question about nvidia's research that higher refresh rates greatly boost competitive advantage

[contravania]

Nvidia's study showed something like a 2x higher kill/death ratio when going from 60hz to 144hz if I remember right. But my question is, does anyone know if these findings result from increasing actual game frames, or if it also applies to just having black frames added?

[mello]

I can almost guarantee that this "study" is just a marketing gimmick.

[Chief Blur Buster]

or if it also applies to just having black frames added?

NVIDIA didn't study black frames in that study.

If you mean VSYNC OFF frame rates above Hz, they already found that out. Better advantages for 500fps at 240Hz than for 500fps at 144Hz -- the same GPU at a higher Hz still had advantages. All frame slices are partially displayed. See Advantage #2 of Framerates Above Refresh Rates.

There's no black frames involved for VSYNC OFF framerates above refresh rates. For example, 1000fps at 240Hz, there are approximately 4 partial frame slices spliced into the same refresh cycle (4 tearlines per refresh cycle with separate frames between the multiple tearlines). VSYNC OFF is just simply real-time streaming of frameslices into the display scanout. (If you don't know what a scanout is, screens display one pixel row at a time, as seen in high speed videos)

I can almost guarantee that this "study" is just a marketing gimmick.

Well.... yes it is a marketing gimmick (hello) but it is a relatively honest marketing gimmick with legitimate results.

Marketing gimmicks isn't necessarily exclusive to real research and if you can do both at the same time -- more power to NVIDIA.

Indeed, it just reconfirms what we already knew. More players (on average) have more advantages (on average) at higher refresh rates (on average). Sure, there are exceptions (great fast 144Hz beating a crappy laggier 240Hz monitor) but all things considered, you have more advantages. We can always use more ammo against "30fps vs 60fps" deniers.