Depends on the game. Most of the time, no, but with certain games (escape from tarkov comes to mind) turning it on helps with performance. But trying to understand how Tarkov works is a spell within itself frankly

Surprised to see that majority of the people use it. All it ever did for me was input lag in most games, from FPS to aRPG and I never really needed it to solve screen tearing (I don't think I ever encountered it TBH).

Actually, I remember using it a couple of times in games where the physics engine was behaving based on framerate. But that is the only use I ever had for it and am extremely grateful that adaptive sync technology exists and I don't have to use that garbage anymore.

Different people have different sensitivities to different things. Screen tearing drives me absolute nuts but I have relatives who cannot see the tearing I'm actively looking at even when we're both staring at the same screen. "It's there, look at that horizontal line, see it?" Nope. Some people really don't notice it. And yet for input lag it's the opposite, what others call "unbearable" I find it "feels" very mild and only impacts the game slightly (but to me is far less ugly than a distorted image of having half the screen show half of one frame and the other half show a chunk of another "mis-joined" at the seam). So another vote here for VSync On (on a regular monitor) but Freesync / GSync being definitely preferred if buying a new monitor today.

Really depends on the game.
For FPS type games, V-Sync is a big no-no for me. Since the camera movement is tied to the mouse, any lag is noticeable and tiring.
Many other games I play with V-Sync, Hollow Knight included. While there's some lag I can get use to it after some time.


Riva Tuner (comes bundled with Afterburner ) is a freaking awsome tool, one of my favorite functions is the "scanline sync", if you click on the text it shows the "x/2" and "x2" option, wich means you can disable V-Sync and the tool will limit the frames at half or twice the monitor refresh rate. The fine tune number (-8 in the follow screenshot) is used to tune the scanline (if present) to outside off the screen.
Boom, no more tearing at double the frame rate and silk smooth movement.

Linux users have the MangoHud (with the optional GUI flightlessmango) alternative, wich actually works better than RivaTuner itself.

G-sync for years now. Combined with a 1080 and now a 3080 (I know, smug mode engaged captain!!) nothing but smooth and silky.

Trust me whe I say that I am very sensitive to this stuff. I've never seen the "typical example" shown in the screenshot in all my years of being on a 60 Hz display with V-Sync off 99% of the time. I know what the tearing is supposed to look like, but I'm not kidding when I say I've probably never experienced it.

But that could be because I never used any really cheap and basic monitors, even in the 2000s.

On the other hand, the input lag is there almost always and it makes any fast paced game reeeeaaaly annoying to play.

It's always on for me. I got no fancy monitor so it's pretty much a requirement. Never really noticed an input delay or other problems because of it. *shrug*

I didn't like my laptop overheating so much paying Wasteland 2 DC, so I disabled vsync (60hz and 60fps...) and capped the FPS to 30 (now I have almost half the temperatures I had before, and the game still runs beautifullyl). Planning on doing the same thing when I get around to playing Pillars of Eternity (and buying it...). Luckily all this games don't really benefit gameplay-wise about "moar fps". And though it is nice to see the fluidity of 60, cutting from 95 to 55/60 degrees celsius on a laptop, I think is worth it...

Anyway, it depends on the game: simpler games that do not overheat the GPU as much I just leave it on so as to not really go above and beyond 60fps without being able to even notice the difference on my display.

Some games do need the higher FPS. I'm curious, do you have a universal way of doing this? I have some games i'm sure would run much better for me if i was able to set a static framerate for them instead of them bouncing all over the place.

EDIT: For you FPS users out there: triple buffering might work for you. Some drivers can force games to use it.

No, I don't use it. Has a bigger chance to create stutters, lag and screen tearing.

The whole point of vsync is preventing tearing. If you see tearing, something is either wrong with the game, the screen, or the video card.

that makes no sense , vsync should wait for a full screen render before sending it to the monitor

Uhm, nope! V-Sync is used to get rid of sreen tearing.

Wasteland 2 DC gives you the option once you disable v-sync (is right under it in the graphics settings). Pillars of Eternity I believe allows you too... but I don't have a universal way or anything. I'm really at the mercy of the developers haha.


As for the people claiming v-sync ELIMINATES tearing, not really. It just stops your GPU from going above the fps your display can show... If your PC can't handle FPS of 50 or above, chances are that 50 or more hertz on your display will create tearing. It happened to me playing Tomb Raider Underworld way back when it released. I could play it above 30 fps, maybe 40/45... but I was not reaching 60fps... my display was 60hz. Screen tearing galore was the result, specially in the cutscenes.

I have a g-sync monitor now so of course I do not, but when I did have a "normal" monitor I absolutely used it. I never play anything competitive though, so that was an easy choice.