Quick answer

On a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor, leave driver V-Sync on with in-game V-Sync off and cap 3 fps below the refresh rate. On a fixed-refresh monitor, turn it off for competitive shooters and on for single-player if tearing bothers you.

TL;DR · VSync on or off

  • G-Sync, G-Sync Compatible or FreeSync monitor: ON in the driver, OFF in the game, and cap the frame rate about 3 fps under the refresh rate. That is the lowest tear-free latency Blur Busters measured.
  • Fixed-refresh monitor, competitive shooter: OFF. You accept tearing and get every frame as soon as it is drawn.
  • Fixed-refresh monitor, single-player: ON if tearing bothers you, Fast Sync or Enhanced Sync if your frame rate runs far above refresh.
  • Frame rate below refresh on a fixed-refresh panel: OFF. Double-buffered V-Sync drops you to half rate, which is worse than a tear.
  • Where it lives: NVIDIA App > Graphics > Global Settings > Vertical Sync, verified on 11.0.9. On Radeon, the driver switch only governs OpenGL; DirectX and Vulkan games use their own toggle.

My bench machine runs an RTX 5080 into a 120 Hz OLED, and the driver’s Vertical Sync switch on it has been set to On for months. Most forum answers would call that wrong. They are wrong. It is the correct setting for a variable refresh monitor, and the reason it looks wrong is that the switch stopped meaning “V-Sync” on VRR displays years ago.

This page gives you the setting for your monitor, the exact place to change it in the current NVIDIA App and in AMD’s software, and the measured latency numbers behind the advice. If what you have is a tearing problem to fix rather than a switch to decide, the screen tearing guide has the full VRR setup and the cap table; I will not repeat those here.

What the setting does

V-Sync makes the GPU wait for the display’s next refresh before it hands over a finished frame, so one redraw never shows pieces of two frames. NVIDIA’s own reference puts it plainly: the setting “allows you to control Vertical Synchronization mode, where the application’s frame rate is synchronized with the display refresh rate in order to eliminate tearing.” Two things follow from that wait. A finished frame sits until the next refresh, which is latency. And when the GPU cannot produce a frame every refresh, plain double-buffered V-Sync misses the window and falls to a divisor; NVIDIA’s Adaptive VSync page describes it as locking “the frame rate to the nearest level, such as 45 or 30 frames per second.” That second effect is the stutter people blame on V-Sync, and it is why the right answer changes with your frame rate and your monitor.

The decision table

Your setupSet V-SyncWhy
G-Sync, G-Sync Compatible or FreeSync monitorOn in the driver, off in the game, frame rate capped about 3 fps under refreshInside the VRR range, G-Sync or FreeSync is the only sync running. Driver V-Sync on stops tearing at the top of the range. The cap keeps you out of the V-Sync region entirely.
Fixed-refresh monitor, competitive shooterOffLowest latency there is. Blur Busters’ author jorimt states it flat in the G-SYNC 101 comments: G-Sync off with V-Sync off and an uncapped frame rate “will always be the lowest possible latency,” because it tears.
Fixed-refresh monitor, single-playerOnTearing is gone, and the added frame or two of latency is a fair trade in a game where you are not clicking heads.
Fixed-refresh monitor, frame rate far above refreshFast (NVIDIA) or Enhanced Sync (AMD)Both drop excess frames instead of holding them. NVIDIA’s reference says Fast “improves latency without introducing tearing” on Pascal and later single-GPU setups.
Fixed-refresh monitor, frame rate below refreshOffDouble-buffered V-Sync will halve you. A tear beats 30 fps. On the legacy NVIDIA panel, Adaptive is the alternative.
Laptop on batteryCap the frame rate instead, V-Sync on is fine for single-playerNVIDIA’s Max Frame Rate support page is explicit that a cap saves power and works alongside Battery Boost and Whisper Mode; the lowest limit wins.
60 Hz TV or monitor without VRROn for anything slower than a shooterAt 60 Hz a tear sits on screen for a full 16.6 ms and is easy to see. Cap at 60 in-game if the game offers it, so the GPU is not rendering frames the panel drops.

