Quick FPS question for rocket league or any game

[Rosss]

So if your game's FPS isn't synced with your monitor, are you supposed to set the max framerate on that game a bit higher than the refresh rate of your monitor in order to allow for that discrepancy? 

 

Like, if you have the max framerate at 120 and your running a 120hz monitor, and the game isn't synced, you technically seeing less than 120 fps right? How much less can it be? 

 

 

[WereCat]

You will never be able to sync the FPS with your monitor refresh rate unless you have some sort of Adaptive refresh rate sync like FreeSync or GSync.

You can use the VSync if you dont care about input lag... but I can feel it in Rocket League quite a bit.

 

 

So if you dont have FreeSync or GSync monitor, just let the FPS go as high as possible.

[Shingen Pendragon]

I'm the only one who's playing with V-sync always off?

[Paul Rudd]

1 hour ago, Rosss said:

So if your game's FPS isn't synced with your monitor, are you supposed to set the max framerate on that game a bit higher than the refresh rate of your monitor in order to allow for that discrepancy?

Nope.

1 hour ago, Rosss said:

if you have the max framerate at 120 and your running a 120hz monitor, and the game isn't synced, you technically seeing less than 120 fps right?

You are seeing the fps your hardware pushes at no more than 120 fps in this situation. Monitor your fps to know what it's running at.

1 hour ago, Rosss said:

How much less can it be?

Depends on what your hardware pushes in particular games.

1 hour ago, WereCat said:

You will never be able to sync the FPS with your monitor refresh rate unless you have some sort of Adaptive refresh rate sync like FreeSync or GSync.

You can cap your fps in certain in-game settings or you can limit your fps using MSI Afterburner. If your hardware is capable of pushing whatever fps you limit or cap, then you can consider that synced with your monitor. I do it every single day. It's not gonna be completely locked at all times and that's expected with FreeSync or GSync on or off.

21 minutes ago, Shingen Pendragon said:

I'm the only one who's playing with V-sync always off?

I play with it off in every game that my hardware can't get a locked 144 fps and in games that don't use a lot of GPU or CPU usage such as League of Legends. V-sync is strictly for tearing in certain games imo. That's about the only time I turn it on. Otherwise I just cap my fps to what my hardware can achieve(which I usually do when a slight bottleneck is going on) or let it do it's thing at pushing fps to its limit(when there's not much bottleneck going on).

 

A perfect example is Half-Life 2. I use vsync in that game because it's a breeze to get a locked 144 fps and I experience noticeable tearing if I leave vsync off. This might be completely different in another game, new or old. Some games tear, most games don't.

[WereCat]

3 hours ago, Shingen Pendragon said:

I'm the only one who's playing with V-sync always off?

no

[WereCat]

3 hours ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

 

You can cap your fps in certain in-game settings or you can limit your fps using MSI Afterburner. If your hardware is capable of pushing whatever fps you limit or cap, then you can consider that synced with your monitor. I do it every single day. It's not gonna be completely locked at all times and that's expected with FreeSync or GSync on or off.

 

It still wont be synced if you do this.

[Paul Rudd]

1 minute ago, WereCat said:

It still wont be synced if you do this.

How so? I do it every single time I game.

[WereCat]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

How so? I do it every single time I game.

You still get tearing. Just because FPS = Hz that does not mean that the frame is being rendered at the start of the monitor refresh cycle or vice versa.

[Paul Rudd]

5 minutes ago, WereCat said:

You still get tearing.

In roughly 5-10% of games, sure. And you don't need freesync or gsync to use vsync.

8 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Just because FPS = Hz that does not mean that the frame is being rendered at the start of the monitor refresh cycle or vice versa.

No clue what this means. I just know on my 144 fps monitor with vsync off and capping my fps at 144 in-game or with MSI afterburner, I'm getting a locked 144 fps, depending on if my hardware can achieve 144 fps. Sure, some games will tear doing this, but most of them don't tear.

[Paul Rudd]

3 hours ago, WereCat said:

It still wont be synced if you do this. You still get tearing.

VSync ON

 

VSync OFF

 

No tearing in either and a locked 144 fps. Explain why you say otherwise.

[WereCat]

10 hours ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

VSync ON

 

VSync OFF

 

No tearing in either and a locked 144 fps. Explain why you say otherwise.

OFC you get no tearing with VSync. Im talking about tearing by just caping your FPS to match your monitor refresh rate. I even mentioned VSync in my original reply.

 

Also recording gameplay like this makes the tearing go away because of how the encoder processes the video so its basicaly impossible for me to tell the difference from the video.

At high refresh rates the tearing is way less noticeable than at 60Hz, its still there though. Whether you notice it or not its up to you. But is even less noticeable if you let the FPS go as high as possible.

Its most visible is in games where your FPS tends to dip under your monitor refresh rate. Half-Life 2 is a really old game where you can actually maintain a stable high FPS all the time as its so easy to run, in newer games where there is way higher frame time fluctuation the tearing is more pronounced.

