Vertical Sync???

[ComingSoonNearYou]

What is Vertical Sync for? I Looked in my advanced proterties (currently have an onboard ati radeon express 200) and for Direct3D and OpenGL I have the option to turn it off. For gaming (FPS Games) is it better to leave it off or on? and is their a noticeable difference if I had it on or off?

 

[rfwinters77]

Except during benchmarking, the consensus I've found through google
is to turn it on.

http://www.d-silence.com/video/vsync1.shtml

 

[ComingSoonNearYou]

So if i want smoother game play leave both on and If I want higher fps leave both off?

 

[Christopher]

Vertical sync makes the video drivers sync up every frame with the refresh of your monitor. The advantage is that every frame shown is in sync with your monitor refreshing the screen. Without vertical sync your monitor can draw part of one frame and then part of another frame, causing the screen image to appear to "tear". The disadvantage is that your frame rate is then bound to the refresh rate of the monitor, or a multipile of it.

Genreally, there isn't much point to render more frames than your monitor can display, so for smooth game play, its best to turn it on except when benchmarking.