*spin off* Perception of Tearing/Tearing Detection

[Oninotsume]

Hi,

This isn't really regarding Assassin's Creed II in particular, but rather the screen tear ticks the Lens of Truth includes in their videos. I don't doubt there is screen tear, but I have a really hard time distinguishing it with my naked eye. I noticed this same thing with Dirt 2, which I thought was perfect until I saw the Lens of Truth video.

Is this screen tearing generally perceptible by people here, or does it require specific analysis to determine?

Oninotsume

 

[AlNom]

Tearing doesn't need specific analysis to observe, but to quantify the phenomena, it clearly would. If you can't see it, all the better for your own experience, [strike] but whether or not you notice it is off-topic...[/strike]

 

[Oninotsume]

Hi AlStrong,

Thank you for the swift feedback.

Oninotsume

 

[grandmaster]

Hi,

This isn't really regarding Assassin's Creed II in particular, but rather the screen tear ticks the Lens of Truth includes in their videos. I don't doubt there is screen tear, but I have a really hard time distinguishing it with my naked eye. I noticed this same thing with Dirt 2, which I thought was perfect until I saw the Lens of Truth video.

Is this screen tearing generally perceptible by people here, or does it require specific analysis to determine?

This is probably worth a spin-off thread to be honest.

There has been discussion about this before and there is an element of human perception, but also the context. For what it's worth, I agree entirely about DiRT2. It tears much more on PS3, but it's rarely noticeable. It's another example of how you need to be careful with FPS analysis and present a context.

These are my observations:

1. Location of tear - typically (but not always), the closer to the middle of the screen it is, the more noticeable it is as that is where the focus of the eye goes. With DiRT2 in third person mode, a lot of tearing goes on at the top, in the sky, where it is not really noticeable.

2. Lateral movement - if you are moving "into" the screen (eg RE5, DiRT2), tearing is less noticeable than if you're banking wildly left or right. Play the Japan or London courses in DiRT2 and it seems like they have more tearing but really it's simply that you are seeing much more lateral movement in the hairpin turns. So, speed of movement plays a part... which leads me on to...

3. Position of camera/Speed of movement - again, in DiRT2, assuming you are using the third person camera, the sense of movement (ie the speed at which scenery passes) is diminished compared to using the in-car view. I would expect that with a lower "speed", the tears are not so easy to see. Again, RE5 benefits here.

So by most of these criteria, DiRT2 performs pretty well on PS3 and the tearing (for me, and for you I guess!) doesn't really impact the gameplay. As I said, probably worth a spin-off thread on tearing vis a vis perception up against the cold hard realities of tearing detection.

 

[assurdum]

Hi,

This isn't really regarding Assassin's Creed II in particular, but rather the screen tear ticks the Lens of Truth includes in their videos. I don't doubt there is screen tear, but I have a really hard time distinguishing it with my naked eye. I noticed this same thing with Dirt 2, which I thought was perfect until I saw the Lens of Truth video.

Is this screen tearing generally perceptible by people here, or does it require specific analysis to determine?

Oninotsume

Depend. The ubisoft gamers are nightmares for me; I can't to see the tearing in any its game, even in ac 2 of the 360 version...I don't care so much if the analysis shows more in a particular version & I appreciate too when they try to mask how mirror's edge, dirt 2 & batman AA did on the ps3 than a better perfomances to the torn of the fps.

 

[zed]

Also tearing is more noticeable if theres a large difference between colors.
eg dark background with explosions happening over it

 

[Sigfried1977]

I notice it, but I also hardly care (of course I prefer no tearing, but it's no dead breaker). I always turned off v-sync when I was still playing PC games to get better framerates.

I spent almost 150 hours with Sacred 2 on my PS3, so I guess that means I'm rather resilient to both tearing and bad frame rates. Lucky me.

The only time tearing was really, really bugging me was with Capcom's games. My 360 is hooked up to my tv with a VGA lead at a resolution of 1366 x 768, and for some od reason games start to tear like hell that way.

