Unlimited FPS vs Capped FPS + Gsync

[HungryHamster]

I'm going to be getting back into playing FPS games (COD, CSGO, R6, etc.) on PC and I'm wondering if I should just disable Gsync for these games since I'm going to be getting like 200+ FPS which is way higher than my monitor refresh rate. Or would you recommend just capping it at 140FPS (my monitor refresh rate) and having Gsync enabled. If I remember right, if you have Gsync enabled and go over the FPS of your refresh rate the monitor starts flashing black or something.

[Dukesilver27-]

If your monitor's max refresh rate is 144hz, then cap it 144hz and have G-sync enabled, there's no point of burning more electricity and gaining nothing. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

24 minutes ago, Caroline said:

That said, I always cap the framerate, I don't see the point in playing at 200 FPS in a 60Hz or whatever monitor.

 

12 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

If your monitor's max refresh rate is 144hz, then cap it 144hz and have G-sync enabled, there's no point of burning more electricity and gaining nothing. 

there actually can be a difference that is noticeable, if the fps is higher than the hz the click to photon latency will be reduced because the frames being displayed are more recent, it can actually make a gaming experience noticeably better, not quite like having a higher refresh rate monitor, but definitely more responsive feeling.

28 minutes ago, Caroline said:

 

Give singleplayer games a chance, get away from those godforsaken cesspools full of toxic neckbeards.

as for this, maybe dont tell people what they should and shouldnt do? If someone likes online fps games, let them like it, and mind your own buisness

[Dukesilver27-]

36 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

 

there actually can be a difference that is noticeable, if the fps is higher than the hz the click to photon latency will be reduced because the frames being displayed are more recent, it can actually make a gaming experience noticeably better, not quite like having a higher refresh rate monitor, but definitely more responsive feeling.

 

Maybe, but in my experience, I have never noticed any difference. I suppose it is different for each person.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

10 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Maybe, but in my experience, I have never noticed any difference. I suppose it is different for each person.

YEa it tends to depend on your sensitivity to it, but like going from 60 on 60 to 240 on 60 im sure people would notice a difference

[johnt]

This really depends on your monitor and what "G-sync" tier it falls under. G-sync ultimate monitors have overdrive which effectively has no cap to the smoothness. G-sync compatible monitors have a sweet spot (min and max fps) and some issues arise when you are beyond that frame rate range in either direction. G-sync ultimate is becoming increasingly rare and even more expensive than it used to be, which is a shame bc I have an ultra wide ultimate tier monitor from 2016/2017 era (without HDR) and it's very nice to this day. The biggest drawback is that it locks you into Nvidia, or at least it used to. Not sure if the modern displays are compatible with free sync, but I know mine isn't.

 

Also, I think capping frame rates is the right thing to do, even with variable refresh rate technology. Here is why:

1) Making your GPU and CPU run for extreme frames makes no sense - it's an alarming amount of heat output for hours of game play; it's fun for testing but my 12700k and 3070ti combo can get my mini itx case very hot; it's alarming

2) You are more likely to notice frame drops without a limiter bc you have no headroom

3) The increase in fps over your monitor's max refresh rate might not matter at all depending on the game

4) Uses more electricity than necessary - which matters here where I live bc electricity is expensive

5) Puts way more stress on your PSU as the curves are exponential in nature, and you have to use way more power for the last 10%

6) Let's me enjoy gaming during the hot days when the ambient weather is over 90F

 

I think a few folks above already touched on it, but basically if you're playing tomb raider or assassin's creed, idk if you are going to benefit over 144 Hz. What do you really gain by pushing your GPU to 200 Hz? The latency improvement isn't even required for the gameplay. Even 60 fps is fine for those games. Some competitive e-sport games might have some benefit from higher refresh rates, but I think capping at double your monitor's max refresh rate is a good point to reduce input lag. Of course, you might be way outside the range of G-sync at that point (without overdrive). I play rocket league A LOT and I can assure you that there aren't enough frames on this planet to improve my talent

[HungryHamster]

5 hours ago, Caroline said:

 

Give singleplayer games a chance, get away from those godforsaken cesspools full of toxic neckbeards.

 

That said, I always cap the framerate, I don't see the point in playing at 200 FPS in a 60Hz or whatever monitor.

Haha, I totally feel where you're coming from. There's nothing quite as frustrating as getting yelled at by kids half my age in a COD game. I do play play plenty of single player games as well, though.

 

I just always see those pro guys playing with like 300fps in Overwatch, CSGO, etc. so I figured there must be an advantage to it, but who am I kidding, I'm not trying to go pro these days.

[HungryHamster]

2 hours ago, johnt said:

This really depends on your monitor and what "G-sync" tier it falls under. G-sync ultimate monitors have overdrive which effectively has no cap to the smoothness. G-sync compatible monitors have a sweet spot (min and max fps) and some issues arise when you are beyond that frame rate range in either direction. G-sync ultimate is becoming increasingly rare and even more expensive than it used to be, which is a shame bc I have an ultra wide ultimate tier monitor from 2016/2017 era (without HDR) and it's very nice to this day. The biggest drawback is that it locks you into Nvidia, or at least it used to. Not sure if the modern displays are compatible with free sync, but I know mine isn't.

