Render Scale

[darzo]

There's this imo myth in the Overwatch community, spread by pros and streamers, that lowering render scale lowers input lag. Insofar as it increases frames per second I can buy that. But if frames per second reaches a target value regardless whether you're using 75% render scale or 100%+ render scale does render scale have any effect on input lag?

[RealNC]

People believe in irrational things. Don't pay attention to them.

[Falkentyne]

There's this imo myth in the Overwatch community, spread by pros and streamers, that lowering render scale lowers input lag. Insofar as it increases frames per second I can buy that. But if frames per second reaches a target value regardless whether you're using 75% render scale or 100%+ render scale does render scale have any effect on input lag?

I have some land on a desert island in the Caribbean that you may be interested in !

[darzo]

Not sure why I'd be interested in it.

How about SLI? I've heard that SLI is supposed to add input lag as well. What will the new NVlink connection accomplish?

[k2viper]

How about SLI? I've heard that SLI is supposed to add input lag as well. What will the new NVlink connection accomplish?

SLI is another case. Synchronizing the work of multiple GPUs require additional framebuffering over a single GPU scenario. So probably yes, SLI would add some input lag.

[open]

It can help a few ways but usually they do not ammount to more than a few milliseconds. Lowering the time it takes to render lowers the input lag. Even if your fps is the same. For exmple say your cpu can crank out 180fps. And on high graphics settings your gpu can crank out 180fps. Then you put the graphics settings on low. The cpu still only does 180fps so your framerate cannot go higher. But the gpu is taking about half the time to render each frame. So you see them over 2ms sooner.

Also lowering the settings can sometimes affect cpu performance directly and indirectly. For example having the primary graphics setting set to "low" on overwatch will reduce the number of physics objects which will improve your cpu performance. Also usually the cpu will end up waiting for the gpu in some form or another. If the gpu is taking more time than the cpu then it can sometimes introduce extra effective input lag depending on if the cpu grabs input immediately after finnishing its work on the previous frame.

So that is a few ways that lowering graphics settings can reduce input lag. This also explains why many people play overwatch on low settings even with high end gpus.

[darzo]

My impression is even streamers and pros are for the most part ignorant. If you look at their fps they don't max out at 300. They lower settings to increase fps primarily, I highly doubt they understand much beyond this based on their explanations (for crying out loud, they usually don't even mention fps, there's no other way of putting this than they sound pretty dumb to me). The question is what happens when I'm able to maintain 300 fps at a 100% render scale and at the automatic 140% render scale, which either a 1080 ti or one of the two high end RTX cards should be able to do. Short of a 1080 ti, however, there is no card that can do around 300 fps at anything but low settings. Most players I've seen don't seem to have 1080 tis, and even at 75% render scale (a few even use 50%) they do not max out.

I've had a pretty weird experience with my monitor, gpu, whatever is involved. For the most part I've been playing with gsync and fps capped at 237 fps. Something was clearly wrong with the picture uncapped and gsync off. Yesterday I got frustrated, turned gsync off, and uncapped my fps again. This time the picture was fine and things seemed even more responsive.

Also, a few milliseconds is the difference between a 144/165hz monitor and a 240hz monitor, which to me is clear.