Digital Foundry analyzes Darksiders post-patch

It would appear this is how its done....its not a mystery its called vsync. ignorance is not bliss for a journalist

I'm noticing tearing on Bayonetta as well.

YAY! Finally the tearing will stop!!

Oh wait... already beat the game :P
oh well...

Is it just me or are games not as "polished" as they used to be? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for these patches to fix glitches/hacks/etc but in the 'cartridge' era of gaming (this can be extended to the PS2/Dreamcast as well), I don't recall ever being frustrated with graphics and/or gameplay (except Battletoads, damn that game). I understand games are a lot more technical these days but sometimes I feel as if there isn't a significant amount of time being spent on QA and that there's some project lead/exec that says, "We can just patch it after launch. Deadlines, deadlines, DEADLINES PEOPLE!"

Great, they did exactly what I dreaded. Yay lets cut the game down from 50fps to 30fps. They could have at least made it an option like Bioshock. I'll just get ready to be downvoted again.

Played this game for about 16 hours with mcguffin finding... never experienced any screen tearing.

Good, by the time I finish ME2 enough to get back to other games they'll have fixed Darksiders, the Dragon Age "Ostagar" DLC, and the all of the new ACII DLC will be out. Win/win as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't played Darksiders, so I'm just shooting in the dark, but just because the game was running at 50FPS doesn't necessarily mean your HDTV was truly showing that framerate. NTSC lists many different resolutions and refresh rates, and it does supprot 50Hz, but I doubt the game was coded (or even our console systems) to send a 50Hz signal. So, my best guess is that Darksiders was *always* displaying a 30Hz signal, even though the game would sometimes run faster than 30FPS. Which would explain the screen tearing.

50 fps on 360 version eh? I played through the PS3 version and it rarely seemed that high. Guess 360 was brought down to PS3's level to combat tearing though.. bummer

@Knightly:

Exactly. The game's v-sync was likely set to 30Hz. Running at 50FPS = tearing. You basically reiterated what I said, but in reverse. :)

No, you're mistaken. The screen doesn't *always* output a 60Hz image. ATSC refresh rates can be 24Hz, 30Hz, 50Hz, and 60Hz, and all sorts of odd refresh rates in between. Realistically, the PS3, Wii, and 360 probably only support the 30 and 60 Hz refresh rates (I take that back, the PS3 handles 24p).

Where you are going wrong is stating I am wrong and then assuming that Darksiders is coded to a refresh rate of 60Hz (and then bound by that V-Sync). As I stated in my original comment, it would make sense that it's coded for 30Hz, and that any time the frame rate goes higher than that, we get tearing. V-Sync may or may not have anything to do with this. This would explain why the developers patched the game to only run at 30fps.

At this point, I don't really know what you are arguing for. As I stated, we've been basically reiterating the same thing over now, just citing different refresh rate values in our defense. I understand what V-Sync is, but what I am saying is completely independent of V-Sync. For all we know, Darksiders may not have a V-Sync value, and is only coded based on a frame limiter (also very plausible).

Any time the screen gets a higher frame rate than the refresh rate its outputting, the screen will tear. Since you're on the V-Sync kick, try this. Set your monitor or LCD screen to 60Hz and then play Quake 3 with V-Sync turned off. When you're going 200+FPS you're going to get tearing constantly.

@Knighty

This needs to be said: If V-Sync is turned on (and yes, it is coded based on the vertical sync of your monitor, 30Hz, 60Hz, 75Hz, or whatever), then you don't get screen tearing. That is V-Sync's main goal, to keep the video output matched to your displays refresh rate so that both are in sync (hence the name). Since Darksiders is a tear-fest, it's safe to assume that V-Sync was not used, and then everything I've said up to this point applies.

With so many games that do tear, I wouldn't be surprised to hear from a Developer that V-Sync isn't even used. My best guess would be that V-Sync requires extra processing and memory power to ensure that each frame gets a "wait" or "don't wait" command. So, why use those precious CPU cycles, when you can just impose a frame limiter and be done with it? Darksiders would be an example of a frame limiter of 60fps, but an ATSC signal that doesn't match that (and hence the tearing).