Do you have a FreeSync or G-Sync monitor and GPU, and do you have this option in Windows 10?

[GoodBytes]

Question, if you have a G-Sync or FreeSync monitor and graphics card, do you have the following option in Windows 10 (version 1903 or newer)?

 

The option should be under Settings > System > Display, and click on the link at the bottom "Graphics Settings".

 

I am asking because I don't have such display (nor graphics card), and I was wondering if it a feature I forgot to mention that Windows 10 has in version 1903.

 

Thanks!

[WereCat]

Interesting, I'll check it out when I get home in about 2h... I'm on 1909 though. 

 

Is it enabled by default? 

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

Interesting, I'll check it out when I get home in about 2h... I'm on 1909 though. 

1909 is fine. I know it is from 1903, but unsure if it was axed from Insider builds (which is something that MS does if they get negative feedback about a feature, or not ready yet).

 

Quote

Is it enabled by default? 

Apparently not from what I recall. 

[WereCat]

2 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

1909 is fine. I know it is from 1903, but unsure if it was axed from Insider builds (which is something that MS does if they get negative feedback about a feature, or not ready yet).

 

Apparently not from what I recall. 

 

yep, its there and disabled by default

 

I'll  test it out later as I go sleep right away.. damn night shifts  

[Quinnell]

Oh wow, I didn't know that existed. I'll have to check it out tomorrow.

[WereCat]

@GoodBytes

 

So I tried it out and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I tried it on Apex Legends and League of Legends.

I was kinda hoping this is a way to fix the years old G-Sync / Free-Sync issue when you have multiple monitors with different refresh rates and you play in Windowed / Borderless mode but nope.

 

Maybe you know what I mean but I'll just elaborate if you don't.

 

So if you run anything GPU accelerated like OBS Preview or YT video displayed on your secondary lower refresh rate screens and you run the game in Windowed / Borderless mode, you used to have a very unplayable experience as Windows had no clue on what to set priority to and the game tried to run at 60Hz on the VRR monitor because the content on the other displays was running on 60Hz. This resulted in a huge stuttering.

 

Now they kinda fixed that and you no longer have the G-Sync / Free/Sync monitor try to sync to the 60Hz content on the other screens and the game runs at whatever FPS / Hz its supposed to run but its not smooth at all. For inexperienced or casual people it may seem its running all right but its not. The moment you switch the game from Windowed / Borderless mode to the true Full Screen mode, the game runs like a butter. Its quite a huge difference in smoothness and clarity.

 

Oh and I also want to mention that while the game runs as its supposed to, the video on the secondary screens will be choppy and freeze every now and then and audio in that video will also have issues with freezing.

 

When you minimize the content on the secondary screens but keep it running, the game in Windowed / Borderless mode on the VRR monitor will suddenly run like a butter as well.

 

I even tried to tweak the Graphics Performance Preference but it doesn't seem to be doing anything either after I set it to "High Performance" for the particular games.

So I guess I will have to keep Alt+Tabbing out of the games if I want to use the other monitors. Honestly, its kinda annoying and I don't understand why this was not fixed yet after so many years, especially now since the VRR is starting to be quite default on most of the monitors.

 

I have no idea if having multiple VRR monitors will result in this issue as well.

 

[GoodBytes]

17 minutes ago, WereCat said:

@GoodBytes

 

So I tried it out and it doesn't seem to be doing anything. I tried it on Apex Legends and League of Legends.

I was kinda hoping this is a way to fix the years old G-Sync / Free-Sync issue when you have multiple monitors with different refresh rates and you play in Windowed / Borderless mode but nope.

 

Maybe you know what I mean but I'll just elaborate if you don't.

 

So if you run anything GPU accelerated like OBS Preview or YT video displayed on your secondary lower refresh rate screens and you run the game in Windowed / Borderless mode, you used to have a very unplayable experience as Windows had no clue on what to set priority to and the game tried to run at 60Hz on the VRR monitor because the content on the other displays was running on 60Hz. This resulted in a huge stuttering.

 

Now they kinda fixed that and you no longer have the G-Sync / Free/Sync monitor try to sync to the 60Hz content on the other screens and the game runs at whatever FPS / Hz its supposed to run but its not smooth at all. For inexperienced or casual people it may seem its running all right but its not. The moment you switch the game from Windowed / Borderless mode to the true Full Screen mode, the game runs like a butter. Its quite a huge difference in smoothness and clarity.

 

Oh and I also want to mention that while the game runs as its supposed to, the video on the secondary screens will be choppy and freeze every now and then and audio in that video will also have issues with freezing.

 

When you minimize the content on the secondary screens but keep it running, the game in Windowed / Borderless mode on the VRR monitor will suddenly run like a butter as well.

 

I even tried to tweak the Graphics Performance Preference but it doesn't seem to be doing anything either after I set it to "High Performance" for the particular games.

So I guess I will have to keep Alt+Tabbing out of the games if I want to use the other monitors. Honestly, its kinda annoying and I don't understand why this was not fixed yet after so many years, especially now since the VRR is starting to be quite default on most of the monitors.

