Lack of camera smoothness when panning it left or right

[DrivenCrazy]

I'm looking for someone who has more technical knowledge and can help me resolve this problem. Thank you.

Issue: Lack of motion smoothness when slowly panning the camera left or right.
When doing this, the camera is not smooth and by saying that I mean there is a visible and jarring to the eyes things happening. It looks like there is no tearing with tearing (like the screen being cut without tearing lines), sometimes it can be said that the movement is jumping a little or frames overlapping on eachother leaving a slight jump? + other erratic things like a slight "ghost". I can try to provide a video or more details if necessary.

I have VG27AQL3A monitor running on a DP cable. It's a "fast IPS" monitor up to 180hz with FreeSync Premium/G-Sync compatible, variable overdrive, ELMB+ELMB Sync. The available refresh rates are 59,95/99,95/120/143,97/154,96/159,94/164,96/180 Hz. There is no other monitors running when playing games.

The games I tested with this issue are Watch Dogs 1, Watch Dogs Legion and Spider-Man Remastered.

It happens in all of them, but the thing I noticed is that Watch Dogs Legion (because it's the only game with a frame limiter from the games I tested) stops that weird camera behavior when IN GAME frame limiter is activated. I would say it's smooth or smooth enough to not be annoying to the eyes anymore. When using NVCP frame cap, or RTSS the issue persists.

Another thing I can mention is that in Spider Man with 180Hz activated in Windows 11 and 120Hz activated in game with V-Sync off and G-Sync on tears on the bottom with fps caps below 120 FPS and the camera is smooth. (NVCP settings: refresh rate: under app control, vsync: use 3D app settings, monitor technology: G-Sync compatible, energy: prefer maximum performance)

I fiddle around with settings a lot so I can't say what settings I run my games on, but I keep G-Sync activated most of the time and it should be running properly because there is a visible indicator coming from NVCP.

RTX 4070 (gigabyte's) OC/i5-12600k/16x2 3600 DDR4

[DrivenCrazy]

Fuck this stupid shit I think I'll just give up on games entirely because I felt way better not launching this stupid shitty computer. Only turned it on to see the new devices I bought and maybe get myself off v-sync input lag because playing with it is hell and motion sickness/headache inducing, especially on more demanding games and finally got VRR only to be greeted with whatever this is. When I had a GPU barely able to produce enough frames for smooth gameplay, when I lowered all the shit enough to get that 60 it worked fine. Now I get enough frames and I even have VRR which I didn't before, and it's still not good enough! I have everything I should have, but hello problems!

Doesn't matter if a game is running on low settings, or everything is maxed out. Doesn't matter if I'm pumping out more than 100 frames per second or barely 60.

G-Sync or whatever else is involved, I can't manage to run the game smooth. The only time when I was able to do it was turning off G-Sync in Spider-Man and toggling half V-Sync instead and aiming for 72 frames. Now that's when I didn't feel any discomfort. 4k DLDSR from 2k, everything maxed out with RTX on High instead Very High.

Now If I put that same game with G-Sync, doesn't matter if it's on upscaled maxed out 4k or native 2k with medium/high settings. It "stutters".

Hard to believe 4070 and 12600k can't handle the games, but maybe it is the case.

And the frame gen technology, advertised by Nvidia so much doesn't make things any better. Perceived smoothnes (only when not trying to look at the distant objects without motion blur and other masking filters slowly) is better, but the attacking/dodging mechanic delay is noticeably worse even with Reflex+Boost on. Oh, and it also makes some objects (like HUD waypoints) vibrate. DLSS is much better.

[RealNC]

Limit your FPS and see if that helps. (In the nvidia control panel or with RTSS.)

[DrivenCrazy]

Limit your FPS and see if that helps. (In the nvidia control panel or with RTSS.)

I'm doing this but honestly I don't know what I'm doing anymore. Or what I should do.

Right now I'm trying to (I'm jumping between those three games I mentioned in case there is game engine related things going on, just to be sure it's not something game specific) run Watch Dogs at 4k60 DLDSR. I get +/- 90 FPS on my settings and I cap the game to 60. I would like to play with higher cap but I don't think I can given the next refresh rate setting I can choose is 100Hz (unless I can create a custom resolution or something). Because I can't just choose 180Hz and play with 60 FPS right? They need to stay in range (I don't know what the exact range of it should be, but definitely not 60). If they don't, the input lag is better but the smoothness is worse from my experience.

If I don't have exactly the limiter set on 60 FPS, anything lower or higher starts "stuttering". Almost everyone on a proper setup of G-Sync talks about capping FPS 2-5 below max refresh rate (iirc the proper way is 3%). I can't do that. When my refresh rate is set in Windows to 60 (or just in the game) anything lower or higher is way worse experience. The same thing happens in Reflex for example, where it does own frame limit and it's not 60 but something like 58.

G-Sync should remove screen tearing when it's activated as long as the FPS are in range right? So what my freaking range is? 0? Because G-Sync activated alone doesn't do this for me, be it below 60 or 60 FPS. And it's activated, or it should be because I have that green shiny G-SYNC indicator in the top right corner in any game I run.

