What is Screen Tearing?
Understanding the visual glitch that ruins smooth motion.
Screen tearing is a visual artifact where a display shows information from multiple frames in a single screen draw. It looks like a horizontal "split" or "tear" across the image, where the top half of the screen is slightly out of sync with the bottom half.
Why does it happen?
Tearing occurs when the video feed (from your GPU) is out of sync with the refresh rate of your monitor. If your graphics card sends a new frame while the monitor is in the middle of refreshing, the monitor will simply start drawing the new frame immediately, creating the visible tear.
Live Sync Diagnostic
If this number is lower than your monitor's Hz, you are more likely to experience stuttering or tearing.
How to Fix Screen Tearing
Enable V-Sync
Vertical Sync forces the GPU to wait for the monitor to finish its refresh cycle before sending a new frame. This eliminates tearing but can add slight input lag.
G-Sync or FreeSync
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) technologies allow the monitor to change its refresh rate to match the GPU's output, providing tear-free motion without the lag of V-Sync.
Summary: Screen tearing isn't a sign of a broken monitor; it's a communication error between your hardware. Adjusting your software settings is usually the only fix required.