144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by RealNC » 12 Dec 2016, 08:00

Note that 120Hz is better when it comes to your desktop. It allows you to watch 24FPS, 30FPS and 60FPS videos. 144Hz only works well for 24FPS video.
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by robicruz » 12 Dec 2016, 10:44

RealNC wrote:Note that 120Hz is better when it comes to your desktop. It allows you to watch 24FPS, 30FPS and 60FPS videos. 144Hz only works well for 24FPS video.
Could you please explain this? My monitor is set to 144hz and I never had any issues watching any video.
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by lexlazootin » 12 Dec 2016, 11:07

120 / 60 = 2

120 / 30 = 4

120 / 24 = 5

Every frame of your 24fps/30fps/60fps video will be spread evenly across 5/4/2 frames at 120hz.

Where if you watch the same videos at 144hz...

144 / 60 = 2.4

144 / 30 = 4.8

144 / 24 = 6

...Your 30 fps videos for example will be spread across unevenly. some frames showing up for 3 frames, some showing up for 2 creating sort of a stutter.

Only 24 fps will be displayed evenly where every frame will be spread across 6 'hz'.

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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by RealNC » 12 Dec 2016, 13:14

robicruz wrote: Could you please explain this? My monitor is set to 144hz and I never had any issues watching any video.
What lexlazootin said. If you watch non-24FPS video, you get microstutter, also known as "judder", unless you're using a video player that does frame rate interpolation or applies some kind of "pull-down" technique. But then, you get motion artifacts since no interpolation technique is perfect, or weird blur on some frames since pull-down combines frames with each other, and can look weird, and still stutters. Pull-down just tries to make the stutter less noticeable.

120Hz was chosen as a refresh rate for monitors because of that. Not 100, not 110, not 130. 120 is the best one for getting video playback that's as smooth as possible.

I use 120Hz for games too, since many games have either 24, 30 or 60FPS cutscenes. I only use 144Hz for Counter-Strike, really.

UFO Test has a demo of microstutter:

This is what you get with 120Hz

This is what you get with 144Hz

Some people don't notice the difference in everyday use, especially when watching video. But the above test makes it clearer.

A very good test video to see the problem for real, is this youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vigX3H7WX5Q
(Try both the 30FPS and 60FPS version. The problem is more apparent in the 60FPS version. You get the 30FPS version if you select "480p". You could rip the 1080p@30 video file from youtube using a YouTube downloader program, like youtube-dl.)

Watch it in 120Hz first. Then switch to 144Hz. You will see that it's not as smooth. The same also happens for 30FPS video, but it's less noticeable since 30FPS has more blur.

TL;DR: If you want smooth video playback, use 120Hz.
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 12 Dec 2016, 14:11

What RealNC said -- that said, most videos I watch is in 24fps. So I don't see microstutter differences with movie framerates. Most users fortunately won't.

However, once I start playing a 60fps video....BOOM. The difference becomes stark.
120Hz looks so much better than 144Hz when playing 60fps videos.
(especially with lots of panning motion; e.g. sportsfield panning).
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by robicruz » 12 Dec 2016, 16:33

Wow! that's a lot of new info there, at least new to me :)

How about overclocking the monitor? I know most monitors can be OC'd and probably mine too. I have to yet check how much. Would 180hz be OK? Or any other number would be more optimal or just shouldn't bother and stay with 120hz?
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by RealNC » 12 Dec 2016, 23:07

robicruz wrote:Wow! that's a lot of new info there, at least new to me :)

How about overclocking the monitor? I know most monitors can be OC'd and probably mine too. I have to yet check how much. Would 180hz be OK? Or any other number would be more optimal or just shouldn't bother and stay with 120hz?
The next refresh rate that handles video just as well is 240Hz. Anything between 120 and 240 doesn't.

Note that there's the exception of 25FPS and 50FPS video (TV framerates in Europe and other PAL regions.) For that, you need either 50Hz or 100Hz. Fortunately, 25 and 50FPS video is rare.
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by Haste » 13 Dec 2016, 12:48

600hz displays would be pretty useful for that. It would take care of all the common frame rates.
But we're not there yet :c
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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by SAMURAIWARRIOR13 » 09 Mar 2018, 14:37

I know this thread is old but this problem with non matching frames rates is still a issue so here are my questions:
1)
If setting a non g-sync 144hz monitor to 120hz in the windows display settings, will there be a judder or pull down affect?

2)
Will the frames match perfectly if I game gaming with a cap of say 119fps with 1 pre-rendered frame and set the monitor to 120hz in the windows settings?
EDIT: I forgot some stuff

3)
Should I enable v-sync if I am going to go though that?

4)
Will I get low lag v-sync if I do what i said in question 2?

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Re: 144hz monitor @ 60hz? Help!

Post by Chief Blur Buster » 09 Mar 2018, 14:55

SAMURAIWARRIOR13 wrote:1) If setting a non g-sync 144hz monitor to 120hz in the windows display settings, will there be a judder or pull down affect?
Player dependant.
- If it uses time-based intervals with 24fps material, judder will disappear from 24fps videos.
- If it is playing back to 60fps, it will have 3:2 pulldown, that gets doubled to 6:4 pulldown, so you still have judder when playing 24fps videos.

It's my understanding that some video players can de-judder this.
SAMURAIWARRIOR13 wrote:2) Will the frames match perfectly if I game gaming with a cap of say 119fps with 1 pre-rendered frame and set the monitor to 120hz in the windows settings?
It doesn't work quite that way.
If your monitor is non-VRR, you need full VSYNC ON with no caps, and full flat-out framerate, for perfect fluidity.
However, given VSYNC ON input lag, you can use the HOWTO: Low-Lag VSYNC ON -- it might add a very very minor amount of stutter but lag of VSYNC ON will disappear.
SAMURAIWARRIOR13 wrote:3) Should I enable v-sync if I am going to go though that?
If your goal is perfect motion fluidity (as a higher priority than input lag) for your particular situation, then yes.
SAMURAIWARRIOR13 wrote:4) Will I get low lag v-sync if I do what i said in question 2?
Yes, essentially that's what the HOWTO does. But for VSYNC ON, you want to cap microscopically. e.g. 119.98fps at 120.00 Hz -- or 120.03fps at 120.05Hz. See HOWTO: Low-Lag VSYNC ON

Regarding common framerate capping advice:
For VRR, capping is about ~3fps below -- it's to accomodate frametime variances and VRR doesn't show sttuter with that.
For VSYNC ON, capping should be as tight as possible (e.g. 0.01fps or such) with an ultra-accurate frame rate capper such as RTSS instead of in-game, as the tighter the fewer stutters, up to a certain point (e.g. strange sustained stutter effects).

So the useful capping margin for VSYNC ON is much tighter!
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