How to Fix Screen Tearing in a Game

Screen tearing is a synchronization problem: frames are presented out of step with the display. Vsync or adaptive sync fixes it. Here is how, and the trade-offs.

How to fix it

1. Enable vsync

Vsync makes the GPU wait to swap buffers until the display finishes a refresh, so a frame is never shown half-replaced. This removes tearing at the cost of some latency and potential frame pacing issues.

2. Consider adaptive sync

Variable refresh (G-Sync, FreeVRR) matches the display refresh to the frame rate, removing tearing without the latency penalty of traditional vsync where the hardware supports it.

3. Cap the frame rate

Capping the frame rate at or just below the refresh rate reduces tearing and keeps pacing even. Combined with the right sync mode, it gives a smooth image without excessive input lag.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every your game error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.