FPSTester

Screen Tearing Test - Check Your Display Tearing Free

This screen tearing test sweeps a high-contrast pattern across your display so any mismatch between your GPU and your monitor's refresh cycle becomes visible as a horizontal seam. Pick a pattern, dial in a speed, and watch the moving edge. It runs entirely in your browser, nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored.

Start the test, then stare at the vertical edge of the moving pattern. A clean edge means no tearing.

Test Pattern

Speed

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Live FPS
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Frame time (ms)

Frame rate spikes here often line up with tearing. For a dedicated measurement, run the FPS Test and the Refresh Rate Test.

What Am I Looking For?

Screen tearing test example showing a monitor with a visible horizontal tear line splitting the image versus a clean, tear-free monitor

Tearing looks like a straight horizontal seam across the moving object, where everything above the line is shifted sideways from everything below it. The seam can jump up and down the screen frame to frame, and you may see two or three of them at once. That is different from motion blur, which smears the whole object evenly, and from ghosting, which leaves a faint trailing copy behind it.

How to Use This Test

1

Go Fullscreen and Start

Press F11 for fullscreen, close heavy background tabs, and hit Start Tearing Test. Keep the tab focused so your browser doesn't throttle frames.

2

Watch the Moving Edge

Focus on the leading vertical edge of the bar, not the whole screen. Try each pattern and step the speed up until any seam becomes obvious.

3

Compare With Sync On

Toggle VSync or G-Sync/FreeSync in your GPU control panel and rerun the test. If the seam disappears, tearing was a sync problem, not a hardware fault.

What Is Screen Tearing?

Screen tearing is what you see when your monitor displays parts of two or more different frames in a single refresh. Your graphics card renders frames into a buffer, and your monitor reads that buffer from top to bottom at a fixed rate. If the GPU swaps in a new frame while the monitor is halfway through reading, the top of the screen shows the old frame and the bottom shows the new one, with a visible offset between them.

It's most obvious during fast horizontal motion panning a camera in a game, scrolling a page quickly, or watching a car drive across the screen. That's exactly the motion this tearing test recreates.

What Causes Screen Tearing?

  • VSync is off: nothing tells the GPU to wait for the monitor's refresh, so buffer swaps land mid-scan. This is the single most common cause.
  • FPS higher than your refresh rate: at 250 FPS on a 60Hz panel the buffer is overwritten several times per refresh, producing multiple tear lines at once.
  • Unstable frame pacing: even at matching averages, uneven frame times drift in and out of phase with the refresh cycle.
  • GPU driver or compositor issues: outdated drivers, a broken desktop compositor, or conflicting overlay software can bypass sync entirely.
  • Cable and bandwidth limits: an HDMI 1.4 cable at 1440p can force fallback modes and disable adaptive sync, which brings tearing back.
  • Adaptive sync outside its range: G-Sync and FreeSync only work inside a set Hz window; drop below or shoot above it and tearing returns.

Screen Tearing vs Stuttering vs Ghosting

These three get confused constantly, and the fixes are completely different. Use this table to identify what you're actually seeing on the tearing test above.

ArtifactWhat It Looks LikeRoot CauseTypical Fix
TearingA straight horizontal seam splitting the image, top offset from bottomFrame buffer swapped mid-refresh (no sync)Enable VSync or G-Sync/FreeSync, cap FPS
StutteringMotion hitches and jumps, image stays intactUneven frame times, FPS below refresh rateLower settings, fix frame pacing, use VRR
GhostingFaint trailing smear following moving objectsSlow pixel response time in the panel itselfRaise overdrive/response setting in the monitor OSD

How to Fix Screen Tearing

  • Enable VSync in your game or GPU control panel. It removes tearing outright at the cost of a little input lag.
  • Turn on G-Sync or FreeSync in both your monitor's OSD menu and your driver panel, this is the best option if your hardware supports it.
  • Cap your FPS 2–3 frames below your refresh rate (141 on a 144Hz panel) so you stay inside the adaptive sync window. Check your numbers with the FPS Test and Refresh Rate Test.
  • Update your GPU drivers - sync bugs after a Windows update are common and usually patched quickly.
  • Use DisplayPort instead of HDMI when your resolution and refresh rate exceed the HDMI version's bandwidth.
  • Run games borderless windowed if fullscreen exclusive keeps tearing; the desktop compositor will sync frames for you.

