The Road Not Taken

[syncsync]

As a guy that:
1) Have 780p mag monitor for the past five years.

2) Plays competitively in a team-play focused RTS scrolling kind of game (The game called DotA you used to play it on WC3 engine Now it evolved into Source engine future to move into Souse 2 engine) here is a gameplay vid :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZClNGH-e ... x8Sv_6WERg you can run it at 120FPS.

3)Not playing competitively in any FP shooter game.

4)Look forward to play SOM with my new pc and monitor purchase

5)All my life I had shitty PC's and now I play DotA2 with my sister's dell inspiron 15r core i3 (4~ years old laptop) in the lowest of lowest settings in like 7~25 fps. (This does harm my performance)
Now I cant even play because the poor laptop cant handle it anymore and crashes.


I just finished serving in the army and I want to buy my first REAL PC and a 1080p monitor I have the budget to afford a non g-sync more then 60hz monitor and a high end gaming PC (I want to buy a single 24" monitor btw) I can extend my budget if the new XL2420G is worth the spending for my uses.

Now I want you guys to consider all the info above and advice me about whether I should go for a 144hz monitor like the benq XL24020z
and buy a PC that can give me more then 60 FPS performance at 1080p or whether should I buy a good 1080p IPS monitor and save a lot of bucks on both the PC and the monitor ?

What should I go for guys ?
Describe me your first experience with the transition into more then 60hz ?
What games do you play ?
When do you recommend 60FPS and when will you recommend 120FPS ?
Colors ?
modes ?
Pros & Cons ?
Any DotA players here ?


(Don't misunderstand me I obtained plenty of technical information and I understand this technology I don't want technical information
I want your personal opinions and experiences )

[Edmond]

I have a friend who recently sold his more poweful pc that had an amd card and built the cheapest gsync compatible pc he could build - a amd 6core+15$ aftermarket cooler with a used 660(with a valid warranty still), didnt even buy a case, found an old one for free. (psu from a well known brand tho)

And he plans to get the Acer 27" 1080p 144hz - cheapest gsync monitor(the AOC 24" is a little cheaper, but it supposedly has a bad picture) - as soon as its available here. I think it should be 400$ in the US.

I would go that route myself. And i agree that its better to turn down your settings on the latest games and enjoy a smooth and clean picture. Not to mention a 660 will run 99.9 % of games out there maxed anyway. 650ti Boost (not 650, not 650ti) is the lowest card that supports gsync and will play dota on max at very good framerates still.
Shadows on Mordor is a demanding one tho, but id still rather play it on low with no artifacts and a high framerate.


my 2c:
The thing with going nuts with how good the colors are or struggling to make lightboost work on a pc that doesnt have quad titan setup, or overclocking the piss out of your components or even trying to overclock your 60hz monitor to enjoy more problems...
...is that "enthusiasts" will recommend all of this usually but these things make more problems than they are worth and give none at all or minimal noticable net gain; you should do any of this crap only if you have LOTS of time and money to burn and you generally enjoy messing around with hardware more than actually playing games.

[Alamar]

Well gsync don't eleminate sample-and-hold blur and I think 60hz monitor + less fps in game means more blur, in 120hz monitor it is maybe little better but only a bit, currently only powerful way to eleminate this kind of blur is strobe (like lightboost, ULMB, Turbo240 etc. all in 120-144hz monitors)
I haven't used gsync myself but good PC seems more important especially if you want to use PC not only for games.
Gsync add a little bit of lag too which is always not good for fast online games.
IPS is not for games (very slow pixel response time or big input lag or both, glowing dark, only 60hz), better for graphics and work.

[Edmond]

Well gsync don't eleminate sample-and-hold blur and I think 60hz monitor + less fps in game means more blur, in 120hz monitor it is maybe little better but only a bit, currently only powerful way to eleminate this kind of blur is strobe (like lightboost, ULMB, Turbo240 etc. all in 120-144hz monitors)
I haven't used gsync myself but good PC seems more important especially if you want to use PC not only for games.
Gsync add a little bit of lag too which is always not good for fast online games.
IPS is not for games (very slow pixel response time or big input lag or both, glowing dark, only 60hz), better for graphics and work.

Well, i got the impression that the op is looking for a good value without spending insane money. You dont plan for lightboost if you are on a budget.

And even if he turns down details on Dota2 and that a 660 pushes around 120fps constantly he can use ULMB (lightboost2). Every 100+ hz gsync monitor comes with that option. Of-course gsync requires a flicker free screen, but any form of lightboost IS flicker by itself, so you have to choose one.
Personally i would never turn gsync off for ULMB. Artifact free gaming is worth to me more than reducing the pixel persistence from the already low 8-7ms(what you get on a 120-144hz monitor) to 2ms, but living with all the screen tearing/input lag/stuttering.

