60-80fps on a 144hz monitor

[raknarius]

hey all, I just bought a benq 144hz monitor 1080p 24inch. should get it in two days. now I need help to get the best experience.

according to most benchmarks I see for bf4 and other new games my 770gtx will run about 70fps on high.

so should I set my refresh rate lower then 144hz to match my average fps.

should I even use lightboost

should I put settings to medium or low, to try to get 100fps

should I have just bought a 60hz monitor lol

should I use vsync, do I have to lock fps somehow or does vsync do it for me

btw I don't plan to use 3d but would use 144hz or lightboost if its the best gaming experience.

my only experience has been on cheap 100 monitors like the kind you see in a office, and low end graphics cards so ive never played at 60fps or higher, im no expert I haven't even seen tearing or I don't recognize it at least but I have seen motion blur

I have read about all this stuff in the forums but am serverly confused on what would and wouldn't work with my graphics card and monitor. so any suggestions would help I am such a noob. but this is like a picture is worth a thousand words and these monitor functions and uses seem very complex. so suggestions please.

btw I play fps mmo and rts, pretty equally.

[raknarius]

what im really hopeing for is for someone to say
ok if your getting 70fps, turn vsync on, set refresh rate to 80hz, leave lightboost off.
ok if you can get 100fps, average or minimum? set vsync on , set monitor refresh to 100, set lightboost on. etc

so ill know what I need to do depending on what gaming / fps I can get

btw my monitor is benq xl2420te. and a NVidia 770gtx 4gb memory.

[shadman]

Depends on what you want. If you want minimal motion blur, you'll want framerate == refresh rate, especially when using Lightboost, and the higher the frequency, the less motion blur you will get. In that scenario, you'll want to reduce settings to allow yourself close to 120Hz as possible on average, or a bit more, run lightboost, and it should be very clear.

However, you say you play mmo and RTS, and while eliminating motion blur isn't as important as FPS games or twich-gaming, it would help a lot for reading items while panning the camera, and other similar instances, depending on the game of course.

[raknarius]

I see, so quick question, people say theres always tearing without vsync, so do we agree at any fps I should always use vsync? although ive never noticed tearing before but im sure I might notice it when its gone

[Chief Blur Buster]

I see, so quick question, people say theres always tearing without vsync, so do we agree at any fps I should always use vsync? although ive never noticed tearing before but im sure I might notice it when its gone

There is always tearing, yes.
However, not everyone notices tearing, so you're lucky.
It is something often noticed in high-contrast vertical edges (e.g. lamp posts, door frames, etc) during sideways/strafing/turning motion.

A good animation of tearing is http://www.testufo.com/stutter#demo=tearing

[sharknice]

what im really hopeing for is for someone to say
ok if your getting 70fps, turn vsync on, set refresh rate to 80hz, leave lightboost off.
ok if you can get 100fps, average or minimum? set vsync on , set monitor refresh to 100, set lightboost on. etc

so ill know what I need to do depending on what gaming / fps I can get

btw my monitor is benq xl2420te. and a NVidia 770gtx 4gb memory.

If you aren't getting consistent frame rates I would set the refresh rate to 144hz.

In Battlfeild 4 you won't get a consistent frame rate so I would go with 144hz. I would also lower the settings so you can get a higher frame rate and take advantage of the higher refresh rate. I would do that for any games you can't get a consistent 120+ fps.

For games where you can get a very consistent 120 fps I would use lightboost, for single player games like this I might even turn VSYNC on.

[raknarius]

ahh so even if im getting say 60-80fps non consistant keeping it at 144hz will still help. good to know thanks so much, I thought it would cause more problems because of the difference, you get so much conflicting information now days

[Chief Blur Buster]

ahh so even if im getting say 60-80fps non consistant keeping it at 144hz will still help. good to know thanks so much, I thought it would cause more problems because of the difference, you get so much conflicting information now days

Yes, if your frame rate is non-constant, keeping it at max 144Hz is best.

Of course, if you want motion clarity, and you can run consistent >100fps, then you want to enable LightBoost (or whatever your monitor's strobe mode is, such as ULMB or Turbo240).

That said, if you get consistent 60fps (e.g. game locked to 60fps), then you want GSYNC, or switch to 60Hz or 120Hz, to reduce microstutters caused by the aliasing effect between frame rate and refresh rate. 60fps@120Hz has less input lag than 60fps@60Hz, and tearing is far less visible if you use VSYNC OFF.

[Dustmuffins]

For games such as BF4 where you're usually sitting at 50-90 fps, I recommend running at 144hz with a 72 fps limit to maintain harmonics.

There's no real reason to run at less than the max refresh rate unless you want lightboost. If you run at 80hz like another poster was suggesting, your frames below 80 fps will have larger microstutters (12.5 ms as opposed to 6.9 ms @144hz)

[nimbulan]

I personally would just turn vsync on, leave your monitor at 144 Hz to minimize stuttering, and adjust the game settings to get the framerate you want, though higher is better of course. It will provide smoother motion than vsync off and I've only ever felt an input lag difference in a handful of games over the past 10 years. Also make sure you set Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames to 1 in the nVidia Control Panel to minimize the input lag impact.

Lightboost may or may not be feasible in BF4 since it's hard to keep your framerate high enough, but if you can manage it without making the game unbearably ugly, give it a shot.

Just try different settings and see what you like best. It really is mostly personal preference.