GSYNC Input Lag Test Results in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare
Posted: 20 Jan 2014, 02:32
I did some input lag tests in Chivalry: Medieval Warfare similar to Mark's input test here.
Method:
The Corsair K95 keyboard has a mode built into the hardware where it lights a key as the switch is activated. I recorded the LED and game screen using a Nikon J1 high speed camera recording at 1200 fps.
I found the easiest thing to do an input test with was activating the voice macro menu because the menu appears instantly whereas with swinging a sword it is hard to tell when the animation begins swinging. I did do a few tests to make sure they both had the same input lag just in case they were different, but they had the same amount.
Using ffdshow's frame number display option and media player classic I counted the frames from when the LED was shown to when the menu appeared on screen. Then I multiplied the number of frames by .83333 ms (1000ms/1200fps) to get the delay in milliseconds.
For all of the tests I had my keyboard set to 1000hz polling and Chivalry frame capped to 120 fps using bSmoothFrameRate=true and MaxSmoothedFrameRate=120. The game would not go above 120 fps even with MaxSmoothedFrameRate set to higher values. The frame rate was at a constant 120 fps during the tests.
For the SLI tests I used Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2, mode 1 does not work right for Chivalry and only gets about 40 fps. GSYNC does not work in SLI, the game would crash or run at 6 fps.
Results:
Single GPU, GSYNC ON, Monitor@144hz
20.5 ms average
Single GPU, GSYNC ON, Monitor@120hz
28.5 ms average
Single GPU, Monitor@120hz
23 ms average
Single GPU, Monitor@120hz, ULMB ON
27 ms average
SLI, Monitor@120hz
26 ms average
SLI, Monitor@120hz, ULMB ON
30.5 ms average
Thoughts:
Similar to Mark's results GSYNC seemed to add some delay when frame rate was at the max refresh rate. Running at a constant 120fps GSYNC added an extra 8 ms of delay when the monitor was only set to 120hz versus 144hz.
Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) added about 4 ms of lag.
SLI added about 3 ms of lag.
Since Chivalry will not run at more than 120fps I didn't try out 144hz @120fps without GSYNC because the tearing and stuttering would be so bad. For games that have a 120fps limit it seems GSYNC actually has an input lag advantage over NO SYNC on 144hz monitors.
Method:
The Corsair K95 keyboard has a mode built into the hardware where it lights a key as the switch is activated. I recorded the LED and game screen using a Nikon J1 high speed camera recording at 1200 fps.
I found the easiest thing to do an input test with was activating the voice macro menu because the menu appears instantly whereas with swinging a sword it is hard to tell when the animation begins swinging. I did do a few tests to make sure they both had the same input lag just in case they were different, but they had the same amount.
Using ffdshow's frame number display option and media player classic I counted the frames from when the LED was shown to when the menu appeared on screen. Then I multiplied the number of frames by .83333 ms (1000ms/1200fps) to get the delay in milliseconds.
For all of the tests I had my keyboard set to 1000hz polling and Chivalry frame capped to 120 fps using bSmoothFrameRate=true and MaxSmoothedFrameRate=120. The game would not go above 120 fps even with MaxSmoothedFrameRate set to higher values. The frame rate was at a constant 120 fps during the tests.
For the SLI tests I used Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2, mode 1 does not work right for Chivalry and only gets about 40 fps. GSYNC does not work in SLI, the game would crash or run at 6 fps.
Results:
Single GPU, GSYNC ON, Monitor@144hz
20.5 ms average
Single GPU, GSYNC ON, Monitor@120hz
28.5 ms average
Single GPU, Monitor@120hz
23 ms average
Single GPU, Monitor@120hz, ULMB ON
27 ms average
SLI, Monitor@120hz
26 ms average
SLI, Monitor@120hz, ULMB ON
30.5 ms average
Thoughts:
Similar to Mark's results GSYNC seemed to add some delay when frame rate was at the max refresh rate. Running at a constant 120fps GSYNC added an extra 8 ms of delay when the monitor was only set to 120hz versus 144hz.
Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) added about 4 ms of lag.
SLI added about 3 ms of lag.
Since Chivalry will not run at more than 120fps I didn't try out 144hz @120fps without GSYNC because the tearing and stuttering would be so bad. For games that have a 120fps limit it seems GSYNC actually has an input lag advantage over NO SYNC on 144hz monitors.