Random thoughts on resolution, refresh rates and variable refresh

[porina]

Go back to around 2015 or so, I was using a 1920x1200 60 Hz monitor for my gaming. With a 980Ti it was easy to keep capped at 60fps vsync on. All was well.

 

I got into Elite Dangerous. That new fangled ultra-wide thing looks good for this. I got a 3440x1440 60 Hz display. For ED I could keep it capped at 60fps, although some other AAA titles were pushing the poor 980Ti hard. All was good enough. ED got an update. You can land on planets. This hit framerates dropping it to the 40's on ultra. I had to drop quality to keep it up. Not so good.

 

I got bored of ED, and started playing FFXIV. 980Ti was no problem again. All was well.

 

I wanted to try the high refresh monitor thing. I got a 1920x1080 144 Hz monitor (no G-sync or Freesync). Didn't like it. Couldn't cap at 144 Hz, and to get a good frame rate I had horrible tearing with vsync off. I went back to fixed 60fps playing.

 

A 2560x1440 144 Hz G-sync monitor was on sale. Maybe that'll help? It did! Depending on the loading, fps varies from around 60 to the 144 cap with 1080Ti upgrade. Always felt smooth and responsive regardless, with no tearing. All was well. 

 

A 3840x2160 60 Hz Freesync monitor was on sale. Let's try that? I only got it yesterday and haven't used it much yet. To drive Freesync I switched to my Vega 56 systems. Max settings, I was getting around 30fps. Ouch. Even switching it to desktop standard (2nd lowest preset) didn't get me to 60 reliably. This is where it gets interesting. Even at 40-60fps, I didn't feel a loss from the higher fps of my 1440p system. It still felt responsive, without tearing as expected. It did start feeling a bit of a slideshow below 40fps or so. I do like the increased resolution, even if I had to trade off other effects to help keep the framerate up.

 

Overnight I downloaded ED onto that system and I intend to try it out later. I had tried ED in 4k with my TV previously, and that looked amazing apart from my GTX 960 at the time giving an interesting slideshow, and the TV input lag meant it was unusable for gaming.

 

I think the lesson learnt here is that refresh is only important up to some point, as long as it is variable refresh. I'm still not clear exactly where the line is but it could be just below 60fps for my current gaming needs. Beyond that, I might as well redirect resource to other areas like resolution.

 

So where next? We need a 1080Ti or faster equivalent from AMD. With my existing Vega 56, I'm not going to get a 64, and at current pricing crossfire another 56 isn't an option either. Roll on Vega refresh!

[Princess Luna]

Refresh rate to my brother and I only makes a difference up to 100hz, like we genuinely tried it out constantly and while from 60 to 100 always seem to make a difference go past 100 it all feels just the same to us while as you mentioned it becomes much harder for both the GPU and CPU to run it.

 

Not worth it, we got down to the conclusion long ago the future is in ultrawides with priority on image quality and resolution.

 

furthermore from a different thread that got blocked:

 

@Mr.Meerkat That's the thing though.... I have no issues what so ever with screen tearing or stuttering without g-sync or freesync, I was playing call of duty ww2 (single player campaign) just last night, with my rig doing 2560x1080p ultra and lock it at 100fps with the mentioned triple buffered v-sync as the GPU could still spill out more frames... gameplay is smooth and clean just the same...

 

As they say the main purpose of those technologies is to avoid those things with bigger dips in fps but with a powerful hardware or at least less demanding in-game graphical settings those slows downs are uncommon.

 

I have tried before make a comparison in GTA V, using my rig against my brother's when he finally got himself the X34 which comes with G-Sync... really I just felt both gameplays were smooth as smooth gets....

 

Strangest things...

[Oshino Shinobu]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

So where next? We need a 1080Ti or faster equivalent from AMD. With my existing Vega 56, I'm not going to get a 64, and at current pricing crossfire another 56 isn't an option either. Roll on Vega refresh!

What we really need is for Nvidia to drop the GSync module and adopt AdaptiveSync so the price premium of GSync monitors goes away and there's no more monitor and GPU compatibility issues, so you can keep one monitor and switch brand without loosing adaptive refresh rates. 

[Ansuex]

That was a nice read! How do you feel about that 1080ti? is it worth getting right now or would you wait for a refresh of Vega or GTX11 series? 

[AlTech]

9 minutes ago, porina said:

So where next? We need a 1080Ti or faster equivalent from AMD. With my existing Vega 56, I'm not going to get a 64, and at current pricing crossfire another 56 isn't an option either. Roll on Vega refresh!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the only high end consumer AMD GPU that is rumoured to come out this year is a RX VEGA dual GPU.

[porina]

17 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

What we really need is for Nvidia to drop the GSync module and adopt AdaptiveSync so the price premium of GSync monitors goes away and there's no more monitor and GPU compatibility issues, so you can keep one monitor and switch brand without loosing adaptive refresh rates. 

That is one solution. It has been said G-sync is the technically superior solution, but how much difference does it really make? Does it justify the price increase? nvidia knows they could also support adaptivesync, but if they did it would pretty much kill g-sync overnight. A long time value reason for picking freesync was cost, although in mining era the elevated pricing more so on AMD cards narrows that gap significantly.

16 minutes ago, Ansuex said:

That was a nice read! How do you feel about that 1080ti? is it worth getting right now or would you wait for a refresh of Vega or GTX11 series? 

I wish I got the 1080Ti earlier. I hesitated for too long, and as soon as I got it, no regrets even with the price. I'm not up to date on the rumours of when any nvidia or AMD successors will be available so can't help there.

13 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the only high end consumer AMD GPU that is rumoured to come out this year is a RX VEGA dual GPU.

I'll pass on that...

 

Still, I look forward to exploring the AMD system some more. Debating replacing the 1700 with a 2700X too.

[Guest The Viking]

console peasants be like

 

waiting for higher end AMD cards too, but very happy with my vega 64