Screen Tearing & VSync

H

hhara

Gawd
Joined
May 8, 2009
Messages
817
I have screen tearing issues only in Team Fortress 2 and furthermore, only right after I am killed and the game does the still shot of who killed me. That is the only point when it tears, and when it does, it tears very badly. I know you might think its not that big of a deal, but it gets pretty annoying after a while.

I know it isn't monitor related because it happens on both my 3008wfp and 2007fp. I thought I would post it here as it probably applies best to this forum.

It doesn't really make sense to me as to why it only happens in this game, and only at that specific point. One thing to note is that, if you have not played TF2, this one point is when the screen is still. There is no movement going on in the game. Its like a screenshot being displayed. Once I click, then I go into your standard follow mode until I can respawn. Once I do click and go into the following mode, the tearing goes away, so I can safely say the screen only tears when the still shot happens.

Keep in mind I currently have Vsync off. My first thoughts were, since its a still shot, my FPS shoots up and that creates the screen tearing. This doesnt really make sense though, since I can very safely say I reach 200-300 fps sometimes when playing the game.

I turned Vsync on and I got the noticeable mouse lag because my FPS got capped at 60. The screen tearing still happened at that specific point, but it was not as noticeable. I cant manage to play with bad mouse lag (as I like to call it, even though thats not what it is).

I tried frapsing some videos to show you with vsync on and off, but frapsing for about 20 seconds at this resolution results in a 1 gb file and my video editing skills aren't to great.
 
I guess it is some other issue because I am able to record it and I do notice it when vsync is enabled, just not as much.

Any ideas?
 
Sounds like a bug in the game. It might have to do with your graphics drivers, but it also might not.
 
rostabosta said:
TF2 is a fast paced game, any LCD monitor with a 60Hz refresh will tear without v-sync. Playing with v-sync will get you killed because of the "mouse lag"
Click to expand...

The problem isnt the monitor at all. It does the exact same thing on two different monitors, and it only does it during one specific point in the game, but the rest of the game it is non-existent.

Like Skakruk suggested, it is likely something to do with TF2. Probably some video driver or something. Unfortunately I appear to be alone in this as google is coming up blank, so this may take some time to figure out.
 
You're right it could be a driver issue...but are both monitors 60Hz LCDs? I wouldn't rule that out either.
 
Based on your video, I would say that's a driver problem. I wouldn't call that screen tearing either, more like image flickering.

Screen tearing to me is shown in the video review I linked in my post above. Where on fast motion, a solid image essentially tears and is broken up. However, this happens in matters of milliseconds.

If I were you, I'd run one of those video card driver cleaners and reinstall with most recent video drivers and see if that fixes the problem. If not we'll have to think of something else...but that's the lowest hanging fruit imo.
 
This computer is brand new, like a week old. The only drivers I have ever installed are the newest nvidia drivers for these two BFG GTX 280 OCX cards. I am gonna try screwing around with the TF2 graphic settings to see if its one of those options causing it. It has to be TF2 related since this is the only place I have ever seen it.

Thank you for the help thus far :)

Edit: Disabling SLI fixes the problem, so that is whats causing it. Now I gotta figure out how to get it working with SLI.
 
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I don't know if you can disable SLI per game, etc or how big of a problem it is. But TF2 doesn't need SLI with GTX280s! That's a nice setup, but for reference i have a 9850 that runs TF2 at 300fps. The source engine is more CPU limited than GPU (i have an i7, hence my 300fps although obviously its my gpu as well), so if its not a problem, or there's a way to automatically disable SLI when TF2 starts and auto enable for other games, I'd just do that.
 
Maybe you could cap the game at 60fps using the console command fps_max (or max_fps)

I forget which one it is.
 
rostabosta said:
I don't know if you can disable SLI per game, etc or how big of a problem it is. But TF2 doesn't need SLI with GTX280s! That's a nice setup, but for reference i have a 9850 that runs TF2 at 300fps. The source engine is more CPU limited than GPU (i have an i7, hence my 300fps although obviously its my gpu as well), so if its not a problem, or there's a way to automatically disable SLI when TF2 starts and auto enable for other games, I'd just do that.
Click to expand...

Yea, I disabled it and didnt even notice a fps drop. Not being able to run SLI sucks!

I found this article, it is somewhat old but I am assuming still relevant.

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t19181.html

Maybe you could cap the game at 60fps using the console command fps_max (or max_fps)
Click to expand...

When turning on vsync, my fps becomes maxed at 60 because of the refresh rate of this monitor, 60 Hz. I am assuming that setting that option to 60 wont change anything.

Edit: After typing that out and re reading it I realized what you were implying... Setting it at 60 with vsync off. Just tried it with 60 and it noticeable decreases the flickering. Lemme try some other values.

Yea, it doesnt fix the problem completely, just makes it a bit cleaner. Still very annoying though.
 
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not monitor tearing.
have you tried playing an other source games? None of them ever do that?
 
After messing around with the Team Fortress 2 Profile and more specifically the "SLI Performance Mode" setting, all options fix the problem, except for "SLI". Those options being "Single-GPU", "Force Split-Frame Rendering", "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 1", and lastly "Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2". They all seem to perform the same after playing for roughly a minute each. Not really sure which one to go with though. Probably just end up doing Single GPU as rostabosta pointed out, one gtx 280 is more then enough.

Thanks for all the help guys!
 
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