A quick fix for the awful screen tearing in Rage for the PC, which coupled with the streaming texture issues, are making many PC gamers very frustrated.
Update 10/08/2011: Steam just released a patch for Rage which allows Vsync to be turned on in the menu, along with a couple other fixes. Once updated, you should no longer need the tips detailed here. See the update notes for this Rage patch.
Fortunately, this fix is simple and straight forward. What is quite disturbing is how stuff like this gets through testing for a top shelf game such as this!
Screen Tearing Fix
This issue is simply a lack of vertical sync. I have never noticed vsync to be this bad, though.
Bethesda blames the issue on a “swap-tear” extension that apparently is not enabled for any video card at the time of release. Perhaps they were betting that this would be the case by the time the game came out. Looks like they gambled and lost!
There are 2 fix options, straight from the Sr. Community Manager at Bethesda:
The user can force V-sync on or off in the graphics vendor control panel. Right-click on the desktop to access the graphics vendor control panel.
If V-sync is forced on then RAGE will always V-sync.
If V-sync is forced off then RAGE will auto-detect that V-sync is not working and RAGE will instead synchronize to real-time and screen tearing may occur.Alternatively you can force V-sync on by adding the following to the RAGE launch options in Steam:
+r_swapInterval 1
The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting “Properties”. Then click on “Set Launch Options” in the dialog that pops up.
So your options are to use Nvidia Control Panel / Catalyst Control Center or set a launch option with Steam.
I simply switched my Nvidia Control Panel to Force On Vsync and this problem was immediately gone. If you haven’t done so already, you can get tips for solving the texture streaming issues that make images pop up when turning the camera quickly.
None of those options fixed the screen tearing.
I just wanted to thank the Origional post in this thread. I have a quad core , 4gb ram, nividia gt 470. Initially the game had problems with storing the texture cache. This results in the popping in and out of textures when moving / turning the camera. Also in the main menus there was screen tearing like vsync had gone. I DOWNLOADED THE NVIDIA BETA DRIVERS from NVIDIA web site and now the game runs great !! BUT I could not turn on VSync , and although the texture popping was resolved and I could run all video settings at full wack….. I could not turn VSYNC on !!!! It kept reverting to “off” no matter how many times I applied the settings. After reading this web site I am happy to sat that exiting the game and launching NVIDIA control panel and then going into PROGRAM’S. ( un tick the box that says show only items on this system) I didn’t pick up rage until I did this, then simply go down the setting and force verticle synce on..
THIS WORKS PERFECTY NOW,!!!! I recommend to all users to simple upgrade to the BETA DRIVERS & ADJUST GAME SETTINGS IN YOUR VIDEO CARD CONTROLL PANEL before re launching the game..
All Is well and I can finally play this game now!!! Thanks
i forced the anti aliasing and the screen tearing seems to be gone… but the frame rate is now limited to 30 >.<
plz help, is there a command line for max fps?
edit: i forced the V-sync not the AA *
update: i removed the V-sync command and now the fps isn’t lmited to 30 AND no screen tearing!
i’m using these commands idk if they’re the reason :-
vt_pageImageSizeUnique 8192
vt_pageImageSizeUniqueDiffuseOnly 8192
vt_pageImageSizeUniqueDiffuseOnly2 8192
At first, I turned off AA in the game itself and thought that cleared up the tearing, but it came back a moment later.
Either way, I get 60 FPS both with and without those 3 commands… In fact, I have not been able to see any difference in anything when using them. The biggest benefit for me was using the “GPU Transcode” option with my GTX 470.
For the users which doesnt use steam where to enter these command – +r_swapInterval 1 ?
A copy of Rage without Steam? Where did you buy that?
You actually bought this pos ported from console to PC? By releasing games this buggy for PC game studios are screaming “pirate me”. 😉
Im calling him out without actually calling him out. This way, it forces out the truth without accusing anyone of anything.
You can buy the game at the store, or from any of the dozens of Direct download providers out there. Stupid Steam users, so ignorant. I got mine from Direct 2 Drive.
Rage “Requires Installation and activation on Steamworks” – from the Direct 2 Drive site
Dont be a dick or I’ll just delete your comments.
Yo webmasters, were have you been? The texture popping was already solved shortly after release, you simply create a config file with some customised settings, and bye bye texture popping, this was big news on the geforce website.
http://www.geforce.com/News/articles/how-to-unlock-rages-high-resolution-textures-with-a-few-simple-tweaks
I use the below with a gtx260
vt_useCudaTranscode 2
vt_cudaBudget 16.6
vt_maxPPF 16
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly2 8192
vt_pageimagesizeuniquediffuseonly 8192
vt_pageimagesizeunique 8192
vt_pageimagesizevmtr 8192
vt_restart
vt_maxaniso 4
image_anisotropy 4
and no more screen tears at 1680 x 1050, i suggest you post this info on your site for all to see, it will bring you traffic!
I already mentioned both the 8192 textures and rageConfig.cfg file in the texture streaming article
edit, i meant no more texture popping, cant get rid of the screen tears even with vsync forced on and above settings, though it is drasticaly reduced.
Just posting a note to say THANK YOU. Your +r_swapInterval 1 solution worked perfectly. I was getting quite bad screen tearing any time I looked around, but this totally eliminated it. In combination with the other config file tweaks, the game is looking and running amazingly.
I seem to only get screen tearing when in full screen. thought it was sli to start with but disabling that did nothing. i really expected more from id. hopefully dice will deliver later this month.
Good news Chris – they just released a patch. It does involve Vsync, too. They also say in the patch notes that using ALT+Tab to switch windows while playing can disable Vsync and cause the game to flip back to its automatic refresh setting.