The first row is the one that trips people up, so here is the mechanism. Blur Busters’ G-SYNC 101 explains that with G-Sync enabled, the driver’s “Vertical Sync” option “no longer acts as V-SYNC” and instead decides whether G-Sync falls back to fixed-refresh V-Sync behaviour above its range or disables and lets the whole display tear. Within the range, they write, “G-SYNC is the only syncing method active, no matter the V-SYNC ‘On’ or ‘Off’ setting.” So On costs you nothing inside the range and saves you from tearing at the ceiling. The cap is what keeps you inside the range. That is the whole trick.

The cap does the latency work. The switch is a safety net.

How to set it

NVIDIA App

I read these paths off my own machine on 2026-09-12, on NVIDIA App 11.0.9 and Game Ready driver 616.56. The global switch is at Graphics > Global Settings > Vertical Sync. The dropdown offers four values on this system: Use 3D app setting (Default), Off, On and Fast. Nothing else. The per-game version is Graphics > Program Settings, pick the game, then Vertical Sync in its Driver Settings list; Blur Busters recommends setting On there, per game, rather than globally. Monitor Technology sits a few rows above Vertical Sync in the same list and reads G-SYNC Compatible on my FO48U, which is the row that makes the On setting behave as described above.

NVIDIA has retired the classic Control Panel for Game Ready and Studio Drivers. Its May 26, 2026 driver announcement says that “after 20 years of dedicated service, the classic NVIDIA Control Panel is officially retiring for Game Ready and Studio Drivers,” that existing installs “will remain on users’ systems, unless they perform a clean installation,” and that anyone who still needs it “can continue to download it from the Microsoft Store.” If you still have it, the setting is under Manage 3D settings > Vertical sync, and that legacy list carries two extra values. NVIDIA’s reference describes Adaptive as turning “V-Sync On only when the frame rate is faster than the refresh rate,” describes Adaptive 1/2 refresh rate as the same test against half the refresh rate, and notes that both are “available only if Monitor Technology is set to ULMB or Fixed Refresh Rate.” That matches what I see in the new app with a G-Sync Compatible panel connected. No Adaptive entry at all.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition

AMD’s Adrenalin guide, support article DH3-012, shows a Last Updated stamp of March 3, 2025 and says its steps are based on AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.9.1. It lists both switches in Global Graphics: “Wait for Vertical Refresh, also known as vsync, removes screen tearing by synchronizing the frame rate with the monitor refresh rate,” and “Radeon Enhanced Sync is an alternative vsync mode that reduces visual tearing without limiting frame rates.” AMD’s older Radeon Settings article gives the four values the switch takes: Always Off; Off, Unless Application Specifies; On, Unless Application Specifies; and Always On.

The line most guides miss is on that same AMD page: “Wait for Vertical Refresh only works OpenGL 3D applications. When using other APIs such as DirectX or Vulkan, VSync is controlled via the 3D application graphics settings.” That covers nearly every game you will run; on Windows, OpenGL is the exception now. So on a Radeon card the in-game toggle is the one that matters. The driver switch is for the handful of OpenGL titles and emulators you still run.

There is no Radeon card on my bench, so these are AMD’s paths and not my screenshots.

In the game

Every game with a video settings menu has some form of the switch, labelled V-Sync, Vertical Sync or occasionally Triple Buffering. On a VRR monitor, Blur Busters’ instruction is to “disable all available ‘Vertical Sync,’ ‘V-SYNC,’ ‘Double Buffer,’ and ‘Triple Buffer’ options” in-game and let the driver setting handle the ceiling, because some in-game implementations add their own buffering or quietly enable triple buffering. They also note the exception. A few games only sync when their own option is on, so if you see tearing with driver V-Sync on, try the in-game switch before you assume something is broken.

The same guide’s settings page says to use “Fullscreen” or “Exclusive Fullscreen” for DX11 or older, and for DX12 to use “Borderless” or “Borderless Windowed” mode, “which is equivalent to legacy ‘Fullscreen’ mode”; the DX12 vs DX11 page covers why those two render paths behave differently in the first place.

Windows

Windows has no V-Sync switch of its own. What it has is a Variable refresh rate toggle under Settings > System > Display > Graphics, inside the Advanced graphics settings group on my Windows 11 build, where its help text reads “Get higher frame rates and help reduce screen tearing in games that don’t support this by default.” Microsoft’s DirectX team describes it as a way to give VRR to “DX11 full-screen games that did not support VRR natively,” and says it “doesn’t override any of the settings you’ve already configured in the G-SYNC, FreeSync, or Adaptive-Sync control panels.” Microsoft lists the requirements as Windows version 1903 or later, a G-SYNC, FreeSync or Adaptive-Sync capable monitor, and a WDDM 2.6 or newer driver that supports the feature, and says the toggle is off by default and can be turned on in Graphics settings once those are met. The same Windows page carries Optimizations for windowed games, whose help text on my machine reads “Reduce latency and use advanced features in compatible games by using flip presentation model.” I leave it on.

