Is it not still the norm? (Though, with an LCD screen of course, not with a CRT.) Many of my games include some form of vsync option, I think. (E.g., Factorio

Is it not still the norm? (Though, with an LCD screen of course, not with a CRT.) Many of my games include some form of vsync option, I think. (E.g., Factorio calls it "Wait for VSync", 7 Days to Die "VSync", Zandronum (a modern Doom port) "Vertical Sync"). My understanding was that it was a trade-off between smooth graphics at the display's framerate, or a faster framerate with potential tearing (on-screen artifact). With it off, you'll "see" something as soon as the currently rendering frame renders a pixel containing whatever is relevant. But with Vsync on, you'd need to wait until the next frame renders (and for it to hit a relevant pixel), introducing a slight delay, and tearing when the new frame overwrites the old frame at the point where the display is currently "drawing"/displaying. (Though it does seem like it is defaulted to "off". It's my understanding the pro gamers like the lower latency over the visual artifacting.)