Just curious as to what settings everyone sets there video card at, when playing games?? The reason I ask, is because without V-sync enabled, I get the annoying screen tearing on any game my fps exceeds 60 frames per second....which is every game. to avoid this, I enable v-sync and cap my fps to 60, but by doing so...my fps and performance takes a hit. It just sucks that, from what I gathered, you have to decide which one is more important than the other.....Quality over performance.

I read this article yesterday: Article

While it isn't really applicable to the build you went with, it seems pertinent to your post, and I learned a lot from reading it. It goes into a little bit of detail about tearing and fps vs. responsiveness - but its real focus is on how "LucidLogix Virtu MVP Technology" is designed to help integrated graphics and discrete graphics work together. My build will utilize integrated graphics exclusively, but I expect I will get a discrete gpu to add to the system within 6 months or so, and wanted to learn more about it. That said, I didn't really even know what tearing was before I read the linked article, and can't really vouch for the quality of the information - since I'm such a novice. But I found it to be well-written and educational, and I hope it helps you/others, too.

In my very-limited-experience and humble opinion, and based what I learned in that article, I would say that capping your fps to 60 and using v-synch is a good approach.

Great question.

Screen tearing can definitely be a problem. Adaptive V-Sync (a technology introduced by nVidia's new line of GPUs) will allow for, as the name suggests, much more versatility in v-sync settings and should allow for greater framerates. I'm running a 120Hz monitor right now (mmm, radiation) with a GTX 580 for my primary GPU - I always disable v-sync and haven't noticed significant tearing. However, in Skyrim (a game which I've written several articles about - I've modded it to the point of being an entirely different and unstable game), I'm forced to use v-sync to stop texture flickering and tearing. My performance doesn't suffer, though, since my mods push my 580 to 99% utilization and I average 45FPS after mods.

Hello Operator linked a great article - it's packed with good information and I've read it a few times now, I think. Lucid is a highly interesting technology that can help mitigate some of the problems you're speaking of, but it is unfortunately not yet ready for the mainstream market (cost, et al.).

I'd agree with Operator - I have no quarrel with capping at 60 FPS (or on 120Hz monitors, potentially 120FPS). You're not missing out on anything visibly different for the most part, although I'm sure some people have extremely perceptive eyes, and your performance hit shouldn't be tooooo bad, though it depends on the hardware.

I'd recommend looking into .ini tweaking for individual games that you're running. You can almost always tweak a configuration file to more compatible work with your specific hardware.

Me and Lelldorianx was discussing this with my system a few months ago. With Vsync my system is also capped at around 60fps. Without it I get the occasional tearing but get over 100fps. I think a stable 60 is much better than an unstable 100. I get a smoother game and better gameplay experience at a stable 60fps, and that is what matters to me.

FYI I am running two HD 6850s in crossfireX