Does This Tearing Test Work on Mobile?

The test runs fine on phones and tablets, but tearing is essentially a desktop monitor phenomenon. Mobile operating systems composite every frame through a hard-synced pipeline, so you will almost never see a tear line on a phone even when the animation drops frames. Treat a clean mobile result as expected, and run this tearing test on the desktop or monitor you actually want to diagnose. If you're checking a phone screen for physical faults instead, the Dead Pixel Test is the right tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a screen tearing test and how does it work?

A screen tearing test moves a high-contrast pattern across your display fast enough that any mismatch between your GPU's output and your monitor's refresh cycle becomes visible. If the frame buffer swaps while the monitor is midway through drawing a refresh, you see a horizontal seam where the top and bottom of the moving object don't line up. This test draws that motion with requestAnimationFrame in your browser, so you can check for tearing without installing anything.

Is screen tearing bad for my monitor?

No. Tearing is purely a timing artifact in how frames are delivered, not a hardware fault, and it cannot damage your panel or your GPU. It's annoying to look at during fast motion, but leaving it unfixed carries no physical risk. Dead or stuck pixels are an actual hardware problem, and you can check for those with our dead pixel test.

Why does tearing happen even with a good GPU?

A powerful GPU actually makes tearing more likely, not less. When your card pushes 300 FPS at a 144Hz monitor, it's overwriting the frame buffer more than twice per refresh, so the monitor scans out pieces of two or three different frames in a single pass. Tearing is about synchronisation, not raw power, which is why capping your frame rate often looks better than letting it run uncapped.

Does VSync fix tearing completely?

VSync eliminates tearing entirely because the GPU is forced to wait for the monitor's refresh before swapping buffers. The trade-off is input lag, and if your frame rate dips below the refresh rate, VSync can halve your effective FPS and introduce visible stutter. That's why most gamers now prefer adaptive sync, or VSync combined with a frame cap a couple of frames below the refresh rate.

G-Sync and FreeSync vs VSync - which is better for tearing?

G-Sync and FreeSync are better in almost every case. Instead of forcing the GPU to wait, they make the monitor wait, varying its refresh rate in real time to match whatever frame rate the GPU produces. You get no tearing and no added input lag inside the variable refresh window. VSync is the older fixed-refresh fallback, and it's still useful as a ceiling above the adaptive sync range.

Can a browser test really show screen tearing?

Yes, with one caveat. Browsers composite through the same GPU pipeline as games, so if your desktop compositor or driver is delivering unsynchronised frames, this tearing test will show it. However, most browsers apply their own VSync to the compositor, which can hide tearing that only appears in fullscreen exclusive games. If the test looks clean but your games tear, the problem lives in your in-game or driver settings.

Why can't I see tearing on my phone?

Mobile operating systems composite every frame through a hard-synced pipeline, so tearing is effectively impossible on phones and tablets. Screen tearing is a desktop and monitor phenomenon tied to the GPU writing to a frame buffer that a fixed-refresh display is reading at the same time. The test still runs on mobile, but a clean result there doesn't tell you anything about your PC.

Does frame rate matter more than refresh rate for tearing?

Neither one causes tearing on its own it's the relationship between them. Tearing appears whenever your FPS and your monitor's Hz drift out of phase, which is most visible when FPS is high and unsynchronised. Run the FPS test and the refresh rate test together, and if the two numbers are far apart with no sync enabled, tearing is expected.

Why do I only see tearing in some games and not others?

Different engines default to different presentation modes. A game running borderless windowed usually inherits the desktop compositor's VSync and looks tear-free, while the same game in fullscreen exclusive with VSync off will tear heavily. Some engines also ship with an internal frame cap that happens to keep them in sync by accident.

Should I cap my FPS to stop screen tearing?

Capping helps a lot, especially combined with adaptive sync. The usual recommendation is to cap 2 to 3 frames below your refresh rate 141 FPS on a 144Hz panel, for example so the GPU stays inside the variable refresh window and never hits the VSync ceiling. You get no tearing, no VSync lag spike, and lower GPU temperatures at the same time.

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