How to Fix Screen Tearing (2026): VRR, V-Sync & FPS Caps

By LK Wood IV · Published 2026-06-29 · Updated 2026-09-28 · ~10 min read · St. Louis County, MO

Screen tearing is a timing problem, and the right fix depends on one thing you can check in a minute: whether your monitor does variable refresh rate. If it does, G-Sync or FreeSync with a frame-rate cap under the refresh rate removes it for about a millisecond of lag, plus one safety setting that differs between NVIDIA and AMD.

If it does not, you trade the tear for lag with V-Sync, or for dropped frames with Fast Sync and Enhanced Sync. I have sorted the fixes that way. The menu paths come from NVIDIA, AMD and Blur Busters and are current as of September 2026.

Fix tearing without ordinary V-Sync

First confirm the artifact. A tear is a horizontal break where parts of different frames appear in one refresh. A motion trail, a brief hitch, and a completely black display need different tests; raising a frame cap cannot fix all four.

Without conventional V-Sync, a supported VRR display is the first option to verify. Fixed-refresh owners can test Fast Sync or Enhanced Sync when their documented conditions fit. A cap alone reduces the render rate but does not synchronize presentation, so it is not a guaranteed tear-free fix. AMD describes Enhanced Sync as an alternative and a complement above the FreeSync range.

There is one mode-specific exception to the usual cap recipe: NVIDIA’s DLSS 4.5 Dynamic instructions say its NVIDIA app Dynamic mode is not compatible with V-Sync or frame-rate limiters. Use that mode’s own output target. Identify the generation mode before following the ordinary settings below.

For a busy but smooth GPU, use normal GPU usage. For Windows Game Mode, use its on/off comparison. A GPU driver crash under load belongs in the crash diagnostic, not in a tearing checklist.

The fix for your setup

What screen tearing is

Tearing comes from a timing mismatch. The GPU hands over a new frame while the monitor is partway through drawing the previous one, so one refresh shows pieces of two or more frames. That produces the familiar horizontal split, most visible during a fast sideways camera pan. It exists only while the picture moves — unlike the persistent lines on a monitor that point at a cable, a port or a dying panel. DisplayNinja puts the cause in one clause: the refresh rate and the frame rate “are not synchronized.”

It happens below the refresh rate as well as above it, which DisplayNinja also says outright. So a frame-rate cap on its own does not stop it. With sync off, Blur Busters’ G-SYNC 101 explains, a frame “will begin scanning in as soon as it’s rendered, regardless whether the previous frame scan is still in progress.” A cap only changes how often that happens. (If you see a faint trail following moving objects instead of a clean split, that is ghosting, a different artifact, and the fix is your monitor’s overdrive setting.)

The best fix: VRR plus a frame-rate cap

Variable refresh rate turns the relationship around. The monitor changes its refresh rate to match each frame as it arrives, as long as the frame rate stays inside the monitor’s VRR range.

DisplayNinja’s example is a 144 Hz monitor with a 48 to 144 Hz range: at 65 fps the panel runs at 65 Hz, and the input-lag cost is about 1 ms.

Three names cover one idea. VESA added Adaptive-Sync to DisplayPort 1.2a on May 12, 2014. AMD builds FreeSync on industry standards such as DisplayPort Adaptive-Sync, delivers it over DisplayPort and HDMI on certified displays, and certifies displays in three tiers: FreeSync, FreeSync Premium and FreeSync Premium Pro, the upper two adding low framerate compensation.

NVIDIA calls the same thing on a certified Adaptive-Sync monitor G-Sync Compatible.

You do not need matching brands. NVIDIA’s G-Sync Compatible support began with its first Game Ready driver of 2019, and its support page lists what it takes: a GeForce 10 series card or newer, driver R417.71 or later, and the monitor on DisplayPort. VRR over HDMI needs a GTX 16 or RTX 20 series card or newer and a display that supports it over HDMI 2.1. RTINGS notes that most monitors are certified for G-Sync over DisplayPort only. Use DisplayPort.

Turn on G-Sync (NVIDIA)

NVIDIA’s May 26, 2026 driver announcement retired the classic Control Panel for Game Ready and Studio drivers and put display options in the NVIDIA App’s System tab. Blur Busters’ settings page gives the App paths:

1. System > G-SYNC and Surround > G-SYNC: On, Full screen.
2. Graphics > Program Settings > your game > Vertical Sync: On. If the classic Control Panel is still on your machine, NVIDIA’s own help page gives the older route. Open Display > Set up G-SYNC, tick “Enable G-SYNC/G-SYNC Compatible,” choose “Full screen mode” or “Windowed and full screen mode,” and tick “Enable settings for the selected display model.”

