So I've had my 360 for about 3 months now and have gotten a ton of enjoyment out of it but one thing really bugs the hell out of me. There seems to be an insane amount of screen tearing across a wide range of games. Now the offensiveness seems to vary title to title but in some cases it really affects the mood of the game. Do most devs not use v-sync in their games? Oddly enough I have not noticed this much on the Wii and only here and there on my PS2 (God of War II had a lot). Is this a HW issue on my side or is this just lazy programming? Maybe I'm just being overly picky, but I was pretty surprised that something like this would be allowed on a console whose selling point is high quality graphics. Any fixes would be appreciated. 

When I had my 360, I didnt notice it much at all, but thats probably because i played the Gears games alot and those games are basically flawless. A list of games where it happens most would help. It may also be your TV refresh rate.

There are some games with screen tearing, but really not much.

I guess it's your TV (SD or HD ?)

Good idea:

Dead Rising- This one is the worst.

Mass Effect- OK unless there is lots of lighting- spinning the camera in an elevator with a couple lighting sources.

Blazing Angels- At times it can be almost overwhelming.

The Darkness- Not too bad, but its there.

GRAW- Quite a bit.

Those are the ones I can remember specifically off the top of my head but I think I have seen it in some form on most of my 360 games.

As for the TV I usually have my 360 hooked up to a 50 inch Sony rear projection TV via component cables. I did try it on my 36in 720p philips with the HDMI and noticed pretty much the same problems.

I dont remember ever seeing screen tearing in GRAW.    Blazing Angels is bad,  it has some on the PS3 version as well.  Cant comment on the other games, as I dont own them or have played them.    Although Mass Effect is a surprise to me,  I have heard many people say the game runs beautifully.

This is not "screen tearing". This is "ghosting" or "framerate issues". Most likely ghosting caused by a slow refresh rate on your TV. 8ms will see major ghosting. 5ms should see very little unless you are a PC fanatic that has a very sensitive eye. 2ms will show basically no ghosting on anything.

If it is framerate issues, installing the game tends to do wonders.

I think you will see this problem more and more on the big budget multi-plats. It seems like developers will use v-sync on the PS3 version at the expense of a lower framerate, and tolerate screen tearing on the 360. You pick which is better.

^^The fact that the OP talked about v-sync leads me to think that he knows what screen tearing is. Display latency and framerate hiccups are very different from tearing to any naked eye.

And to the OP: yes, HD consoles seem to suffer from a lot of tearing, especially noticeable if you are a former PC gamer. So much common that Digital Foundry always runs an analysis on the percentage of torn frames alongside the FPS statistics.

Pretty much this. RE5 and GTA IV are living proofs.

Yes, lots of console games suffer from screen tearing. Yes, Vetteman94, even Gears of War. Some people just don't notice it, just like some people don't seem to notice framerate issues or graphical glitches or aliasing issues.

Bioshock is the only game I know on XBox360 that actually lets you enable v-sync, but I've heard it can cause framerate issues.