When playing a relatively modern video game title you will find that there is a VSync slider in many games graphics menus. Here is why you shouln’t always activate it!
What is VSync?
VSync is a technology developed to give you a better gaming experience and to eliminate something called screen tearing which appears when the GPU generates more frames than the monitor can handle. In such a case the monitor shows portions of two frames at the same time resulting in potentially visible screen tearing.
VSync eliminates this by capping the GPU to only calculate the correct amount of frames that the monitor can actually display.
Competitive Games
Because of the eliminated screen tearing one might think that VSync is great for competitive games like CS:GO or PUBG but apart from this good factor there are also some downsides. One of which is the added input lag which results out of waiting for the next frame. So when youre playing games competivly where your win heavily depends on having the newest possible information on the screen you should leave VSync deactivated as it would delay your input from the mouse and keyboard.
Graphically demanding games – racing games
When playing a graphically demanding game like Forza Horizon 5 for example it makes absolutely sense to activate VSync as the input lag isnt much of an issue. The only thing where you can run into problems is when your graphics card cannot produce enough frames to match your monitors frequenzy. In this case it can result in small stutters disrupting your experience.
Less demanding games, short or 2D titles
When you own a monitor with high refresh rate it actually might make sense to deactivate VSync and instead use a FPS regulator (Max Framerate) that caps the frame generation of your graphics card at lets say 60fps and therefore reduces the stress on your hardware while keeping the game smooth. A good example for this case is Minecraft which runs perfectly fine on 60 fps.
Conclusion
In general VSync is a great option to eliminate screen tearing and can be activated in the majority of games without any negative side effects. Keep in mind tho that when your experience suffers from stutters or when it is necessary to have the newest information possible on your screen you might want to turn it off.
