - thefront porchbetween the end of displayed video and the start of the sync pulse, and theback porchafter the sync pulse and before displayed video. These and the sync pulse itself are called thehorizontal blanking(orretrace)intervaland represent the time that the electron beam in the CRT is returning to the start of the next display line.

(TL;DR it stops your Image from doing this:¨

)

No Vsync: Tearing

Lox_Cropek

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

No Vsync: Tearing

topsemag55

[QUOTE="xturtle88"]

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]

I seem to be receiving a lot of hate.

Seriously, if you wonder what a feature is, you google it.

I can't imagine why anyone would not be able to figure that out, as it is common knowledge.

Am_Confucius

what do people find when they google it? they find topics such as this with people discussing their issue. if everyone on every forum just said google it, it would be hard to find anything.

anyway on topic. seeing as how i mainly play multiplayer games i never use v sync. i would much rather have tearing than input lag. i run counterstrike at 250 fps and black ops at 125 fps on a 75hz moniter, and to be completely honest i barely even notice tearing. i mean if im really looking for it i see it but it doesnt impact my fun/performance in a game whatsoever.

Cheers to everyone else, the help was appreciated :)