Anyone else find 60 Hz unworkable?

[theTDC]

I recently had my trusty GTX 1060 break on me, fan issues, and had to revert back to the Intel HD graphics on my i3-4100. On top of this, either because I had to use a VGA cable, or because Intel's drivers suck, my 120 Hz monitor, the AOC C24G1, has been limited to 60 Hz. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but I do play the occasional game here and there.

One thing I had noticed about 120Hz gaming, is that I had finally crossed the threshold for myself where Vsync added more value than it subtracted. I could run 120Hz vsync Half Life 2, or Halo 3 from the MC collection, and it ran rock steady and felt very nice. Not perfect, but the latency/blurring/stobo effects were tolerable for sure. Even the very occasional frame drop from 120 Hz was bad, but within the realm of tolerable. I never did any experiments limiting framerates to 60 Hz, because I couldn't in Half Life 2, and didn't bother in Halo.

Fast forward to my 60 FPS experience with the Intel HD integrated graphics and I feel clear in making two observations.

1) Absolutely locked 60 Hz gameplay is playable, but only for about 10-15 minutes at a time maximum. Even this, when running perfectly, still "feels" wrong, even though there are no visual problems that I can actually explain. After about 10 minutes, I get a headache and start to feel nauseous. On top of this, I felt the need to "baby" the mouse movement, to ensure that I wasn't moving the camera too quickly, because even at a rock solid 60 Hz I could easily move the camera beyond what my eyes would tolerate. I think it's possible that 60 Hz works for the majority of the experience, but having to quickly whip the camera around to face an enemy behind me passes the "this makes me sick," threshold.

2) A tiny amount of dropped frames makes this experience unplayable. If the settings are such that even 1 every 10 seconds a little stutter happens it actually physically hurts me to play Half Life 2, vsync on or off. Eye strain, headaches, nausea, the whole nine yards. It makes me need to go lie down for a while after playing.

What surprised me about this experience was the massive difference between 120 Hz and 60 Hz. Sure, I was playing at higher resolutions on the 1060, but I don't think that's relevant, considering drastically lower resolutions with slightly higher frame rates felt better. Even the occasional frame drop from 120 Hz down to 60 never really caused me physical pain, while a locked 60 Hz will, and drops to 30 Hz make me physically sick.

I just think it's interesting how going from 16.67 ms refresh rate down to 8.33 ms refresh rate, with the accompanying latency reduction, makes for such a qualitatively different experience for me. I'm curious now for myself what the breakpoint actually is. 80 Hz? 100 Hz? Again, I can tell there's plenty of room to improve at 120 Hz, but it doesn't cause me physical illness to play.

I honestly can't even imagine people having to play games at 30 FPS in the year 2021. I honestly don't think I could even tolerate that for more than 10 seconds, at least in an First Person Shooter.

Curious to see if there are other people on here who've noticed the same thing. That there is a breakpoint somewhere between 60 Hz and 120 Hz where FPS games become playable.

[speancer]

I feel you, although I have much more tolerance for it, because I don't get physically ill like you do, but of course, using 60 Hz is very uncomfortable to me and it feels... painful

After I switched from 60 Hz to 144/165 Hz back in the days, the difference was so enormously huge that I was stunned, and my KD ratio on deathmatch practice in CS:GO flew through the roof, it felt like such a groundbreaking improvement. Since much time now I've been using 240/280 Hz monitors (my main monitor is 280 Hz) and I'd really not want to go back to anything below 240 Hz at this point. I even made my peace with going down from 27" 1440p to 24.5" 1080p, just to benefit from the highest refresh rate my rig can manage, since I basically only play CS:GO.

Any frame rate fluctuations on 60 Hz make games unplayable for me, yes. The amount of feelable choppiness and stutter is unbearable. If you ask me, 120/144 Hz displays should now be the standard for absolutely any use, even moving your mouse on the desktop on 60 Hz display feels like having a stroke It's just so bad! Laggy, choppy, just horrible. It's a way of no return after one switched to higher Hz. Stable 60 fps on 60 Hz is playable in TPP games, but just a little uncomfortable, FPS games on 60 Hz are absolute cancer though.

