I spent 3 days trying to see what settings and how you can have the smoothest experience possible

AmyThePersonThing · January 21, 2019

So I randomly realized that my switch is smoother than my PC which is weird. even 30fps feels so "soft" and "natural"

eh... for the past 3 days (obviously not 24/7) I tried a ton of settings and read a lot and researched. I never could reach the same smoothness on 30fps but I managed to find out how to get the SMOOTHEST experience.

Sorry again I just thought I'd share, I thought "what's the worst case they'll downvote or tell me it's stupid or wrong!"

Some fun info:

Framerate isn't the whole story. what matters a lot (They both matter obviously) is frame-time and frame pacing. it means how much it takes before a frame is shown relative to each other. for example at 60fps I think it takes 16.6~ms to show each frame. a frame is shown every 16.6ms. in an ideal word and for the ideal experience on a 60hz monitor they're given to the monitor the exact second they want to draw and the same happens at every refresh cycle. like the monitor and graphics card are in sync. for 30fps the frame only is changed every 2 cycles of the monitor which is called "half-sync"

also keep in mind monitor refresh rates are usually numbers like 59.996hz rounded to 60hz for ease!

Most movies AFAIK are recorded at 27-30fps, the reason they're so smooth is that specially on a camera every frame is just played after the exactly same amount of time. there's no variation between how long each frame takes to display!

also triple buffering doesn't add any latency. It's actually supposed to reduce it.

the frames AFAIK aren't in a queue. there are 2 back frames and 1 front. instead of swapping back and front the 2 back frames are swapped. the monitor AFAIK just picks the one that isn't being written to. in dual buffer V-Sync the graphics card has to wait to render a new frame. but I'm not sure if the triple buffering we see in the settings menu is the same.

So there are a few different things you can do without a FreeSync/G-sync monitor. Keep in mind motion blurr helps with all of them since it can mask jitters or low frame rate!

Possible options:

V-Sync On, Framerate almost never going under your refresh rate. set your monitor's refresh rate to the min framerate like that. (for some reason this works a lot better for me in borderless):

Advantages: Smooth AF, The smoothest I could get it to be. at 60fps it's as smooth as it can "almost" get. basically like my switch running a 60fps game. and the latency is very hard to tell with a controller (almost can't tell?). the frame spacing was "almost" perfect. still saw some spikes.

Disadvantages: Latency. for me it wasn't that high but it's pretty annoying in FPS games. though at 100fps~ the latency gets far less and is tolerable for an FPS shooter like this. but I mean for a game like Dishonored or Prey I doubt this matters that much you know?

V-Sync Off, in game Limiter (OW and CS) on:

Advantages: low latency

Disadvantages: Feels and is absolutely terrible. the frame times all over the place and never the same. and I don't think frames are in sync with the monitor.

Any sort of Sync Off:

Advantages**:** Very Low Latency.

Disadvantages: Tearing in Fullscreen, and jittery and not smooth overall. but not bad. specially if your framerate is way over the refresh rate TBH.

V-Sync On, RTSS set to your refresh rate:

Not good. it's basically like V-sync but with extra jitters and all.

V-Sync Off, RTSS Set to your Min Framerate (or if you don't mind the 1% lowest or something):

Advantages: Almost no lag. Smooth even though it's a tiny bit less smooth than V-sync (my suspicion is backed up by checking the frame-times)

Disadvantages: Tearing on Fullscreen (apparently windows has some sort of nice sync built into it's windows so that's why borderless helps) and not as smooth as V-Sync but nice enough.

if you have a Freesync monitor it helps a lot IMO with non limited refresh rates. it's playable and nice but still feels.. different. it's like it's not "soft" but If you have one you have the "perfect" option IMO:

FreeSync On, FPS Limited by RTSS:

well its almost perfect. still not technically as smooth as v-sync but it's not very notable. almost no latency either.

no tearing cause Freesync . I saw frame pacing issues still but somehow Freesync made it nicer!

Note: High framerates not only are cooler but make tearing and frame-pacing issues less apparent, they also make things less blurry! 100Hz is a good place IMO and after that there is a difference but less significant than 60-75 and 75-90 etc. I really hope we will soon have something like 90hz as standard on most screens and specially phones since they have animations that include sliding fading etc. also we use them with our fingers so it makes me more awesome!

I really hope we can get perfect frame pacing on PCs cause in game limiters aren't good and rtss isn't awesome. my guess is it's because it's a software like this and not a driver or low level stuff (maybe we if it was integrated into the GPU?)

I really hope you guys like this I spent a lot of time writing it and I hope it's not wrong or allowed. keep in mind i"m just a gamer like you who is very curious and wanted the smoothest possible experience (cause it was shocking how my cheap not so powerful switch felt nicer)!

EDIT: huh this is intresting

https://www.blurbusters.com/howto-low-lag-vsync-on/

it says with RTSS you can do change the Frame rate limit to really precise numbers by editing files and get low latency V-Sync. I am honestly exhausted to try it but maybe give it a try!

Princess Luna · January 21, 2019

TL:DR

You want VSync Triple Buffered + AdaptiveSync(FreeSync/Gsync) for low paced games where eye candy is more important stay only as high as your refresh rate.

You want Only FastSync(if nVidia) for fast paced games with fps above refresh rate.

Done.

AmyThePersonThing · January 21, 2019

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

TL:DR

You want VSync + AdaptiveSync(FreeSync/Gsync) for low paced games where eye candy is more important stay only as high as your refresh rate.

You want Only FastSync(if nVidia) for fast paced games with fps above refresh rate.

Done.

not just that but your frame rate needs to be at least the same or higher than your refresh rate too!

also RTS in my opinion really helps makes things feel nicer! the frame pacing is more even but not perfect still. wish we hard a hardware level or a low level frame pacing option!

SkilledRebuilds · January 21, 2019

I'm a user of 74FPS RTSS with Vsync On.

75hz Panel.

Mostly, Games like BFV I just unlock FPS and go as high as I can with High-Ultra.

Lighter titles, Holds Vsync easily enough..

NV Adaptive has helped greatly against MINFPS.

FAST Sync goes missing when using Adaptive Sync on my monitor/NVControlPanel.

Never bothered with tearing that much.

OP. Cheers for all the info, many people can get their head around it quite easy when it's explained.

AmyThePersonThing · January 21, 2019

44 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

I'm a user of 74FPS RTSS with Vsync On.

75hz Panel.

Mostly, Games like BFV I just unlock FPS and go as high as I can with High-Ultra.

Lighter titles, Holds Vsync easily enough..

NV Adaptive has helped greatly against MINFPS.

FAST Sync goes missing when using Adaptive Sync on my monitor/NVControlPanel.

Never bothered with tearing that much.

OP. Cheers for all the info, many people can get their head around it quite easy when it's explained.

Thanks ^~^

I wish we had like more of a frame pracing setting on PC. it seems like there's no focus on that on the PC side. mostly frame rates etc!

On my iPhone and within the Windows GUI there's zero input latency, everything is tear free and is super smooth. I wonder why the same can't be done with games.