Screen Tearing and Response Time

[Goatman455]

Do they relate at all? Can a monitor that has poor quality screen tear more? Do the response times and/or screen tearing vary among the same model due to build quality?


Thanks

 

[ToastyX]

No. Tearing happens when the video card's framebuffer is updated during a refresh. This happens between the software and the video card and doesn't really involve the monitor. Enabling vsync will force updates to happen between refreshes, so there won't be any tearing, but updates are delayed until the refresh completes, so there will be a slight lag.

Tearing is worst when the frame rate is close to the refresh rate because the tearing will happen near the same part of the screen, causing an annoying rippling effect. Some games are limited to 60 FPS, which causes nasty tearing and stuttering at 60 Hz. Having a higher refresh rate would alleviate that, but many LCD monitors won't do anything other than 60 Hz.

Also, if the frame rate is high enough, the mouse's sample rate can cause some tearing for the same reason, especially when using a 125 Hz mouse on a 60 Hz monitor. Using a 500 Hz or 1000 Hz mouse would alleviate that.

 

[Coder]

Thank Toastyx - You resolved my tearing issue on my Samsung 24".