Also, gsync doesnt add lag, its precisely as lagless as vsync off. It only starts giving a little bit lag once you near the monitors max refresh rate. Which can be fixed with a manual, global fps cap that slightly below the max; with rivatuner or something... if you play games that will hit a constant 140+fps.
See the 2nd part of the gsync review on this website. It has charts and stuff that shows this.

[flood]

not that anyone would care about this but technically capped gsync at 120fps or so has more input lag than vsync off at 500fps or something.

[mello]

Gsync add a little bit of lag too which is always not good for fast online games.

This is simply not true. Gsync adds maybe 1-2ms of lag in comparison to V-Sync OFF, which is like nothing, and no one can tell the difference between Gsync and V-Sync OFF.


@syncsync, you should wait for XL2420G, because 144Hz+GSYNC or 120Hz+ULMB is the way to go. Switching from 60Hz to 144Hz is mindblowing, this is a major improvement and the more FPS you have the better. Same with GSYNC and ULMB, if you prefer motion clarity and have a fast PC then ULMB will be great, but if you are sensitive to tearing and stutters and you are playing demanding games, then GSYNC will change your gaming experience completely.

After experiencing 120Hz/144Hz there is NO GOING BACK to 60Hz.
After experiencing GSYNC/ULMB there is simply NO REASON TO GO BACK to using non gsync/non ulmb mode. Perfect motion clarity or perfect fluidity with no stutters/tearing is a game changer.

144Hz monitor with GSYNC/ULMB is completely worth the money, because it takes your gaming experience to whole another level.

[Q83Ia7ta]

This is simply not true. Gsync adds maybe 1-2ms of lag in comparison to V-Sync OFF, which is like nothing, and no one can tell the difference between Gsync and V-Sync OFF

at 144Hz G-Sync ON has 144fps limit so frame render time is ~6.94ms.
at 144Hz V-Sync OFF and 500fps frame render time will be ~2ms.
Plus G-Sync itself adds 1-2ms. There is difference in extreme cases. And people can feel that 6-7ms output delay.

[Edmond]

This is simply not true. Gsync adds maybe 1-2ms of lag in comparison to V-Sync OFF, which is like nothing, and no one can tell the difference between Gsync and V-Sync OFF

at 144Hz G-Sync ON has 144fps limit so frame render time is ~6.94ms.
at 144Hz V-Sync OFF and 500fps frame render time will be ~2ms.
Plus G-Sync itself adds 1-2ms. There is difference in extreme cases. And people can feel that 6-7ms output delay.

Thats that "way of thinking" i was warning about in the 2nd post here....
Obsessing over the last few ms that not even them Korean SC players would notice.

Also, again... i got the impression that the OP wants a good value, enjoyable gaming setup for games that are not too demanding. Cheapest gsync monitor + one of the cheapest pc builds that support gsync > all.
Noone is gona push 500fps on a budget... not to mention why would you spend actual money to enjoy screen tearing and stutter afterwards anyway?

And in one of the previous posts i mentioned that if you set up a global fps cap thats below the monitors max refresh your gsync will ALWAYS stay as lag free as vsync off is. It only adds extra input lag once it reaches the max refresh rate.

[flood]

Plus G-Sync itself adds 1-2ms.

the only tests so far are from this site and the variance in the data is nowhere near enough to draw conclusions like that.
i suspect that gsync does not add 1-2ms in the sense you described. but I will test tonight and make sure.

[mello]

at 144Hz G-Sync ON has 144fps limit so frame render time is ~6.94ms.
at 144Hz V-Sync OFF and 500fps frame render time will be ~2ms.
Plus G-Sync itself adds 1-2ms. There is difference in extreme cases. And people can feel that 6-7ms output delay.

You are comparing 2 different scenarios, G-Sync ON @ 144fps VS V-Sync OFF @ 500fps. If anything, you should be comparing for example G-Sync ON @ 135fps VS V-Sync OFF @ 135fps, and in the same scenario (same fps), as i said in my post, G-Sync only adds 1-2 ms of lag. And no one will be able to tell the difference in this case.

And in one of the previous posts i mentioned that if you set up a global fps cap thats below the monitors max refresh your gsync will ALWAYS stay as lag free as vsync off is. It only adds extra input lag once it reaches the max refresh rate.

Not true. Currently G-Sync adds 1-2 ms of lag (in comparison to V-Sync ON), even at 30-140fps range.

the only tests so far are from this site and the variance in the data is nowhere near enough to draw conclusions like that.
i suspect that gsync does not add 1-2ms in the sense you described. but I will test tonight and make sure.

There are tests on the net, for example from some polish site: