While great and powerful gaming GPUs can pump out tons of frames, it won't matter if your monitor is displaying those frames with ugly screen tearing. For a while, the only way to get rid of screen tearing was to enable V-Sync, which locked framerates and increased latency, and defeated the purpose of a high-end GPU. That's why nearly a decade ago, Nvidia launched its G-Sync technology to get the best of both worlds. It's changed a lot since then, too, so here's everything you need to know and how to enable it.

G-Sync, Nvidia's solution to screen tearing

Put simply, screen tearing is that weird visual phenomenon where a line goes across your monitor when you're playing a game or watching a movie. It's what happens when the refresh rate of the monitor (how often it shows a new image) isn't exactly the same as the framerate of the media on it (how many frames per second are rendered).

Let's say your monitor shows a new image every 10 milliseconds, but your game shows a new frame every 6.67 milliseconds. Even when that frame is done rendering and the game has moved on to the next, the monitor is nowhere near done completing its image. When the monitor is finally ready to display the latest image, a whole 3.33 milliseconds later, the game is halfway done drawing the next frame. This causes the upper half of your screen to show the most recent frame and the bottom half to show the previous frame, resulting in a nice tear across your screen.

To get around this, G-Sync dynamically changes the refresh rate of the monitor to match the framerate of the games, which is called variable refresh rate (VRR). There are upper and lower limits to this, of course, since a monitor's refresh rate can only be so high, and it's hard to sync the refresh rate to the framerate if it goes too low (30Hz and 30 FPS are usually the lowest you'll see any monitor go). Either way, you should definitely use G-Sync since it significantly improves the gaming experience, and anti-screen tearing technology is often included with the best gaming monitors.

That said, G-Sync monitors will still work if you like playing at a framerate higher than the refresh rate, you just won't be able to eliminate screen tearing. If you want both a high refresh rate and for G-Sync to work, there's not much you can do but get the highest refresh rate monitor possible and limit yourself to its highest refresh rate. If you're 100% committed to competitive gaming and want the highest framerate possible, you probably won't be able to take advantage of G-Sync.

G-Sync isn't the only anti-screen tearing technology out there, of course. There's the vendor-agnostic Adaptive Sync technology, which is broadly supported, as well as AMD's FreeSync, which is based on Adaptive Sync and so will work on any device that also supports Adaptive Sync.

The confusing world of G-Sync and G-Sync Compatible

However, things get more complicated when you dig into both versions: the original G-Sync and G-Sync Compatible. The original technology uses an FPGA chip to get refresh rate/framerate syncing to work. This FPGA adds a considerable premium to monitors, making them cost roughly $100 more than they normally would and leaving G-Sync inaccessible for many budget gamers. Additionally, the original G-Sync didn't initially work on non-Nvidia GPUs, but models made since 2020 are reportedly compatible with other GPUs.

There's also G-Sync Ultimate, which is more about other specifications of the monitor, such as refresh rate, latency, and HDR support. G-Sync Ultimate monitors get that branding because they're high-end, but they're not any better or worse for screen tearing.

G-Sync Compatible, on the other hand, is based on Adaptive Sync, a technology just like G-Sync but without the FPGA. You'd think that not using Nvidia's fancy FPGA would result in something worse, and you'd be totally wrong. The original G-Sync is only more effective at preventing screen tearing at low framerates, as low as 1 FPS for many monitors. G-Sync Compatible on the other hand works with AMD and Intel GPUs, unlike the original G-Sync prior to 2020, and it still can prevent screen tearing as low as 48 FPS.

As far as we can tell, the reason why Nvidia initially went for FPGAs is that it's essentially a hardware-agnostic solution, which was very convenient for both Nvidia and the manufacturers. Of course, that didn't mean G-Sync as a product was hardware-agnostic, since it was exclusive to Nvidia GPUs until the introduction of G-Sync Compatible and FPGAs that were unlocked for non-Nvidia cards. It was expected that Nvidia would introduce a cheap ASIC to replace its G-Sync FPGA so that G-Sync wouldn't be so expensive, but for whatever reason this just never happened.

While Nvidia GPUs used to exclusively support the original G-Sync, Nvidia eventually opened the gates to Adaptive Sync not just by allowing users to use officially certified G-Sync Compatible monitors but also regular Adaptive Sync and FreeSync monitors. Nvidia asserts that only monitors officially branded as G-Sync Compatible have met the company's stringent quality tests, implying everything else is garbage, but in reality, there are lots of great Adaptive Sync and FreeSync monitors not officially validated.

As a side note, laptops that advertise G-Sync actually use Adaptive Sync, even laptops produced before G-Sync Compatible was a thing. Again though, G-Sync Compatible is functionally identical to G-Sync, so you don't need to worry about a great gaming laptop being let down by inferior technology.

G-Sync compatibility and how to enable it

Determining whether a G-Sync monitor's anti-screen tearing technology will work on a given graphics card is complicated, given all the different versions of G-Sync and GPUs out there. The table below should help clarify things:

* Not guaranteed, depends on the model of monitor in question

Of course, enabling G-Sync on these graphics cards will vary since each company offers its own unique software with different locations for settings. Here's where you can find the option to enable G-Sync on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel hardware.

If you have an Nvidia GPU, enabling G-Sync is pretty simple. Open up Nvidia Control Panel, look on the left part of the window, and find where it says Set up G-SYNC. Click on that, then check the box that says Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible, and you should have G-Sync enabled.

For owners of AMD graphics cards, open AMD Software, click the Gaming tab, then click the Display secondary tab, and then find the setting that says AMD FreeSync. If you have a regular G-Sync monitor, it says "Not Supported" then the hardware inside uses the older FPGA that isn't compatible with non-Nvidia cards.

Owners of Intel GPUs can enable G-Sync by opening up the Windows settings, going to the Display settings, then clicking on Graphics settings, and then finding the option to enable Variable refresh rate. It's also possible to enable it in Intel Graphics Command Center; select Preferences, then Global Settings, and then there should be an option called Adaptive Sync. If you have a regular G-Sync monitor and none of this worked, then your display probably uses the older version of G-Sync that isn't compatible with non-Nvidia hardware.

If you're buying a monitor, it should have G-Sync or another anti-screen tearing solution

Screen tearing is one of those things that can be easy to ignore for a while until you see it for the first time. Thankfully, solutions like G-Sync exist so that you don't need to enable V-Sync to stop screen-tearing. G-Sync was initially a premium, expensive solution for anti-screen tearing, but now Nvidia graphics cards owners can also choose from G-Sync Compatible, FreeSync, and Adaptive Sync, all of which use the same basic anti-screen tearing technology.

G-Sync, in theory, also exists as a seal of quality for monitors bearing the G-Sync brand, but in reality, that really only applies to high-end G-Sync Ultimate models. Regular G-Sync monitors cover a very wide spread of price points and specifications, while G-Sync Compatible certification realistically just means the monitor manufacturer worked with Nvidia in some way (it's not like Nvidia is reviewing monitors). While G-Sync as a technology is great and is arguably as important as resolution and refresh rate, that doesn't necessarily mean monitors that have it are too.