Blur Busters Forums

Hey guys, new here
I'm looking for upgrading to 120hz, i have 980ti sli setup, i have a question regarding choosing a monitor:
Gsync 101 doesn't mention 1 thing, if i'm targeting to have 120hz, do I have to choose 120hz monitor exactly or it could be higher? if you say i can choose as high refresh rate monitor as i can, so how i setup (framecap,...) for 120fps on 144hz monitor (my system can't handle 144fps)
i have an eye on LG 34UC89G-B as it ultrawide, 1080p, gsync, price is good, but 144hz bother me, please help, thanks alot

With g-sync, it doesn't matter if the monitor has a higher refresh rate than the FPS you're targeting. You just cap to whatever FPS you want, and that becomes your effective refresh rate. I'm using a 165Hz monitor (1440p) with my 980 Ti, and if a game can only run at 100FPS or so on average, I just cap to 100FPS and that means I get 100Hz.

If I then play an older game that can reach 165FPS, I just cap to 162FPS (per "g-sync 101" recommendation.)

So if you get a 144Hz monitor, all you need to do is set "Preferred Refresh Rate" to "Highest available" in the nvidia panel, which should give you 144Hz, and then simply cap your FPS to your desired value using the in-game limiter, or RTSS if the game doesn't have a limiter.

You do the same for 60FPS games, btw. You still use 144Hz mode, but since it's g-sync, a 60FPS locked game will give an effective refresh rate of 60Hz.

Another thing to note is that, with g-sync, even if you cap your FPS to 100 for example, which gives you 100Hz effective refresh, you still get the frame scanout speed of 144Hz, which means you get lower input lag. This is why a 60FPS locked game has lower input lag on a 144Hz g-sync monitor compared to a 60Hz monitor.

Finally, keep in mind that the recommended refresh rate for the desktop is 120Hz (because it can play 30FPS and 60FPS video perfectly, which is not possible with 144Hz.) So it's best to set 120Hz in the nvidia panel, but set "Preferred refresh" to "Highest" in the 3D settings, so that you get 120Hz for the desktop, but 144Hz for fullscreen games. For borderless windowed games though, you need to temporarily change to 144Hz in the nvidia panel.