What I measured and what the cited tests show

What is first-party here is the configuration. I verified the menu paths, the option names and the state of my own switches on the bench machine described in the methodology note at the bottom of this page, and the whole setup runs a 7800X3D and RTX 5080 into the AORUS FO48U at 120 Hz. I have not measured input latency. That measurement needs a 1000 fps camera pointed at the screen and a mouse wired to an LED, and Blur Busters did exactly that.

Their G-SYNC 101 test used a Casio Exilim EX-ZR200 at 1000 fps, a Razer DeathAdder Chroma modified with an external LED, an Acer Predator XB252Q 240 Hz G-Sync display, a GTX 1080 on driver 381.78, and Overwatch and CS:GO at lowest settings; the methodology page puts the total at “42 scenarios, 508 runs, and 5080 individual samples.” The hardware is old. The mechanism is not. The syncing behaviour they measured is a property of the driver and the display pipeline, and in the comment thread under the guide its author answered a reader running a 9800X3D and an RTX 5080 with the same recommendations. The numbers that decide the table above:

  • A frame of delay is worth 16.6 ms at 60 Hz, 8.3 ms at 120 Hz, 6.9 ms at 144 Hz and 4.2 ms at 240 Hz. The same “two frames” of V-Sync lag hurts four times as much at 60 Hz as at 240 Hz.
  • Double-buffered V-Sync typically adds two frames of delay above the refresh rate, and Overwatch showed up to three and a half frames even with Reduced Buffering on; the methodology page puts that at “up to 58.1ms of additional input lag” at 60 Hz and “up to 14.7ms” at 240 Hz.
  • Their optimal settings are G-Sync on, driver Vertical Sync on, in-game V-Sync off, and a limiter set at least 3 fps under refresh: 57 at 60 Hz, 97 at 100 Hz, 117 at 120 Hz, 141 at 144 Hz.
  • With Reflex on in a supported game, the engine limits the frame rate for you when G-Sync and driver V-Sync are on; their Optimal Settings page lists the limit as roughly 116 fps at 120 Hz, 138 at 144 Hz and 224 at 240 Hz.

Their author summed up the ladder for a fixed 60 fps game on a 240 Hz panel in one comment, and I would put it on a poster: sync off and V-Sync off tears and has the lowest latency; G-Sync on with V-Sync off can tear and is second; G-Sync on with V-Sync on cannot tear and has the lowest tear-free latency; and running the panel at 60 Hz to match is the worst option of all.

How it interacts with the other switches

G-Sync and FreeSync. The setup steps, the cap table by refresh rate and the Fast Sync and Enhanced Sync alternatives are in the screen tearing guide. This page decides the switch; that one fixes the symptom.

Max Frame Rate and Reflex. NVIDIA’s support page describes Max Frame Rate as the tool for staying “within the Variable Refresh Rate range” and, for the smoothest tear-free result, says to “turn VSYNC on” alongside it. In the NVIDIA App it sits in the same Global Settings list as Vertical Sync. In the same comment thread, jorimt ranks the render-queue options as Reflex first, then a manual cap that keeps GPU usage below 99 percent, then Low Latency Mode Ultra, then On.

Frame generation. Blur Busters’ author says his VRR recommendations “remain unchanged with or without FG.” Generated frames still need to stay inside the VRR window, and frame generation explained covers the latency floor that comes with them. On the AMD side, the HAGS page notes GPUOpen’s warning that disabling hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling “may result in more tearing” with FSR 3, so leave HAGS on before you blame V-Sync for tearing in a frame-generated game.

Low GPU usage and stutter. V-Sync on makes the GPU coast once it reaches the refresh rate, which is the single most common false alarm in the low GPU usage diagnosis; a card sitting at 60 percent while the game holds 120 fps on a 120 Hz panel is behaving. The reverse case, a frame rate that swings across the refresh rate with V-Sync on, shows up as the range-exceed stutter described in the stuttering guide, and the cap is the fix there too.

