How to remove screen tearing in Elden Ring

Elden Ring with fake screen tearing effect edit

This is just a representation of what screen tearing can look like—it's difficult to capture in photography. (Image credit: FromSoftware)

Screen tearing used to be a much worse deal for PC gaming, though thankfully we've grown accustomed to in-game and hardware technologies—Vsync, G-Sync, and FreeSync—that can all but wipe it out. That's not to say it doesn't rear its ugly head every so often, however. As Elden Ring can show in rare circumstance.

In keeping your graphics card and monitor in lock-step with one another, Vsync can be useful when your framerate is likely to go significantly above or below your monitor's output. This framerate mismatch is most often the cause of screen tearing, and so Vsync usually eradicates screen tearing completely.

There are some downsides to Vsync. Since it essentially limits your framerate it also limits the benefits of gaming at a high framerate, such as lower response times. That's why you might choose to disable it outright for your favourite competitive games or instead opt for smarter variable refresh rate technologies, such as G-Sync or FreeSync.

Well, kind of. Vsync settings can be disabled either per-application or globally in your graphics card's driver settings, and these take precedent over the in-game options.

The only time you should run into issue with Vsync in Elden Ring then is if you've already disabled it on a global basis and you're not using G-Sync or FreeSync.

With Elden Ring's recommended specifications, I'm going to assume you're using either an Nvidia or AMD graphics card in order to play it, so let's cover those two driver packages.

How to change your global V-Sync setting with an Nvidia GPU

Nvidia GeForce Control Panel Vsync settings for Elden Ring — (Image credit: Future)

To begin, head to the Nvidia Control Panel
Under 3D Settings, click Manage 3D Settings
To adjust your global Vsync setting, on the Global Settings tab, scroll down to Vertical Sync and select Use the 3D application Setting
To adjust your program Vsync setting, select the Program Settings tab, select Elden Ring from the program list (you may have to add it) and then scroll down to Vertical Sync and select either Use the 3D application Setting or On

How to change your global Vsync setting with an AMD GPU

AMD Radeon Settings Vsync settings for Elden Ring — (Image credit: Future)

Hop into the AMD Radeon Software
Select the Settings cog from the top-right
Select the Graphics tab
Scroll down to Wait for Vertical Refresh, and then set this to off, unless application specifies

There you have it, all ready to go for Elden Ring and without any pesky tearing to get in the way of what this incredibly highly-rated game has to offer.

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.