If you're playing in windowed mode, you have vsync on. Without 3rd party tools that are banned in leagues, you can't turn it off on AMD/ATI cards as it's forced in Windows 8 and the drivers cannot turn it off at the OS level.

Wow, great to know.

I use Windowed mode for streaming and easier alt-tabbing. This would make me especially considering going back to full-screen/dual-booting into XP

I'm pretty sure he means that it's only forced in Win8, so if you're in XP you should be fine.

I'm on Windows 8

;-;

Well, going into fullscreen seems to have fixed it, but are you absolutely sure there's no way to disable the vsync?

Well, generally the performace is better when TF2 is played in Fullscreen mode.
Also, this guy disabled V-sync in Win8 using AMD graphics/drivers by doing this, I don't know if it would help you, I hope it does.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=33437241

Well, that's for Assassin's Creed 3, I don't think it'd help.

Also forced on win 7 unless aero is disabled, just for the record.

Yes, that is correct, and is actually the reason why I know vsync is forced on on Windows 8.

You see, Aero was "removed" from Windows 8. And by that, Microsoft meant that they removed the glass effect, but kept almost everything else. They also forced it on, meaning vsync is always forced on as well.

For Nvidia users, you can disable vsync in Windows 8 in the Nvidia control panel. For AMD (and I assume Intel) users, you need to, as I said above, use 3rd party tools banned in leagues.

If AMD would allow us to disable vsync in their control panel, or if Microsoft gave the option of disabling vsync, this would be a non-issue. Maybe if someone made an application that has the sole job of disabling vsync on the desktop, or if the developer of the Strobelight application added a vsync option (so we don't have to have multiple applications running if we use both) we'd be able to use Aero without vsync in leagues.

I don't think this is what you meant to link... if it is, then it's completely unrelated.

Well, I don't think it's solely a tf2 related problem as I get slight stutter in games like Fez as well. Plus, I didn't have these problems the first time I had Win8

Bump. Edited the main post with other problems I'm having.

The second part would be how TF2 deals with custom content. The way it works is that it'll load what's needed when it's needed. This means for HUDs that they'll load the specific parts of the hud when brought up like scoreboards and the like. I've found that the best way to avoid stuff like this is to pack them in VPK files (without the fonts as VPK does not handle fonts, you'll need to have them in a custom folder per normal install.)

Ah, so it's a steampipe issue?

Also, the scoreboard drops my fps whenever it's brought up for the first time.

How would I pack my hud into a vpk file?

Drag your hud folder on the vpk.exe in the Team Fortress 2/bin directory. Make sure that your font files are out of your hud folder and into another folder (like tf/custom/fonts/resource/<font files here> or tf/custom/fonts/resource/fonts/<font files here>) before you do it as steampipe VPK files don't like font files

Like, my entire custom folder or just the resource/scripts/sound ones separately?

So it's happening in both windowed mode and fullscreen?

Also, about the HUD thing: I don't get that, and I don't use a VPK for my HUD. TF2 is installed on my SSD though.

Yeah, I have TF2 on an HDD but it's only like six months old. I've done a scan of my HDD and the smart data on it and they both checked out so I don't think it's a problem with that.

Fullscreen seems to fix it in tf2, but I still get stutter in other games, even in fullscreen.

It would be like your folder with the HUD contents WITHIN your custom folder. If you have multiple pieces of custom content within a single folder, I like to split them up before packing them into VPK files

EDIT: Apparently fullscreen gives me screen tearing instead of stuttering, so I guess that's out of the question.

you're gonna get one or the other

It got a lot worse after the update, so I think it might just be an update thing

iunno

drawing at straws here

Bump. I drop frames whenever someone spawns and when rounds start, like in BBall or something now ;-;

I've been getting the same stuttering (scoreboard, random stutters, backpack lag)

snd_mix_async 1 helped with some of the scoreboard stuttering/spawn stutters but the menu/backpack lag still persists.

I noticed we have the same video card series though (5700 series) so maybe there's something related to the drivers. I might try rolling back my drivers to see if it helps.

Is having it disabled in tf2's graphics options enough?

My card is actually a 6670, I don't know why AMD thinks it's a 5700

Yeah changing drivers ended up not doing anything lol.

I've tried reinstalling both Steam/TF2, cleaning out my configs, messing around with my antivirus. Nothing has worked. I think I'm just gonna accept that this game no longer receives proper dev support.

No. The only ways to avoid vsync on win7 with a modern AMD card are to run TF2 in proper fullscreen mode or to disable aero.

Not true. If you turn off edge-enhancement in Catalyst control center, vsync is gone.