39 replies to this topic

[bobbob]

iRolley, on October 3rd 2006, 02:01 PM, said:

I mean, shouldn't flat screen have no tearing issue?

Why not? The new frames still have to be sent to the display, and that means you can still be drawing while the frame is being sent.

[iRolley]

bobbob, on October 3rd 2006, 09:12 PM, said:

Why not? The new frames still have to be sent to the display, and that means you can still be drawing while the frame is being sent.

Yes but in a CRT it is a canon that lights up the screen, line by line, IIRC. Whereas on a Flat screen LCD its each actual pixel that independently switches its RGB colors. That why refresh rates a measure differently: with a CRT the refresh rate is is how fast it can light up the whole screen top to bottom, while on a flat screen its the time it takes for pixel to change from white to black ( ok that is not quite true, I think the standard is not set and some manufactures measure flat screen response time from gray to white... or something).

I induce that on a flat screen all pixel could change at the same time (although for some it would take longer; white to black takes more time than red to orange) invalidating the need for Vsync.

[jeannot]

There's definitely some tearing on my 20" LCD.
C Lund: you should tweak the cfg file to be able to play at 1680*1050 which is the native resolution of you cinema display, AFAIK. The game will look much more beautiful.

[jeannot]

This may be off topic but Doom 3 reports 256 MB of Vram (system profiler reports 512).

WTF?

[Tesseract]

iRolley, on October 5th 2006, 03:23 AM, said:

I induce that on a flat screen all pixel could change at the same time (although for some it would take longer; white to black takes more time than red to orange) invalidating the need for Vsync.

That would work if all the new values were propagated to the pixels simultaneously. They aren't. To do that you would basically need a double buffer in the display itself (as DVI has limited bandwidth) and an 8-bit DAC for each display element. For a 1280x1024 display that's almost four millions DACs, not to mention a wiring nightmare to get them all hooked up to the frame buffer in parallel.

[SteevAK]

I get tears on my Mac Pro 2.0 ghz ATI 1900XT.  I'm playing at 1920x1200 too.  It's only a slight annoyance for me most of the time.  Performance is pretty solid, though I do notice in some rooms it seems the framerates get cut in half, making it tougher to play well.

Anybody notice times when it seems textures should be transparent, but are solid?  I swear there are some points in the game, when I should be able to see through the walls  so I can watch some activity the NPCs are commenting on, but the walls are opaque.

[macgeek2005]

Hi guys. I'm glad my problem has been confirmed. As one of you said, you didn't notice it at first, but then when you looked closer you did notice it.

This is the case. It does not in any sense make the game unplayable, it's just a little annoying, especially when you're walking up to a wall, and the wall is literally flickering with those stupid lines.

But anyway, I guess theres nothing more to discuss here, unless someone has a fix.

Thanks guys!

[dxlr8r]

Tried Doom 3 today on my Mac Pro with GeForce 8800GT, I have the same problem! Tried with and without vsync, AA, different resolutions, etc.

[Kalki]

Hello,

I have also bad tearing effects, with with my Macbook Pro, Geforce 8600M GT.

When I try to activate "vsync" option in the following games :

Doom 3, Prey, Colin Mcrae Rally, UT2004, Flatout2, it's not working. And I don't understand, why I can have tearing effects, when I'v got 30 fps in Doom 3 for example. The refresh rate of my macbook pro screen is 60 frame per sec !

My system is up to date (leopard).
Macbook Pro penryn 2.4

Unfortunatly there is no "graphic control pannel" for Nvidia cards...

[dxlr8r]

UT 2004 works here. The other ones I haven't tried.

I have 60fps in Doom, and as I said ultra high and vsync... Also tried it on low and with 640x480 resolution. So I think the problem is deeper than just turning on (or off) some switch.

[Kalki]

dxlr8r, on November 19th 2008, 09:39 AM, said:

UT 2004 works here. The other ones I haven't tried.

What line do you change in the ut2004.ini to get vsync working ?

[dxlr8r]

Kalki, on November 20th 2008, 12:58 AM, said:

What line do you change in the ut2004.ini to get vsync working ?

None actually... But you have to patch it to the newest version and such. I don't think I have touched the ini file actually... And that is rare I don't have vsync on it I think, but I don't see any tearing and such anyway.

[dr.zeissler]

sorry for posting on this old one, but I can confirm that Doom3/Quake4 in deed do not seem to enable vsync at all,
even if it's chosen from the gfx-menu, that really bad, because I see lot's of tearing on my iMac 17" late 2006 with ATI x1600!

ATI Displays would perhaps help if it has got a universal-binary oder an intel version with support for the x1600 chip, but it's only ppc-code with no support for the later gfx-chips.

does anyone know another way to activate vsync on the games?

Thx!

[jeannot]

I had V-Sync issues as well in doom 3. I think the issue is fixed in the Mac App Store version of the game.

[dr.zeissler]

Did you notice them on quake4 too. Very interesting that the App-Store Version has become a fix for this, but I would not like to buy it another time. I own the original CD's and I am lucky to be able to install it on old PPC and X86 Mac's.

[jeannot]

I never played quake 4.

[dr.zeissler]

Prey has the same issue, it's doom3 engine too.
I need a fix for this because I get about 20-60fps and therefore thes games are fully playable on my 17" iMac.

[UmarOMC1]

Doing a little Google-fu this seems to be more of a Doom 3 thing from id. On a few forums they state the game was capped at 60fps and if your system couldn't handle 60fps it switch to 30fps. I just reinstalled from the MAS, it runs smoothly at 2560x1440 but I wish I could get SIKKMOD download and running.


UPDATE: As suggested, I turned vsync off and the game plays noticeably smoother.

[dr.zeissler]

Thx, vsync off does not help against the tearing
I did a lot of Google-fu but I did not find a working solution yet.
Vsync is normally off in 10.7.5. Q1-3 do support vsync and they are smooth and do not produce any tearing.

[dr.zeissler]

Yesterday I installed my C2D-MacMini 2009 with 9400m/256MB and all I can say is,
that this is the currently the "ultimate" MacMini for me.
It came with 10.5.8 and I am questioning if 10.6 would give me more advantages
or should I stay with 10.5 ?
The machine is REALLY fast. The integreated nvidia-graphis is so much faster then
the GMA950 and has lot's! of features that the former native cards from ATI did
not have. The water-shaders in AOE3 are corretc (GMA950/9200/x600pro) they are not
supported. Halo has all effects and Doom3/Quake4/Prey are all running great with
high details at 1024x768 (native on 15" Eizo).

BUT!
There is no way to get control over the GPU. (vsync/AF) there is no "nvidia-displays"
and I can't find a driver for 10.5, all I can find are some CUDA-Drivers, but I think
these are not normal drivers that I will get any benefit from.

Therefore mostly all games, especially games with Doom3-engine have lots! of tearing
wich is VERY ugly.

Any chance of getting rid of that?

Some guys told be the intel HD4000 of the 2012+ Mini is even better then my 9400m.
I think I will have a look.

I love those small an reliable machines from apple.

Greetings Doc