VSync, adaptive sync, and screen tearing
Tearing, stutter, and input lag are the trade a sync setting makes. A plain map of the usual options.
Screen tearing is a seam where two different frames share the monitor at once. It looks like a horizontal cut through the picture, often when you turn quickly. Sync settings exist to hide that seam. They pay for the hide with delay, with stutter, or with both, depending on the mode and on whether your frame rate matches the panel. The right setting is the one whose side effect you notice least in the game you play.
Why the seam appears
The game finishes frames whenever it can. The monitor shows a new image on its own schedule. If those clocks disagree, the monitor may scan out a newer frame halfway down the screen. You see the top of one moment and the bottom of the next. Faster cameras in a racer or a shooter make the cut obvious. A slow, steady game may tear and never bother you. Refresh Rate vs Response Time: What Each Monitor Number Means is the panel side of this clock. The sync setting is how the PC chooses to respect it.
Classic vertical sync
Vertical sync tells the game to hand over a frame only when the monitor is ready for a full refresh. The seam goes away. If the game cannot finish a frame in time for the next refresh, it may repeat the old one, and motion stutters. Input can feel heavier because a finished frame waits for the next scan. Some games offer a triple-buffered variant that softens the stutter and can add its own latency. If you already dislike the feel, more buffering is not comfort. Try it in a match you care about, not only in a menu where the frame rate is uncapped and irrelevant.
Adaptive sync
Adaptive sync lets the monitor's refresh rate follow the game's frame rate inside a range. When it works, you get neither the seam nor the strict wait of classic sync. The monitor and the graphics card both have to support a version of it, and the frame rate has to stay inside the window the panel advertises. Above that window, you may need a cap or a fallback. Below it, some panels use a trick to keep going, and some do not. A cable and a port that cannot carry the mode will make the feature vanish from the menu. HDMI and DisplayPort for a gaming monitor is the checklist for that disappearance.
Caps, and tearing you can live with
A frame cap just under the refresh rate is a common partner to adaptive sync, and a way to keep an uncapped game from racing into useless thousands of frames in a menu. An uncapped menu is heat and coil noise, not smoothness. Some players leave tearing on and cap the frame rate high, because they would rather see a seam than feel added delay. That is a valid taste in a twitchy game. It is a strange taste in a story game where the seam distracts and the delay would not. Why Your Frame Rate Stutters Even When the Average Is High covers stutter that sync did not create. Do not ask a sync toggle to heal a hitch from shaders or a full disk.
Pick one and write it down
Enable the monitor's adaptive mode, set the game, and decide. If the picture seams, the mode is not actually on, or the frame rate is outside the range. If the picture feels late, classic sync or an extra buffer is the likely cause. Change one toggle. Stacking a driver sync, an in-game sync, and a third-party limiter produces a feel nobody can debug. The goal is a picture that stays whole and a delay you stop noticing after a minute.
Frequently asked questions
Does adaptive sync replace a high refresh rate? No. It makes the refresh you have follow the frames you have. A panel that only reaches 60 Hz is still a 60 Hz panel when the game dips to 50.
Is tearing a broken monitor? Usually it is a timing choice, not a defect. If the seam remains in every mode, including a static desktop, then suspect the cable or the panel. In games only, suspect sync first.
Should every game use the same sync setting? Use the same monitor feature, and let individual games differ if one of them feels worse. A cap and a note in your own words beat a universal preset you copied.