 

Also, I think capping frame rates is the right thing to do, even with variable refresh rate technology. Here is why:

1) Making your GPU and CPU run for extreme frames makes no sense - it's an alarming amount of heat output for hours of game play; it's fun for testing but my 12700k and 3070ti combo can get my mini itx case very hot; it's alarming

2) You are more likely to notice frame drops without a limiter bc you have no headroom

3) The increase in fps over your monitor's max refresh rate might not matter at all depending on the game

4) Uses more electricity than necessary - which matters here where I live bc electricity is expensive

5) Puts way more stress on your PSU as the curves are exponential in nature, and you have to use way more power for the last 10%

6) Let's me enjoy gaming during the hot days when the ambient weather is over 90F

 

I think a few folks above already touched on it, but basically if you're playing tomb raider or assassin's creed, idk if you are going to benefit over 144 Hz. What do you really gain by pushing your GPU to 200 Hz? The latency improvement isn't even required for the gameplay. Even 60 fps is fine for those games. Some competitive e-sport games might have some benefit from higher refresh rates, but I think capping at double your monitor's max refresh rate is a good point to reduce input lag. Of course, you might be way outside the range of G-sync at that point (without overdrive). I play rocket league A LOT and I can assure you that there aren't enough frames on this planet to improve my talent

Thanks for the info. You make some good points and yeah, I'm bummed out about the slow decline in monitors with a dedicated G-sync module too. The monitor I'm getting is the ASUS PG42UQ which is 4k 138hz overclocked (...I know it's a weird number) and it's not G-sync ultimate. I should have specified that by FPS I mean competitive e-sports multiplayer FPS games. I always see the pro players playing with like 300+ fps in those games and just figured they weren't using any variable refresh rate because it was better to have more fps than no screen tearing. I just wanted to know what other people do/think about the trade off. Oh, and I'm totally with you, I'm still going to be noob even with all the frames in the world.

[johnt]

7 hours ago, HungryHamster said:

The monitor I'm getting is the ASUS PG42UQ which is 4k 138hz overclocked (...I know it's a weird number) and it's not G-sync ultimate. I should have specified that by FPS I mean competitive e-sports multiplayer FPS games. I always see the pro players playing with like 300+ fps in those games and just figured they weren't using any variable refresh rate

That is a nice monitor!

 

Sadly there is a trade off. They have 360 Hz displays for reasonable costs, but at 1080p (which makes them unreasonably priced lol). I wouldn't be surprised if professional gamers are investing or having access to these monitors. I mean they are going for around $500 which is a drop in the bucket.

 

I suspect variable refresh rate is more important the higher up you go in fps bc there are so many frames to deal with. I see tearing and micro stuttering being big problems if you are trying to use high refresh rates to reduce input latency and see more better lol I mean even for myself, going from my monitor with G-sync to a non-VRR monitor is basically unplayable. I tried connecting my new PC to my television and the tearing was.. just.. so bad lol

[T487]

Yeah I would cap the frame-rate at just below the monitor's refresh rate at 140 (as sometimes it can still go a few frames over the cap), with RTSS (for stable frame-times, to eliminate micro-stutter). & also enable V-Sync in the Nvidia control panel (as it is required for G-Sync to function properly). 140fps is ~7ms of delay. Lets just say you can achieve double that (280fps) with no frame-rate cap, that is only a ~3.5ms difference. Which is fairly insignificant when playing online games. Most latency comes from ping, or the game server tick-rate. Half decent ping is ~50ms, & a half decent server tick-rate is 60Hz (~16ms).

[johnt]

2 hours ago, Tim834 said:

also enable V-Sync in the Nvidia control panel (as it is required for G-Sync to function properly)

Fake news. What's your source?

 

V-sync overrides G-sync and V-sync should be disabled everywhere it shows up if you have a variable refresh rate GPU+monitor.

[T487]

4 hours ago, johnt said:

Fake news. What's your source?

 

V-sync overrides G-sync and V-sync should be disabled everywhere it shows up if you have a variable refresh rate GPU+monitor.

https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/2/

[johnt]

5 hours ago, Tim834 said:

https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/2/

Thanks for the link. I wasn't aware of this confusion. My understanding from other articles and forums is that v-sync limits the frame rate to  your monitor's maximum refresh rate if the gpu output exceeds it. You deal with input lag after your gpu outputs beyond your monitor's maximum refresh rate, however, if you do this. Capping your frame rates a few Hz below your monitor's maximum is the best option to keep g-sync enabled and avoid input lag that comes with v-sync.

 

This also seems to be a problem limited to "g-sync compatible" displays. The other two variants of g-sync (with a module inside the monitor and the premium tier) do not have this complication because of the variable overdrive as you exceed your monitor's maximum refresh rate... even without a frame limiter.

[QuantumSingularity]

Your answers are in this video... tl:dr - uncapped FPS > synced FPS. Despite the monitor not being able to refresh fast enough, the information it receives is more recent with lower latency, leading to more consistent performence.

[HungryHamster]

41 minutes ago, QuantumSingularity said:

Your answers are in this video... tl:dr - uncapped FPS > synced FPS. Despite the monitor not being able to refresh fast enough, the information it receives is more recent with lower latency, leading to more consistent performence.

Thanks for this. I'm pretty sure this is exactly what I was thinking of and I even vaguely remember watching this video before. Although there are +300hz monitors out now, I guess for most people it's just a trade off - more FPS or gaming without screen tearing.

[NekoBubbles]

On 10/23/2022 at 9:02 PM, Caroline said:

 

Give singleplayer games a chance, get away from those godforsaken cesspools full of toxic neckbeards.

 

That said, I always cap the framerate, I don't see the point in playing at 200 FPS in a 60Hz or whatever monitor.

I find that the excess overflow just ends up just making the CPU just heat up with unnecessary computations.