 

Look, I am not here to convince you to uncap your FPS. If you are happy with the results, go ahead. I am just saying that there will always be some tearing if you just cap your FPS to your monitors refresh rate and I already explained why to which you replied you dont understand. So IDK what else to tell you.

 

I can try to explain it a bit more perhaps....

 

If you have a monitor with no Adaptive refresh rate, lets say 60Hz, then each frame will be displayed in a 16.66ms intervals.

If you have 60FPS in a game that does not automaticaly means that each frame was rendered every 16.66ms. You can have 40 frames being rendered in 0.5s and 20 frames rendered in another 0.5s. This is quite extreme example for but not uncommon. This would not only cause severe tearing but you would even see stuttering.

In easy to run titles you will usualy see frametimes to be within 1ms of the 16.66ms range for the 60FPS/60Hz gameplay so the tearing will really be difficult to spot

In more demanding games the frame times will be siginificantly worse which will also make the teating worse.

[Paul Rudd]

8 hours ago, WereCat said:

OFC you get no tearing with VSync.

The 2nd video clearly shows VSync is OFF. And the tearing is there, which is also why I mentioned above that I play with VSync ON in Half-Life 2. But this is what you said, "It still wont be synced if you do this." Yet the video clearly shows my fps is at a locked 144. You also said, "You will never be able to sync the FPS with your monitor refresh rate unless you have some sort of Adaptive refresh rate sync like FreeSync or GSync." And what I'm saying is that this is not true(as the video clearly shows a locked 144 fps). You can clearly use VSync without having to have FreeSync or GSync. And if you use a controller like I do, you will not experience any type of input lag when using VSync.

8 hours ago, WereCat said:

Its most visible is in games where your FPS tends to dip under your monitor refresh rate.

This is exactly why I mentioned this above, "Otherwise I just cap my fps to what my hardware can achieve"

8 hours ago, WereCat said:

I am just saying that there will always be some tearing if you just cap your FPS to your monitors refresh rate

Not when you cap your fps to what your hardware can achieve. If I can only get around say 85 fps in a particular game on my 144 Hz monitor, then I cap my fps to 85, not 144. And when I play the game doing this, my fps will be synced to that 85 fps. And no tearing will be visible except for in certain games. Some games tear, some games don't. If all games were tearing when I do this, I would constantly use VSync. I rarely use VSync simply because I rarely experience tearing. As I mentioned and showed you above. It all depends on the game.

[WereCat]

2 hours ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

The 2nd video clearly shows VSync is OFF. And the tearing is there, which is also why I mentioned above that I play with VSync ON in Half-Life 2. But this is what you said, "It still wont be synced if you do this." Yet the video clearly shows my fps is at a locked 144. You also said, "You will never be able to sync the FPS with your monitor refresh rate unless you have some sort of Adaptive refresh rate sync like FreeSync or GSync." And what I'm saying is that this is not true(as the video clearly shows a locked 144 fps). You can clearly use VSync without having to have FreeSync or GSync. And if you use a controller like I do, you will not experience any type of input lag when using VSync.

This is exactly why I mentioned this above, "Otherwise I just cap my fps to what my hardware can achieve"

Not when you cap your fps to what your hardware can achieve. If I can only get around say 85 fps in a particular game on my 144 Hz monitor, then I cap my fps to 85, not 144. And when I play the game doing this, my fps will be synced to that 85 fps. And no tearing will be visible except for in certain games. Some games tear, some games don't. If all games were tearing when I do this, I would constantly use VSync. I rarely use VSync simply because I rarely experience tearing. As I mentioned and showed you above. It all depends on the game.

You are completely missing my explanation why your definition of syncyng FPS is wrong.

 

144FPS on 144Hz display does not mean your FPS is synced. I already explained why...

[Paul Rudd]

7 minutes ago, WereCat said:

144FPS on 144Hz display does not mean your FPS is synced.

What on earth do you mean by this statement? Be as brief and simple as possible with your answer.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but locking fps at 144 and watching fps not move from 143-144 as I play games seems to me that games are operating at the same rate as my monitors refresh rate of 144 since the fps is not moving from 143-144.

[WereCat]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

What on earth do you mean by this statement? Be as brief and simple as possible with your answer.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but locking fps at 144 and watching fps not move from 143-144 as I play games seems to me that games are operating at the same rate as my monitors refresh rate of 144 since the fps is not moving from 143-144.

I ALREADY EXPLAINED IT.......

 

11 hours ago, WereCat said:

 

If you have a monitor with no Adaptive refresh rate, lets say 60Hz, then each frame will be displayed in a 16.66ms intervals.

If you have 60FPS in a game that does not automaticaly means that each frame was rendered every 16.66ms. You can have 40 frames being rendered in 0.5s and 20 frames rendered in another 0.5s. This is quite extreme example for but not uncommon. This would not only cause severe tearing but you would even see stuttering.

In easy to run titles you will usualy see frametimes to be within 1ms of the 16.66ms range for the 60FPS/60Hz gameplay so the tearing will really be difficult to spot

In more demanding games the frame times will be siginificantly worse which will also make the teating worse.

 

[Paul Rudd]

1 hour ago, WereCat said:

I ALREADY EXPLAINED IT.......