 

I have no idea if having multiple VRR monitors will result in this issue as well.

 

I wonder if this feature works only if you have 1 monitor. Worth a try.

As for the rest, to me it sounds like a mix of Windows but also the GPU (or its driver).

So for one, when you run a DirectX game in full screen, it runs on what Microsoft calls "Exclusive mode", this means that it doesn't render anything by the game (on a single display), and removes a lot of layers to the hardware, giving the game access more directly to the hardware. The downside is that you can't have anything else.

 

When you have multiple screen, and you run a game in exclusive mode (full screen), then the OS needs to interrupt your GPU work to go "Hey, I know you are busy, but I really need you to handle this other screen. So pause what you are doing, handle the other screen, and now resume".

 

In the older days (like before GeForce GTX 500 series), when you had more than 1 screen, the GPU lost all power saving features. It would run under full clock speed all the time. This resulted in warmer and louder system, wasting power when you are just on the desktop or surfing the web. The issue is that the GPU (ok well I don't know about AMD but for Nvidia), it did not have the circuitry to handle the refresh of the 2 or more screen at variable power draw levels. As multiple screen become more common, Nvidia finally fixed this with its later GPUs and improved it further with new power management system that came on later GPUs.

 

This could be a similar situation, but with GSync/FreeSync

[WereCat]

5 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

I wonder if this feature works only if you have 1 monitor. Worth a try.

As for the rest, to me it sounds like a mix of Windows but also the GPU (or its driver).

So for one, when you run a DirectX game in full screen, it runs on what Microsoft calls "Exclusive mode", this means that it doesn't render anything by the game (on a single display), and removes a lot of layers to the hardware, giving the game access more directly to the hardware. The downside is that you can't have anything else.

 

When you have multiple screen, and you run a game in exclusive mode (full screen), then the OS needs to interrupt your GPU work to go "Hey, I know you are busy, but I really need you to handle this other screen. So pause what you are doing, handle the other screen, and now resume".

 

In the older days (like before GeForce GTX 500 series), when you had more than 1 screen, the GPU lost all power saving features. It would run under full clock speed all the time. This resulted in warmer and louder system, wasting power when you are just on the desktop or surfing the web. The issue is that the GPU (ok well I don't know about AMD but for Nvidia), it did not have the circuitry to handle the refresh of the 2 or more screen at variable power draw levels. As multiple screen become more common, Nvidia finally fixed this with its later GPUs and improved it further with new power management system that came on later GPUs.

 

This could be a similar situation, but with GSync/FreeSync

In the past I tried running the other screens from a different graphics card, it resulted in the same issue.

 

The issue seems to be buried in the Windows Desktop Management  regarding the Desktop Composition. You used to be able to turn off the Desktop Composition on Windows 7 but since Windows 8 its merged with WDM and you are no longer able to do so without breaking the OS when forcing some of the required processes to shut off.

When I was trying to to find out more about this I found some guy that claimed that somehow he forced to shut off some processes regarding Desktop Composition and the issue went away but you would have to restart your PC every time you were finished with your game as the entire desktop would be broken.

 

I couldn't be bothered to install W7 back and try with Desktop Composition disabled but the same guy claimed it worked like that.

(sorry, no sources as I would have to search for it again)

 

After I contacted NVIDIA Support they told me that this works "like intended" and when I asked if I bought multiple monitors with G-Sync if I would have this issue, they said "no". But I haven't bought the extra G-Sync monitor so I can't try for myself and from multiple bad experiences with a tech support I can't just believe them to be true without trying for myself.

 

Now I also tried playing few games when I was trying Pop_OS! and there it worked, the game was running smoothly in WIndowed / Borderless mode with G-Sync enabled but I would get nasty tearing on the secondary screens. (Which is actually preferable.)

[GoodBytes]

15 minutes ago, WereCat said:

In the past I tried running the other screens from a different graphics card, it resulted in the same issue.

 

The issue seems to be buried in the Windows Desktop Management  regarding the Desktop Composition. You used to be able to turn off the Desktop Composition on Windows 7 but since Windows 8 its merged with WDM and you are no longer able to do so without breaking the OS when forcing some of the required processes to shut off.

When I was trying to to find out more about this I found some guy that claimed that somehow he forced to shut off some processes regarding Desktop Composition and the issue went away but you would have to restart your PC every time you were finished with your game as the entire desktop would be broken.

 

I couldn't be bothered to install W7 back and try with Desktop Composition disabled but the same guy claimed it worked like that.

(sorry, no sources as I would have to search for it again)

 

After I contacted NVIDIA Support they told me that this works "like intended" and when I asked if I bought multiple monitors with G-Sync if I would have this issue, they said "no". But I haven't bought the extra G-Sync monitor so I can't try for myself and from multiple bad experiences with a tech support I can't just believe them to be true without trying for myself.

 

Now I also tried playing few games when I was trying Pop_OS! and there it worked, the game was running smoothly in WIndowed / Borderless mode with G-Sync enabled but I would get nasty tearing on the secondary screens. (Which is actually preferable.)

Yea so then Windows a problem it is.