[Thread Superseded] G-Sync 101 w/Chart (WIP)

[RealNC]

I purchased it for a game I mainly play called Black Desert Online. This game is wildly unoptimized and framerates can go from 0 to 200+ at any given moment. I was wondering if you guys had any recommended settings for a game like this? I've tried Vsync ON, OFF, Fast. All of them produce quite a bit of microstuttering. I'm not feeling the benefits of G-Sync at all.

G-Sync fixes stutter that results from FPS not matching the refresh rate. Bad frame pacing and hitching is not something that can be fixed.

[cokeguy223]

G-Sync only fixes stutter that results from FPS not matching the refresh rate.

Bad frame pacing is not something that can be fixed.

Gotcha, I assumed it was probably something along these lines.

I suppose at this point I should play for a bit with G-Sync Off and see if there's any benefit at all for this particular game. I played Ghost Recon and it was buttery smooth, but I mostly paid the $200 premium for Black Desert Online. I suppose no amount of hardware can fix bad coding.

Thanks.

[RealNC]

Using a frame limiter sometimes helps. Try using RTSS (comes with MSI Afterburner) and cap to various limits (100, 90, 80, try several.) Sometimes it helps. But some games are just beyond help.

[Sparky]

Professional-level "1ms counts" people won't be using g-sync though. On LAN tournaments they have PCs that reliably push upwards of 400FPS on CS:GO. When there's a tournament where players are given machines that can't push upwards of 300FPS, you usually see a sh*tstorm coming up about it on their twitter accounts and/or reddit.

As a side-note, the 0.5ms difference doesn't count for "draw" situations, unless it's within the corner case where that 0.5ms difference got you into the previous tick of the server's main loop. For CS:GO, that's 128 ticks per second, so that's a granularity of 7.8ms. If your input is within that 7.8ms of another player, then you firing first doesn't actually count. If you fire at the 2ms mark and your opponent at the 6ms mark, you can still die even though you fired earlier. This is not something that can be time-stamped, since the server can only rely on its own clock. The server uses arbitrary rules to decide on how to resolve "draws." It's suspected that it's a fixed list of players and the priority is given to whomever as at the top of the list.

A very interesting (well, IMO) video where this has been analyzed is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oWNIifrpYU

Not that any of the above matters, and it's slightly off-topic, but it's fun to talk about

Not so sure about pro gamers never using g-sync, Maybe ±1ms of extra jitter in visual latency (500fps vsync off) is more problematic than 2.3ms of extra average latency(gsync with 230fps ingame cap). It would be very difficult to tell the difference by feel, so you'd have to find a way to measure the impact on your aim, and the impact on race conditions.

As for "draws", it still matters statistically, because being 1ms faster in a game with 8ms of granularity means that 1/8 of the time you come in 1 tick ahead of your opponent instead of on the same tick. Or on the same tick instead of one frame behind.

[jorimt]

Update #2 (04/02/2017):
Second part of multi-part Blur Busters article, "G-SYNC 101: Range" has been released:
http://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-range/

“G-SYNC 101: Input Latency” coming up next. Could be a while due to sheer amount of re-testing & scenarios involved...

[RealNC]

Update #2 (04/02/2017):
Second part of multi-part Blur Busters article, "G-SYNC 101: Range" has been released:
http://www.blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-range/

Reading through that again, I noticed something that I didn't give much thought to before:

Regardless of the currently reported framerate and variable refresh rate of the display, each frame scan will still physically complete (from top to bottom) at the display’s maximum supported refresh rate; 16.6ms @60Hz, 10ms @100 Hz, 6.9ms @144 Hz, and so on.

I use 165Hz as the max refresh, but always cap to 120FPS (since 120 is PLENTY for me; zero *perceptible* input lag) or lower on very heavy games (like 90 or 80.) That gave me the impression that I'm not actually pushing the panel (165Hz counts as "overclocking" on those 165Hz IPS displays.)

If I'm reading your words correctly, then that's not actually the case at all. I *am* pushing the panel and "reaching" its overclocked status simply by having 165 be the current max refresh? I'll probably switch to 144Hz as the max (which is advertised as the "native" refresh of the panel, whatever that means...)

[jorimt]

Yes, if you've set 165 Hz as your refresh rate, the (top to bottom) scanout rate is 6.1ms regardless of your framerate limit.

It's a little confusing, but the scanout rate is basically decoupled from the VRR refresh rate adjustment, along with any fps cap in place.

This is one of those overlooked advantages to a G-SYNC display, as 60 fps/Hz running on a monitor in 165 Hz mode, for instance, is scanning-out at 6.1ms per frame, instead of 16.6ms, as it does on a native 60 Hz display.

You can control the scanout rate by simply adjusting the max refresh of the display in the control panel/game, that's how I can test my 144 Hz display like a native 120 Hz, 100 Hz, or 60 Hz display for input latency.

Be sure to set the "Preferred refresh rate" setting to “Application-controlled” though, else the refresh rate set in the control panel will be overridden, and the game will use the highest available.

[RealNC]

Interesting. I suppose that means a 144Hz G-Sync monitor will have less input lag compared to a 75Hz G-Sync monitor in a 60FPS game, even though the game doesn't reach the max refresh on either monitor, simply due to the larger blanking interval in the 60FPS/144Hz case.

[jorimt]

Disregarding the possible difference between the two given models in overall monitor (processing) lag (the 75 Hz model could have less monitor lag than the the 144 Hz model, for instance, though unlikely), yes, the faster scanout rate should decrease input latency (however slight) at the same fps.

[kurtextrem]

Has someone tested G-Sync with the new gaming mode from the Win 10 Creators Update?
In Rainbow Six it having G-Sync enabled and Gaming Mode introduces a lot of micro stutter. Not sure if it's because of G-Sync though.
But it makes the game unplayable.