The monitor has to be the primary display. To confirm VRR is running in a game, Display > Show indicator for G-SYNC puts an overlay on screen.

The Graphics tab labels I read off my own machine on NVIDIA App 11.0.9 are on the V-Sync on or off page, with every dropdown value.

Turn on FreeSync (AMD)

AMD Software turns FreeSync on by itself when a compatible Radeon meets a certified display, and AMD’s support article says it is on globally by default. To check it:

1. Open AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition.
2. Type “Display” in the search box and open Display Settings.
3. Under Global Display, the AMD FreeSync tile shows the status and the certified tier. Display Specs shows the range the monitor reports.

Per game, Gaming > Games > the game’s profile > AMD FreeSync offers AMD Optimized (the default), On and Off. AMD wrote these steps against Adrenalin 23.9.1 and last updated them on March 3, 2025. There is no Radeon card on my bench, so these paths are AMD’s.

The NVIDIA advice further down about driver V-Sync does not carry over to Radeon. AMD’s own settings guide says its Wait for Vertical Refresh switch “only works OpenGL 3D applications,” and that in DirectX and Vulkan games “VSync is controlled via the 3D application graphics settings.”

AMD covers the top of the FreeSync range two other ways. Frame Rate Target Control, the same guide says, “can ensure that you do not exceed the maximum FreeSync range of your display.”

Enhanced Sync, in AMD’s words, lets you “complement your AMD FreeSync technology range by enabling a tear-free experience above your AMD FreeSync technology range,” on Polaris and newer cards.

On a Radeon card I would cap with the game’s limiter or FRTC and leave Enhanced Sync on as the safety net.

The critical step: cap under the refresh rate

Turning VRR on is half the fix. Once the frame rate reaches the refresh rate, G-Sync has nothing left to adjust.

Blur Busters’ FAQ says it then falls back to V-Sync behaviour if driver V-Sync is on, or to screen-wide tearing if it is off.

Frame limiters overshoot now and then, so the cap sits below the ceiling: the settings page asks for “(a minimum of) 3 FPS limit below display’s maximum refresh rate.”

The first four manual caps are Blur Busters’ own examples; 165 and 240 follow the same rule. The Reflex column is Blur Busters’ list. Never cap at the refresh rate itself.

Use the game’s own limiter when it has one. Otherwise use NVIDIA’s Max Frame Rate (added in driver 441.87, per Blur Busters), RTSS, or AMD’s Frame Rate Target Control. The 3 fps margin is Blur Busters’ figure for G-Sync; AMD gives no number for FreeSync, and I would start from the same margin.

Why V-Sync stays on in the NVIDIA driver

This is the setting people get backwards. With G-Sync on, the driver’s V-Sync switch no longer behaves like V-Sync inside the range. Blur Busters’ FAQ explains that frame times vary, so a frame sometimes finishes a fraction early and starts drawing before the last one is done.

With driver V-Sync on, the monitor holds that frame for the moment it takes the previous one to finish, which “prevents tearing in all instances” and adds “virtually no input lag.” With it off, those frames tear even inside the range. The cap keeps you out of real V-Sync; the switch catches the stragglers.

In the game, turn every V-Sync, Double Buffer and Triple Buffer option off, so the game does not stack its own buffering on top. The Blur Busters forum puts the rule in one line: “VSYNC ON via Control Panel, VSYNC OFF via in-game.”

The same settings hold on a certified G-Sync Compatible FreeSync monitor; Blur Busters’ FAQ says so in an entry updated May 31, 2026. The V-Sync on or off page has the full decision by monitor and Blur Busters’ measured latency numbers.

Add Reflex when the game has it

NVIDIA describes Reflex as “eliminating the GPU render queue and reducing CPU back pressure in GPU intensive scenes,” and cites up to a 33% responsiveness gain on a GTX 1660 Super. The part that matters for tearing is on Blur Busters’ settings page.

With G-Sync and driver V-Sync on, Reflex limits the frame rate itself, to the numbers in the right-hand column of the table above. In a Reflex game, turn Reflex on and skip the manual cap. Everywhere else, set the cap by hand.

Still tearing with G-Sync or FreeSync on?

These are the causes I would check, in this order. The first four take a minute each.