Dropping frame rates on high refresh rate monitor is way, WAY more bearable than on 60 Hz one (although too deep fps drop in FPS games even on high Hz is also cancer for me), since all the frames are still delivered in much faster scanouts. I could actually enjoy playing AAA game on high Hz monitor even if fps dropped to 30~, on 60 Hz it would be unacceptable. Last summer I played "The Last of Us - Part II" on PS4 PRO, it's locked on 30 Hz, and yeah, my eyes definitely did not like the amount of blur and choppiness a 30 Hz-locked game produced (it was worth it to turn a blind eye on that though), it was close to making my eyes strain a bit too much.

FPS games refresh rate playability threshold for me is probably at least 100-120 Hz, but at this point it would be far from comfortable, just... playable. I just don't wanna go down from 240/280 Hz anymore, I can definitely tell a difference between 144 and 240/280 Hz.

[theTDC]

FPS games refresh rate playability threshold for me is probably at least 100-120 Hz, but at this point it would be far from comfortable, just... playable. I just don't wanna go down from 240/280 Hz anymore, I can definitely tell a difference between 144 and 240/280 Hz.

Oh no doubt. When I turned vsync off for Half Life 2 especially, and got rock solid 300 FPS, with tearing, I could definitely feel a noticeable latency decrease. My point is just that 120 Hz is finally the point where the visual quality upgrade is worth the increase in latency and other effects.

I am not at all surprised by the Blurbusters claim that greater than 1,000 Hz displays provide benefit, possibly up to 10,000 Hz for retina displays. In FPS games I imagine I personally, on a 1080p monitor, would benefit all the way up to that 1,000 Hz rate.

[theTDC]

Any frame rate fluctuations on 60 Hz make games unplayable for me, yes. The amount of feelable choppiness and stutter is unbearable. If you ask me, 120/144 Hz displays should now be the standard for absolutely any use, even moving your mouse on the desktop on 60 Hz display feels like having a stroke It's just so bad! Laggy, choppy, just horrible. It's a way of no return after one switched to higher Hz. Stable 60 fps on 60 Hz is playable in TPP games, but just a little uncomfortable, FPS games on 60 Hz are absolute cancer though.

And I’ve also noticed this. Funny, because when I got my monitor I didn’t notice a huge day to day performance increase from 120 Hz. However, having to go back to 60 Hz I find it distracting and annoying. The sheer act of moving my mouse needs to be fundamentally different, because if I look at my mouse I get sick. So I either have to “baby” the mouse where I want it to go, or look away, then pause for a brief moment in time to make sure I’m where I want to be, then click. It’s awful. Absolute cancer indeed.

[Chief Blur Buster]

For most mainstream, I recommend that when upgrading Hz, keep doubling Hz every time you upgrade (standard Blur Busters geometric Hz upgrade recommendation to keep punching the diminishing curve of returns).

Doubling Hz halves motion blur & halves stroboscopics. People who are in esports or competitive, that upgrade frequently, may sometimes upgrade in smaller increments (e.g. 144 -> 180 -> 240 -> 280 -> 360), but it's very incremental looking though for many and not everyone can see such incrementalness.

Bigger upgrades are visible to more people. So for most "mainstream" users (non-pro gamers) I recommend approximate Hz doubling to get the upgradefeel all over again, as long as frame rates keep up. Also at ~240Hz and beyond, I now recommend 8KHz mice (configured to at least 2KHz poll rate) even for mainstream users. Since mouse Hz should be at least 4x-6x display Hz.

Recommended "mainstream" upgrade paths:
- 60 -> 120 -> 240 -> 480
- 60 -> 144 -> 360

Versus 60 Hz:
- 120fps 120 Hz has 1/2 motion blur and 1/2 stroboscopic frame stepping effect
- 240fps 240 Hz has 1/4 motion blur and 1/4 stroboscopic frame stepping effect
- 360fps 360 Hz has 1/6 motion blur and 1/6 stroboscopic frame stepping effect
- 480fps 480 Hz has 1/8 motion blur and 1/8 stroboscopic frame stepping effect
Etc.

