screen tearing with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Thecharming]

Massive screen tearing with 60 fps in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I think that the topic is sufficient to explain the issue that I am facing. I am getting constant 60 fps but I am getting really bad screen tearing. I tried forcing vsync in the control panel but it didn't help. What's strange is I didn't have this problem until today. I can't think of any tweaking I did that would cause this, really the only thing that has changed was I hooked my computer up to my big-screen TV last night to play on the couch w/a controller. I don't see how setting up another display would cause this but it must be related. It's unplayable w/this level of tearing, please help.

[DougWison]

I would like to tell you that tearing takes place when the game performs with a level of FPS higher than the refresh rate of your display. Vsync (which this game has enabled by default) caps the game FPS at 60. Let's say that in a given PC monitor, the refresh rate is 60hz. If Vsync is turned off, your FPS might improve, however if it goes past 60, it will result in screen tearing. That begs the question; what is the refresh rate of your TV? How do you have it hooked up?

[Ashley Parker]

I am not presently playing on my TV though I didn't notice any screen tearing when I was playing it there. My laptop monitor refresh rate is 60 Hz so there shouldn't be screen tearing since they are synced perfectly. When testing w/fraps it happened constantly, and the FPS never dipped below or above 60fps: it was perfectly consistent.

[Dong-Min]

There are many of the people who are getting error as “Turn Vsync back on”. I am also one of them. I want to ask that is this response is for Lifeshield or me. If you were replying to me and read my post, you would see that I have vertical sync turned on. I have never turned it off, though I have tried forcing it in the control panel after the problem just suddenly appeared. By definition, if I am getting constant 60 fps (and I mean constant, no wavering whatsoever) on a 60 Hz monitor.

[Shae]

Tearing happens while the image being transmitted to the monitor is switched in the middle of a display refresh that is causing the lower half of the display to show a partial new image. Vertical sync simply blocks the new image from being presented before the display finishes a refresh. If it's not working for you then this is probably a problem with the drivers.

[Wyl]

There is one thing that you can try and see if that can help you in some way. In the nvidia control panel go to adjust desktop size and position and Select your TV, then you will see perform scaling on pull down menu, just select the other option, and save. It will work, trust me.

[Bubboy]

Did you use a converter DVI>HDMI? I had terrible tearing when I first hooked up my HDTV to my computer. I tried DVI>HDMI and HDMI<DVI as converters and the converters will not work. I had to buy a specific cable that is made for this. (No converter), the cable has DVI on one end and HDMI on the other end. This works beautifully for me.

[mbangali]

I was getting pretty bad screen tearing at 60 fps and I found a fix for it without using vsync. I was using Dxtory to limit my FPS to 60 (in menus fps was at like 800 and my video card started making loud noises), on a whim I decided to limit fps to 55 and that completely got rid of my screen tearing. I've tried turning it on and off repeatedly and I can confirm that limited to 60fps I get horrible screen tearing, but changing it to 55 completely removed it (without enabling vsync). This might help you.