The smoothest experience so far I got with those settings:
G-Sync Compatible
V-Sync ON in NVCP/In game (I was afraid activating it in game will default to standard non G-Sync behaviour, but the input lag seemed the same). Global profile and the game profile are Use 3D application settings. When I activate it in NVCP, I set it to Enable instead.
FPS limit 60 (with NVCP/RTSS)

Disabling ONE of those (be it V-Sync or FPS limit) makes mess of a game, and the limit must be 60 (the current refresh rate number). Is that how it works?

At least I believe how it was, I will need to make sure because I ran this game hundred times already and my mind got broken.

[DrivenCrazy]

I just uploaded a video to show what is happening. It's not exactly the best type of video to showcase the issue, but a visualization can be better.

There are visible screen jumps. What I call smooth is the gameplay without those jumps, which is possible but it's hard to make it work properly. And it can get way worse than what I showed.

phpBB [video]

[RealNC]

If I don't have exactly the limiter set on 60 FPS, anything lower or higher starts "stuttering". Almost everyone on a proper setup of G-Sync talks about capping FPS 2-5 below max refresh rate (iirc the proper way is 3%). I can't do that. When my refresh rate is set in Windows to 60 (or just in the game) anything lower or higher is way worse experience. The same thing happens in Reflex for example, where it does own frame limit and it's not 60 but something like 58.

With g-sync, don't use 60Hz. Use the maximum refresh rate your display supports. Always. If it's a 240Hz display, use 240Hz, even when you're capping the game to 60FPS.

[Luviaz]

I once chased after the same smoothness you was talking about, and eventually gave up because it was downright impossible. In fact, the games you have listed are especially worst in term of frame consistency ( third person open world games with mouse panning camera ). The most sensible thing you could do is to use plain V-sync, at a reasonable refresh rate; frame limiting is more about input latency, not perceived smoothness.

You may want to steer onto old console emulation, which are designed with a fixed frame rate in mind, or games that are so computational efficient that your system is able to blast hundreds of frames per second, then glass floor frame time graph is much more achievable.

Don't get me wrong on flagging all PC games as bad. Plenty of PC games are good enough to deliver a pleasant experience. Spider-man is a very good port; I personally didn't have any frame time issues. But again it vastly varies game to game. Sometimes it may takes a specific fix, patch or mod to fix certain performance issues; other times it is just a known nature of a game to has stutters.

[DrivenCrazy]

With g-sync, don't use 60Hz. Use the maximum refresh rate your display supports. Always. If it's a 240Hz display, use 240Hz, even when you're capping the game to 60FPS.

Well, in this case, or in the case of this game if my goal is 60 FPS, setting the refresh rate to 60 on a 180Hz display is better than running it at the maximum. Capping the game at 60 on a 180 refresh rate is way worse. You lose reduced latency, but your camera doesn't shake every time. So I really want to agree with the "Always" you said, but it just doesn't work. I tried it already. That was the first thing I did even before writing this thread. Maybe I will test if the same happens if I aim for 100 FPS instead.

I think the V-Sync needs to be activated in NVCP though to achieve the smoothness I'm talking about. Otherwise it doesn't work. With V-Sync activated, and any frame limiters off the camera is still a little bit weird. Frame limit seems to negate this completely (and it must be the exact number of current refresh rate set). Needs more testing to be sure.

G-Sync is still active when doing this, but I'm not sure if it does anything. The indicator is here, but I have trouble with telling if the latency reduction of G-Sync is here or not. Because when I disable it and go with standard V-Sync instead, it looks the same.

I don't know what is causing this or what is happening, I don't have technical knowledge of it and only fiddle with the settings and use my display and my eyes. Point is I need to change the refresh rate. After doing all that, the game is nice to play. The only "stutters" I could see so far was when driving fast around the map. Most likely the game just loaded stuff in the background, had the same happening on a different PC so I believe it's your usual typical game stutters or issues with the game because it's known to have some. But the point of this thread; the problems I experience with panning the camera disappeared.

So, how to understand this?

Is it the frame time incosistency, possible because of how the game was made (or something else involved) or is my PC not capable enough to provide consistent frame times but generates enough frames? Or both? If my PC is the problem, then how G-Sync (Compatible, software side) differs from V-Sync? Is there a problem somewhere with outputting frames?

I read in some post on BlurBusters that lower refresh rate displays are better at masking inconsistences than high refresh rate ones (or just slower & faster monitors). I don't know how true it is, but maybe there is some merit to it. I had a different PC with FreeSync only monitor, and it was 75Hz one and I don't remember going through so much as I do now. Maybe I didn't notice it before. Memory escapes me, but I think just turning FreeSync and capping the FPS did the job.

So much to consider, no idea of the direction I should take. Would be funny if it just turned out to be a controller problem or something. Currently there is one in Windows. Search for "memory error xbox controller PC".

The most sensible thing you could do is to use plain V-sync, at a reasonable refresh rate

That's just sad because I hate V-Sync for the input lag it gives, and I hate tearing. G-Sync helps with both and going back will be a huge disappointment.