For those curious about display science, see Blur Busters Area 51 Articles, including the old favourite, Blur Busters Law: The Amazing Journey To Future 1000 Hz Displays.

[Jason38]

I recently had my trusty GTX 1060 break on me, fan issues, and had to revert back to the Intel HD graphics on my i3-4100. On top of this, either because I had to use a VGA cable, or because Intel's drivers suck, my 120 Hz monitor, the AOC C24G1, has been limited to 60 Hz. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but I do play the occasional game here and there.

One thing I had noticed about 120Hz gaming, is that I had finally crossed the threshold for myself where Vsync added more value than it subtracted. I could run 120Hz vsync Half Life 2, or Halo 3 from the MC collection, and it ran rock steady and felt very nice. Not perfect, but the latency/blurring/stobo effects were tolerable for sure. Even the very occasional frame drop from 120 Hz was bad, but within the realm of tolerable. I never did any experiments limiting framerates to 60 Hz, because I couldn't in Half Life 2, and didn't bother in Halo.

Fast forward to my 60 FPS experience with the Intel HD integrated graphics and I feel clear in making two observations.

1) Absolutely locked 60 Hz gameplay is playable, but only for about 10-15 minutes at a time maximum. Even this, when running perfectly, still "feels" wrong, even though there are no visual problems that I can actually explain. After about 10 minutes, I get a headache and start to feel nauseous. On top of this, I felt the need to "baby" the mouse movement, to ensure that I wasn't moving the camera too quickly, because even at a rock solid 60 Hz I could easily move the camera beyond what my eyes would tolerate. I think it's possible that 60 Hz works for the majority of the experience, but having to quickly whip the camera around to face an enemy behind me passes the "this makes me sick," threshold.

2) A tiny amount of dropped frames makes this experience unplayable. If the settings are such that even 1 every 10 seconds a little stutter happens it actually physically hurts me to play Half Life 2, vsync on or off. Eye strain, headaches, nausea, the whole nine yards. It makes me need to go lie down for a while after playing.

What surprised me about this experience was the massive difference between 120 Hz and 60 Hz. Sure, I was playing at higher resolutions on the 1060, but I don't think that's relevant, considering drastically lower resolutions with slightly higher frame rates felt better. Even the occasional frame drop from 120 Hz down to 60 never really caused me physical pain, while a locked 60 Hz will, and drops to 30 Hz make me physically sick.

I just think it's interesting how going from 16.67 ms refresh rate down to 8.33 ms refresh rate, with the accompanying latency reduction, makes for such a qualitatively different experience for me. I'm curious now for myself what the breakpoint actually is. 80 Hz? 100 Hz? Again, I can tell there's plenty of room to improve at 120 Hz, but it doesn't cause me physical illness to play.

I honestly can't even imagine people having to play games at 30 FPS in the year 2021. I honestly don't think I could even tolerate that for more than 10 seconds, at least in an First Person Shooter.

Curious to see if there are other people on here who've noticed the same thing. That there is a breakpoint somewhere between 60 Hz and 120 Hz where FPS games become playable.

I pretty much have this issue exactly. Motion blur is my number one cause of the worst eye strain. So the ways I can tolerate 60FPS is if it is done on a CRT or Plasma TV. After that it depends if the game has artificial motion blur incorporated to smooth out the 60FPS. I own 8 screens in my gaming room. I have two XG270 View Sonic gaming monitors that are 240HZ. I own 3 plasma TV's and 3 CRT's. I'm very aware of every game I play and what frame rate it runs at. I would really like to see if single strobe really becomes a thing and if I can tolerate it. Although I love how 60FPS games look on my CRT's or plasma's so I don't overly care that much.

I beat two Xenoblade games this year that were both capped 30. Xenoblade 2 was worse cause it has tons of frame drops and it was torture. The one thing that makes it kind of tolerable is when I play 30FPS games on my Plasma TV. Seems to give me the least amount of issue but it's still super annoying. I also beat Super Mario 64 which is also 30FPS and I found that one the hardest on the eyes cause the camera in the game is terrible and moves fast sometimes and at 30FPS is really straining with fast motion.