No need to yell, this is a mere discussion. Don't let my doltish mind upset you. Sure arguing is occurring but I'd rather them be calm arguments than loud ones.

 

I see what you're saying but what I am telling you is that this tearing that you speak of simply does not always occur in every game that I play with VSync off. If it did, as you say it does, then VSync would be on in every game I play, which it is not.

 

In Half-Life 2, tearing occurs. So I turn on VSync and the tearing disappears. In GTA 5, no tearing occurs. And I have always had VSync off in GTA 5. And In the many years that I have been playing GTA 5 with VSync off, I have not seen a single tear.

 

Trust me, I'd like for what you're saying to be true. Even if what you are saying is true mathematically, with those 16 ms and 0.5s numbers you are using. What I'm telling you is that the tearing that you speak of is not true in every game that I play. Meaning that you might have the math right, but this math is not translating into any tearing in all games.

 

What you could do is explain why I'm not seeing this tearing that you speak of in GTA 5. Because it simply does not exist. And I know exactly what tearing looks like.

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 7/13/2019 at 6:31 AM, Rosss said:

So if your game's FPS isn't synced with your monitor, are you supposed to set the max framerate on that game a bit higher than the refresh rate of your monitor in order to allow for that discrepancy? 

 

Like, if you have the max framerate at 120 and your running a 120hz monitor, and the game isn't synced, you technically seeing less than 120 fps right? How much less can it be?

As a bit of backup on how this whole thing works, the display itself goes through a cycle of stages when reading and displaying the data. There are three primary stages for showing display data:

• V Blank
• H Blank
• Actually grabbing and showing the data

This is a carryover from the CRT days when there was an electron beam scanning across the screen. V Blank is when the magnets aiming the electron beam move back to the starting point and H Blank is when the magnets go from the right side to the left side. In both cases, the electron beam is turned off (hence "blank"). V Blank is also when a new frame is supposed to be ready to be presented. As far as I know, every display protocol still does this, likely for backwards compatibility (DVI is basically digital VGA, and HDMI is based on DVI) or convention reasons.

 

In the video card there's two frame buffers (sometimes three, but for the sake of this post, there's two), the front buffer and the back buffer. The display reads from the front buffer while the GPU renders a new frame to the back buffer. When the frame is done, the two swap places. This can happen at any moment and this where tearing comes from: when the frame buffer swap happens outside of the V Blank period.

 

In theory, as long as the frame buffer swap happens at the V Blank period, you won't have tearing. The refresh rate is tied to how often the V Blanking period happens. So you have to have frame times within the V Blanking period to have tear-free video. Except you cannot guarantee that the frame buffer swap will happen there, which is what V Sync does. It forces the video card to wait for the V Blank period before swapping the frame buffer.

 

EDIT: Something to add is that if there are three frame buffers (triple buffering), then tearing is no longer a problem. With three frame buffers, there's an additional back buffer. The video card will render between the two back buffers. When the V Blank period happens, the front buffer is swapped with the last completed back buffer.

 

Note that in Windows 10, all windows are drawn with triple buffering. So if you play games in windowed or borderless fullscreen, you automatically get triple buffering for those games.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Mira Yurizaki

[Paul Rudd]

20 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Note that in Windows 10, all windows are drawn with triple buffering. So if you play games in windowed or borderless fullscreen, you automatically get triple buffering for those games.

I have triple buffering off in the nvidia control panel in both Global and GTA5.exe...

 

Regardless, tearing simply does not exist in the majority of games that I play with VSync off.

[WereCat]

1 hour ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

I have triple buffering off in the nvidia control panel in both Global and GTA5.exe...

 

Regardless, tearing simply does not exist in the majority of games that I play with VSync off.

You are using G-Sync....

[Paul Rudd]

10 minutes ago, WereCat said:

You are using G-Sync....

GSync is OFF when VSync is OFF. I also experience no tearing on my other non GSync monitor.

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Dr. Historic Low said:

GSync is OFF when VSync is OFF. I also experience no tearing on my other non GSync monitor.

Why would GSync be OFF when VSync is OFF? They are completely different.

I run GSync ON and VSync OFF all the time.

[Paul Rudd]

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

Why would GSync be OFF when VSync is OFF? They are completely different.

GSync is not doing anything when VSync is off. It is activated when I turn on VSync.

[WereCat]

Just now, Dr. Historic Low said:

GSync is not doing anything when VSync is off.

GSync works independently from VSync. They are completely different technologies.

VSync just ensures that the FPS dont go above the maximum refresh rate of the monitor, thats when GSync stops to work because it cant sync the Hz of the monitor to the FPS that goes above the max refresh rate of the monitor.

[Paul Rudd]

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

GSync works independently from VSync. They are completely different technologies.

The GSync on my monitor does nothing with VSync off. I consider this GSync off whether GSync is on or not. When I turn VSync on, GSync kicks in(turns on).

[WereCat]

Just now, Dr. Historic Low said:

The GSync on my monitor does nothing with VSync off. I consider this GSync off whether it is on or not.

I honestly dont know what to tell you anymore. Im done here.