 

[grandmaster]

Also tearing is more noticeable if theres a large difference between colors.
eg dark background with explosions happening over it

Good point - contrasting colours, and explosions especially, will show it up. I guess this ties into my previous point about speed of movement - explosions are scene-changing and very fast!

 

[Alkohallick]

read through the tread and i have a question, WHY? what advantage to the devs get with having tearing in their games? if they didnt have screen tearing what would i as the end user loose?

 

[Alucardx23]

read through the tread and i have a question, WHY? what advantage to the devs get with having tearing in their games? if they didnt have screen tearing what would i as the end user loose?

It’s an easier way to keep framerate high, most TV draw at 60hz and devs use vsync to synchronize the signal that the console is sending with the TV Refresh Rate, it’s all good as long as the framerate is stable at 60 or 30 frames per second, but when the game cannot keep up even if it is 58 or 27 frames per second the framerate automatically goes down to 30 in the case of a 60 frames game or 20 in the case of a 30 frames game, so most devs prefer to turn off Vsync to keep the framerate higher.

Here is a good example of how a game behaves with Vsync turned on and off.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1373042&postcount=976

 

[dobwal]

It’s an easier way to keep framerate high, most TV draw at 60hz and devs use vsync to synchronize the signal that the console is sending with the TV Refresh Rate, it’s all good as long as the framerate is stable at 60 or 30 frames per second, but when the game cannot keep up even if it is 58 or 27 frames per second the framerate automatically goes down to 30 in the case of a 60 frames game or 20 in the case of a 30 frames game, so most devs prefer to turn off Vsync to keep the framerate higher.

Here is a good example of how a game behaves with Vsync turned on and off.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1373042&postcount=976

Are those images mislabeled?

 

[corduroygt]

It’s an easier way to keep framerate high, most TV draw at 60hz and devs use vsync to synchronize the signal that the console is sending with the TV Refresh Rate, it’s all good as long as the framerate is stable at 60 or 30 frames per second, but when the game cannot keep up even if it is 58 or 27 frames per second the framerate automatically goes down to 30 in the case of a 60 frames game or 20 in the case of a 30 frames game, so most devs prefer to turn off Vsync to keep the framerate higher.

Here is a good example of how a game behaves with Vsync turned on and off.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1373042&postcount=976

Which is a shame, since triple buffering would eliminate the framerate issue.

 

[Alucardx23]

Which is a shame, since triple buffering would eliminate the framerate issue.

I love triple buffering, every game should include this, you only sacrifice memory but the benefits are a lot more than the negatives.

 

[Alucardx23]

Are those images mislabeled?

Why?

 

[digitalwanderer]

I love triple buffering, every game should include this, you only sacrifice memory but the benefits are a lot more than the negatives.

Agreed.

 

[Jedi2016]

Why?

heh.. because one of the ones labeled "VSync ON" has visible tearing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I notice it, but I also hardly care (of course I prefer no tearing, but it's no dead breaker). I always turned off v-sync when I was still playing PC games to get better framerates.

I still do, unless it's a slow paced game that doesn't require quick responses. Otherwise Vsync is the first thing I turn off, always...

read through the tread and i have a question, WHY? what advantage to the devs get with having tearing in their games? if they didnt have screen tearing what would i as the end user loose?

Control fluidity and response. Triple buffering certainly helps maintain a stable framerate, but still introduces varying amounts of input lag. I have yet to play a triple buffered Vsynced game where the input lag hasn't driven me batsnot insane. This is assuming some kind of action game that requires fast response (FPS for example). With a 60 FPS game, I'm used to doing 90-180 degree turns in less than 1 frame. Additional input latency of any kind for me is totally unacceptable.

In that case, I far prefer Vsync with double buffering if I absolutely had to have it. But my preference is and probably always will be Vsync off.

I've grown so used to it that unless the FPS is so low that the tear lingers on the screen, I don't notice it. Although I may notice sometimes when someone points it out to me.

That said on console where you don't have the possibility of ultra fast response rate/turning similar to a mouse, it's not such a big issue. Even so I'd say hardcore FPS players coming over from PC would be most affected by whether they prefer/tolerate tearing or not.

Regards,
SB