1. VRR is off at the monitor. NVIDIA’s support page warns that some Adaptive-Sync monitors ship with the VRR setting disabled, and that some set their DisplayPort mode to 1.1 for backwards compatibility; Adaptive-Sync needs DisplayPort 1.2a or higher. AMD adds that some picture presets on the monitor turn FreeSync off. Open the monitor’s own menu first.
2. The cable or the port. Most monitors are certified for G-Sync over DisplayPort only. On HDMI, VRR needs a display that supports it over HDMI 2.1 and a GTX 16 or RTX 20 series card or newer. Move to DisplayPort, and use the DisplayPort and HDMI bandwidth calculator to confirm the link carries your resolution and refresh rate.
3. The frame rate is at or above the refresh rate. A cap of 144 on a 144 Hz panel, or no cap at all, leaves the VRR range, and with driver V-Sync off the whole screen tears. Cap at least 3 fps under.
4. Windows is running the panel below its rating. A cap of 141 does nothing for a 144 Hz monitor that Windows is driving at 60 Hz. Check Settings > System > Display > Advanced display, under Choose a refresh rate, per Microsoft’s page. The other way round, a 180 Hz monitor with a 144 fps cap is already inside its range, so tearing there points further down this list.
5. Nothing covers the top of the range. On NVIDIA, driver V-Sync off lets frames that finish early tear even inside the range; turn it on in the driver. On Radeon, the driver’s V-Sync switch only reaches OpenGL games, so turn on Enhanced Sync instead.
6. A DX11 game in borderless or windowed mode. Blur Busters says DX11 and older games belong in exclusive fullscreen, while DX12 borderless is equivalent to the old fullscreen mode; the DX12 vs DX11 page covers why the two paths behave differently. For a game with no fullscreen option, G-Sync has to run in “Full screen and windowed” in the NVIDIA App (“Windowed and full screen mode” in the classic Control Panel). Blur Busters warns that setting can make other apps stutter when you drag their windows, and suggests applying it per game with NVIDIA Profile Inspector instead of globally.
7. An older DX11 game that never supported VRR. Windows has a Variable refresh rate toggle for exactly this. Per Microsoft’s DirectX team, it gives VRR to “DX11 full-screen games that did not support VRR natively” without overriding your G-Sync or FreeSync settings, and needs Windows version 1903 or later and a WDDM 2.6 or newer driver.
8. The game ignores the driver. Blur Busters notes “rare occasions” where V-Sync only works with the in-game option on. If tearing survives everything above in one game only, try that game’s own V-Sync switch.
9. Frame generation pushed you over the cap. For fixed frame-generation modes, check the displayed output against the appropriate limit. DLSS Dynamic uses the separate setup described above; frame generation alone is not a universal sync fix. Frame generation explained covers how the generated frames are made and what they cost.

If VRR makes dark scenes pulse or flicker once tearing is gone, that is a separate VRR side effect, covered in monitor flickering.

Without VRR: Fast Sync, Enhanced Sync and V-Sync

On a fixed-refresh monitor every option is a trade. NVIDIA Fast Sync and AMD Enhanced Sync let the GPU run above the refresh rate and show “the most recently completed full frame,” per DisplayNinja, so tearing stops without V-Sync’s wait. They need spare frames. DisplayNinja says at least twice the refresh rate.

Blur Busters’ tests found that 300 fps with Fast Sync at 60 Hz, a 5x ratio, only matched the latency of G-Sync capped at 58 fps, and that Fast Sync repeats frames and stutters when the frame rate is limited below refresh. NVIDIA lists Fast for Pascal and later cards in single-GPU systems.

AMD calls Enhanced Sync “an alternative vsync mode that reduces visual tearing without limiting frame rates.” I would use either one for an esports title running hundreds of frames on a 60 or 144 Hz panel, and for nothing else. Whether your card gets there is a question for the game’s own benchmark; the CPU and GPU benchmark lookup shows where each part sits in its ranking.

Plain V-Sync is the last resort. It holds each finished frame until the next refresh, so tearing stops, and TechSpot puts the cost at “as much as 50ms of latency on top of your display’s baseline input lag.”

When the frame rate falls under the refresh rate, double-buffered V-Sync drops to the next divisor; DisplayNinja’s example is a 60 Hz display where 59 fps becomes 30. That stutter can feel worse than the tear. On a fixed-refresh panel, whether to run it on or off comes down to the game and your frame rate.

Mistakes that bring the tear back

• Capping at the refresh rate instead of under it.
• Turning driver V-Sync off because G-Sync is on.
• Running V-Sync in the game and in the NVIDIA driver at the same time.
• Counting on the Radeon driver’s V-Sync switch in a DirectX or Vulkan game.
• Expecting a frame-rate cap alone to fix tearing on a monitor without VRR.
• Expecting DLSS or FSR frame generation to fix it.

If the tear is gone and the game still hitches, that is stutter, a separate fault with its own stuttering guide.