I beat Blue Dragon on the Xbox and it was a locked 30 FPS game on my plasma TV. I found that the motion was too fast in Lost Odessy for the Xbox with it's locked 30FPS that even the Plasma couldn't make it tolerable. I'm hoping that this new frame boost technology that doubles the frame rate that Xbox is using will eventually get to those games so I can finally play Lost Odessy without strain at 60FPS. I would love to see that frame boost tech make it's way into emulation. Imagine all those old games getting boosted to 120FPS or the 30FPS getting at least a 60FPS bump. It could make old games tolerable on LED screens.

I owned 3 FPGA systems and found that the 60FPS of most games for the SNES/Genesis/NES doesn't translate well to LED for me. They were designed for a CRT and when I play them on LED it's just crazy eye strain because of the motion blur. I now play on original hardware on a CRT or I run an emulator on a CRT to play them.

90FPS seems to be where things get good for me. I have tested this with quite a few games on my XG270 monitor. If I can drive the FPS to 240 though I'm super happy. I beat Monster Boy and Y's Memories of Celceta at 240FPS and even the new Tony Hawks remaster some levels I can keep the frame rate at 240FPS but the really open levels at 120 and I have no issues.

[theTDC]

Hate to bump an old thread, but I replaced my fan for my GTX 1060, and I have noticed a few things:

1) I can still very much tell that 120 FPS is far from seamless. Even when playing very old games, such as Half Life 2, with rock steady 120 Hz Vsync, I still have to do a touch of what I mentioned earlier with babying the mouse. It doesn't make me feel sick, or make me want to throw up, but it definitely gives a touch of eye strain.

However, even when playing FPS's, the vast majority of the time 120 Hz is good enough, and I don't get any strain. Yes, I could intentionally give myself a headache by whipping the camera around constantly, but the regular course of play shows that 120 FPS is very much playable.

2) I think input latency might be more relevant than I originally anticipated. System Shock 2 is locked to 100 FPS, yet I can in fact whip the camera around there as hard as I would like, and while I can see the imperfection of frames, it still feels nice and snappy. I think that the strain therefore has to be some combination of FPS as well as input lag. You'd think that 100 FPS would be horrible, because occassionally you'd get a repeating frame, so I guess I must have vsync turned off. With that setup, 100 FPS is actually very tolerable. Again, not ideal, but very much tolerable, especially for the majority of that game, where I'm not really throwing the camera around.

2.5) Similarly, some games with higher framerates actually feel a bit worse. Halo 3, MC Edition comes to mind. When I uncap it, I get around 180 FPS, as opposed to theoretically 2,000+ for System Shock 2. Even if I go to areas where I know I'm not going to drop any frames, it still feels a bit worse moving the camera around, locked 120 Hz vs locked 100 for SS2. I think this is because the frames render so fast for SS2, that the input latency is far lower. So again, it's interesting how it's not just the framerate, but the latency.

I've always wondered what exactly the benefits of higher refresh rate monitors are, or rather which matters more, the reduction in input latency, or the visual importance of higher refresh rates. I suspect strongly that, following the work the Oculus and VR guys have done, once we get input latency below 20ms, the only benefit from higher refresh rates will be visual. I can definitely tell that games run at 120 Hz are quite far from <20ms input latency, but perhaps in the next 10 years we will have consumer monitors/hardware running where the input latency problem is completely solved.

To add on to that, I picked up Trackmania: Nations Forever recently, and while my framerate fluctuates, I'm typically 250+ FPS. As a test, I forced vsync on through NVIDIA control panel, and once again I felt just a touch of latency added. I'm not quite sure which I prefer, since I actually think the 120 Hz locked version looks better, even though I couldn't really perceive the screen tearing in that game. However, in that kind of game the extra input latency is quite important, but then again at least the latency is consistent. I guess I could go either way.

TL:DR: Not all 120Hz is the same, since input latency is still drastically lower if your GPU/CPU combo is able to far outperform the 120 Hz limit.