Spider-man is a very good port; I personally didn't have any frame time issues.

Well, if what I experience is because of the frame times then I had issues because I needed to switch to a different VRR method and after that the game was good to play.

One thing I would like to mention is that I think I managed to have a good G-Sync experience once in this game for some time. I don't remember the exact settings, but I think I turned off RTX completely and iirc set my refresh rate to 100? Reflex capped it nicely.

Turning RTX on gave me issues (and I had no smoothness problem with maxed out game on V-Sync). FPS were good though.

That reminds me of a game I played some time ago, A Plague Tale: Requiem (at the time with V-Sync because my monitor had no DisplayPort and Freesync didn't work through HDMI on a Nvidia GPU). Everything maxed out except RTX - good, RTX on no matter the settings - bad, stuttery mess. It's a known issue with the game (https://www.reddit.com/r/APlagueTale/co ... t_shadows/ for example) no matter how good PC people have. Can it be related somehow?

Every time I turn on RTX in Plague Tale, the FPS are decent but the Average FPS sensor in GeForce Experience overlay instantly drops to low numbers and the camera panning issues makes it unplayable. You move it and it feels like 100+ FPS at first then one second later 20 FPS and keeps going like that back and forth.

other times it is just a known nature of a game to has stutters.

I'm well aware that games aren't perfect, and the nature of PC etc. I can tolerate shader cache stuttering, or any other things that happens in games. I don't know if I can tolerate for game to shake my camera every single time I'm doing something. It's incredibly distracting and frustrating. Maybe I'm very sensitive to it. I don't know. Constantly "stuttery" game running at 45 FPS feels better than one running at 90 with "stutters" pretty often to me. Some people close to me couldn't tell a difference between 60Hz and 120Hz which surprised me. I can tell how big it is just by going from 60 to 75 lol.

If it's supposed to be normal and is not an issue (which I can still manage to solve) then oh well. My subconsciousness tells me that it isn't a normal behavior. But maybe I'm wrong and the only option is to deal with it.

[Luviaz]

If it's supposed to be normal and is not an issue (which I can still manage to solve) then oh well. My subconsciousness tells me that it isn't a normal behavior. But maybe I'm wrong and the only option is to deal with it.

Try setting up a frame time graph with RTSS and see if your panning stutter is corresponded with frame time fluctuation; If it does then pretty much nothing else you could do. If the stutter persists with relatively flat frame time then you would want to look in syncing config. VRR can alleviate mild fluctuation but only up to a certain threshold; If a frame takes too long to compute it will simply result in a stutter regardless.
Ubisoft games are not the ones to go to for smoothness I can tell you that.

[yamaci1775]

@DrivenCrazy try "Front edge sync" limiter within Rivatuner's setup menu. It helps "a bit" but quite laggy. An alternative is to inject Reflex latency markers and set the sleep call location to "after present" and then choose NVIDIA reflex as the limiter. Ensure that in game reflex is completely deleted as Reflex's existence also causes stutters (and despite sending various reports, nvidia doesn't seem to care)

It is possible that recent WDDM versions have broken frame presentation logic. Only when you frame pace the "after present" or "front edge" of the frames that you get somewhat smooth presentation on screen. Only way to get "smooth" presentation without any program, software or cap involved is to have perfect %99 GPU utilization where you get some buffer frames and that somewhat helps frame presentation. And of course that is not really possible to control with how wildly CPU bound some games have been.

To see what is the problem, just set the frametime calculation point to after present. Then you will see problem. Some games, you will be able to get smooth after present frametimes with Reflex files deleted. NVIDIA probably ruins most people's gaming experiences by their extreme approach to reducing latency at all costs, so that they can make DLSS frame gen work with acceptable levels of input lag. By doing so, they ruin almost all modern games with their reflex injections (whether you disable it or not) which causes a very weird super low latency framelimiter with extreme jitter if you have lowend/midrange CPU. Only way to get the perfect %99 super gpu bound scenario with their system is to have a super over powered CPU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH04ovDNMEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXfwDlc_RU

As I said, nothing makes sense anymore. So many things affecting so many outcomes. I just wish we had low lag half vsync like PS4 does. It is funny because this site has its own "low lag vsync" guides that practically aims to get rid of buffering queue caused by Vsync, and of course with AC Mirage and some other games, that queue is literally the only thing that prevents stutters in those titles. But then you have to target 60 FPS vsync if you want somewhat acceptable input lag.

Most half vsynced PS4 titles have around 150-160 ms input lag (per digital foundry). That is alot, yes. Nothing to scoff at. But guess what, Cyberpunk with half vsync at 60 hz on PC produces 200-240 ms of input lag! That is even crazier. And that is just NVIDIA's frameview calculation. Digital Foundry calculates end to end, NVIDIA's frameview is just a estimate. Real number is probably upwards of 250 ms considering HOW LAGGY it is. IT IS literally impossible to play that way. HALF VSYNC on PC is broken in terms of input latency, so much so that it is insane. Even if Vsync is a solution, then it is not a solution if you have lowend CPU that cannot reach a rock solid 60 FPS.