Nvidia’s G-Sync is a great technology, and it’s no surprise that a lot of people love to use it.
It’s fantastic at reducing screen tearing – and unlike V-Sync, the traditional method of reducing tearing, G-Sync doesn’t come at the cost of increased input lag, or require a reduced framerate!
However, it’s not a perfect software – and while, under ideal conditions, it won’t do anything but positives for your gaming experience, you might not be enjoying the way it works on your system!
Or, maybe, you just want to compare what it’s like with G-Sync on and off, to see if it is actually making a difference. Whatever your reason, if you want to disable G-Sync, you’ll need to know how!
Well, that’s where this guide comes in. We’ll tell you how to tell if G-Sync is enabled in your game, and how to disable it completely. If that’s what you need to know, then great news – this article is perfect for you! Read on to find out more!
What Is G-Sync?
G-Sync is an Nvidia-exclusive technology that aims to eliminate screen tearing. Screen tearing is a visual phenomenon that occurs on your monitor when the refresh rate of your monitor and the output frame rate of your game aren’t perfectly in sync with each other.
It manifests as a noticeable line that runs horizontally across the screen, with the top and bottom halves of the screen not quite matching up with each other, despite the fact they should both be showing the same frame.
It’s distracting and jarring for a lot of gamers, which is why it’s great that there’s technology that can deal with it!
As an Nvidia technology, it needs an Nvidia GPU and software to work. You’ll also need a monitor that’s certified as G-Sync compatible.
However, there is a similar technology called FreeSync, which works similarly, and can be made to work in the same way as G-Sync. That’s outside of the scope of this article, however.
Is G-Sync Enabled?
If you’re getting problems when using G-Sync, or you’re just trying to run some tests to see the difference, you’ll want to know how to see if G-Sync is enabled, and how you can disable it.
To see if G-Sync is enabled, you’ll need to have the Nvidia Control Panel installed on your system. Of course, this is an essential piece of software for G-Sync in the first place – it won’t work without it.
So, of course, as a last resort for disabling G-Sync, you can always simply uninstall all of the Nvidia software, including the control panel from your system. This is a last resort, but we’ll cover how to do that too.
However, for now, we’re just checking to see if G-Sync is enabled. After all, we can’t disable something if it’s not already enabled! So, let’s open the Nvidia Control Panel. You can do this in two ways.
Firstly, we can do this through the Nvidia Settings tray icon.
You’ll find this near the clock – you might need to click a symbol that looks like an upside-down letter V near the clock to see this, as it can often be in the midst of a lot of other icons.
When you’ve found it (you can hover over the icons with the mouse to get a text popup that tells you what program they are), click it with the right mouse button, and select the menu option “NVIDIA Control Panel.”
You can also click the Start/Windows icon at the bottom left of the screen to open the Start menu. This can also be done by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard.
Once you’ve done this, simply type “nvidia Control Panel” using your keyboard – no need to click anywhere else to enter this. You should see the icon for the NVIDIA Control Panel pop up – click it to open it.
Now that we’re in the Nvidia Control Panel, look at the list of options on the left hand side of the screen. One of them, under the subsection “Display”, is “Set up G-SYNC” – click it to open it.
At the top, under section 1, you’ll see a checkbox with the title “Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible”. If you’ve got G-Sync enabled, and your monitor supports G-Sync, then this checkbox will have a tick in it.
You can have G-Sync active in either just full screen mode, or in both windowed and full screen modes. Select this with the buttons below the “Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible” checkbox.
Finally, there’s a way that you can get an indicator on screen that will tell you whether G-Sync is on or not in games. Again, this is in the Nvidia Control Panel.
On the top row of the window, just underneath where it says “NVIDIA Control Panel”, there’s a set of menu buttons – “File”, “Edit”, “Desktop”, etc. Click the one that says “Display” – a menu will pop up.
Click the option “G-SYNC Compatible Indicator.” If you click “Display” in the top row again, you’ll see that a tick is now next to the “G-SYNC Compatible Indicator” option.
With this enabled, you’ll have an on-screen indicator telling you whether G-Sync is on or off in game. To turn this off again, simply click the “G-SYNC Compatible Indicator” option again.
How To Turn Off G-Sync
Now that you know how to see if G-Sync is enabled, it’s actually pretty straightforward to turn it off – you might have already figured it out, as you saw the option earlier!
Open the Nvidia Control Panel, and go to the “Set up G-Sync” menu on the left hand side. If the checkbox for “Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible” is checked, then uncheck it!
The G-Sync feature will now be disabled. If you’ve got the G-Sync Compatible Indicator turned on, then you should get an indicator in game to show that G-Sync is now disabled.
And, of course, to re-enable G-Sync, simply tick the “Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible” checkbox again in the Nvidia Control Panel.
Conclusion
With these steps followed, you’ll have easily been able to disable and re-enable G-Sync. Most of the time, you should leave it on – but if you feel the need to disable it, then hopefully this guide has helped you!
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