Coil whine. A GPU rendering 400 fps in a menu is the classic coil-whine trigger, and V-Sync or a cap is the first thing the coil whine guide tells you to try. Resizable BAR is the other “on or off” question people ask in the same breath; it has nothing to do with sync and stays on.

The bottom line

Decide by monitor, then by game. On a VRR display the switch is a safety net. Driver V-Sync on, in-game off, cap under refresh, and G-Sync or FreeSync does the real work with essentially no latency cost. On a fixed-refresh display it is a straight trade of tearing for lag. Off when reaction time matters, on when the picture matters, and off again the moment your frame rate falls below the refresh rate. On a Radeon card the driver switch only touches OpenGL, so make the choice in the game’s own menu. Then stop fiddling.

If the tearing is still there after all that, the problem is the setup, and the screen tearing guide walks it from VRR down to the last resort.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Is VSync better on or off?
It depends on the monitor, and that is the whole answer. On a G-Sync, G-Sync Compatible or FreeSync display, leave V-Sync on in the driver, off in the game, and cap the frame rate about 3 fps below the refresh rate; Blur Busters’ camera tests found that combination gives the lowest tear-free latency. On a fixed-refresh monitor, off is right for competitive shooters where every millisecond counts, and on is right for single-player games where tearing is more annoying than a little lag.
Does VSync lower FPS?
Yes, in two ways. It caps your frame rate at the monitor’s refresh rate, so a 144 Hz panel never shows more than 144 fps. And when the GPU cannot keep up, plain double-buffered V-Sync drops the rate to a divisor of the refresh rate; NVIDIA’s Adaptive VSync page says it locks the frame rate to the nearest level, such as 45 or 30 fps. That second drop is what people feel as stutter.
Why does everyone turn off VSync?
Input lag. With V-Sync on, a finished frame waits for the next refresh instead of going to the screen immediately. Blur Busters’ G-SYNC 101 methodology page reports a typical two frames of added delay with double-buffered V-Sync above the refresh rate, and up to three and a half frames in Overwatch, which its chart puts at up to 58.1 ms at 60 Hz. Competitive players would rather see a tear than wait that long.
What happens if VSync is on?
The GPU holds each finished frame until the display starts its next refresh, so the screen never draws parts of two frames at once and tearing disappears. The price is that the frame waits, which adds latency, and if your frame rate falls below the refresh rate the game can stutter or drop to half rate. On a variable refresh monitor the driver’s V-Sync switch behaves differently: inside the VRR range G-Sync or FreeSync does the syncing, and V-Sync only decides what happens above the range.
Does VSync force 60 FPS?
Only on a 60 Hz display. V-Sync matches the frame rate to the refresh rate, so on a 120 Hz monitor it caps at 120 and on a 240 Hz monitor at 240. If your game is stuck at 60 fps on a faster monitor, check that Windows is running the panel at its full refresh rate under Settings, System, Display, Advanced display, and that the game is not using its own 60 fps limiter.
Is 60hz basically 60 fps?
No. Hz is how many times per second the monitor redraws; fps is how many frames per second the GPU produces. They are independent numbers. V-Sync ties them together by making the GPU wait for the redraw, and variable refresh rate does the reverse by making the monitor redraw when a frame is ready. Without either, a 60 Hz monitor can be fed 200 fps and will show slices of several frames in one redraw, which is tearing.

Evidence ledger

Last updated
Methodology
See our methodology for research and review standards. It draws on 11 cited sources, listed below, each checked against the original page on the date above. The menu paths and option names for NVIDIA are mine, read off the bench machine on 2026-09-12: NVIDIA App 11.0.9 on Game Ready driver 616.56, an RTX 5080, a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Windows 11 Home build 26200, driving an AORUS FO48U at 3840x2160 and 120 Hz with Monitor Technology set to G-SYNC Compatible. I did not measure input latency; that needs a high-speed camera and an LED-modified mouse, and every latency figure here is Blur Busters’ G-SYNC 101 measurement, named where it appears. The AMD paths are AMD’s own support articles, because there is no Radeon card on this bench. Every source was opened live on 2026-09-12.
Sources
Update log
  • 2026-09-12 — Page updated.
Corrections
Spotted an error or a stale number? Email hello@techfuelhq.com. Confirmed corrections are added to the update log above.

About the author

Written by Lowell K. Wood IV, who builds and runs TechFuelHQ from St. Louis, Missouri.