Blur Busters Forums

Guys,

Black Flag is a 60fps capped game.

When I played Black Flag without G-sync on my 144hz monitor I wondered how I ever played without G-sync. In fact, I was so baffled by how jittery the game played that I didn't believe it.

So, I plugged in my previous 60hz monitor and gave it a whirl. What do you know? Black Flag DID play just fine and smooth before too. G-sync can play 60fps capped games on a 144hz monitor the way it plays on a 60hz monitor in terms of fluidity. But that's not really an upgrade now is it? It feels like a correction to 144hz monitors.

vsync has a large input lag cost.

ZTylerDurden wrote:Guys,

Black Flag is a 60fps capped game.

When I played Black Flag without G-sync on my 144hz monitor I wondered how I ever played without G-sync. In fact, I was so baffled by how jittery the game played that I didn't believe it.

So, I plugged in my previous 60hz monitor and gave it a whirl. What do you know? Black Flag DID play just fine and smooth before too. G-sync can play 60fps capped games on a 144hz monitor the way it plays on a 60hz monitor in terms of fluidity. But that's not really an upgrade now is it? It feels like a correction to 144hz monitors.

You can just set your 144hz monitor's refresh rate to 60hz and it will work the same as a 60hz monitor. But like spacediver said vsync also adds input lag.

Ok, but do you see what I'm getting at here? The pendulum demo looks EXACTLY THE SAME between vsync and gsync if you set the monitor's refresh rate to 60hz. There's no superior smoothing effect. It's the exact same thing. Input lag is negligible for games like Black Flag, I'm not worrying about twitch reactions for a game that's impossible to die in.

Looks like the Chief already clarified this point.

120Hz for 60fps material can work well, but occasionally you can run into 60fps games that stutter like madness during 120Hz, with a frame-repeat sequence of 3:1:3:1:3:1 instead of 2:2:2:2:2:2 If you have GSYNC, then that's better. You would avoid the frame-repeat irregularity, unless the 60fps framepacing in the game engine was extremely poor. Frame pacing in the game/driver side has a big effect of whether or not it will stutter during 60fps@120Hz -- since if a frame is way too early or too late, it could skip a 1/120sec cycle and cause a stutter.

For 60fps material, 144Hz is not ideal.

These modes are better for 60fps locked games:
- GSYNC
- 120Hz
- 60Hz

Also, if the game runs extremely consistent frametimes, test VSYNC ON versus VSYNC OFF, sometimes certain 60fps-locked games behave better with one or the other. Some locked games will stutter more with VSYNC OFF, and others will stutter more with VSYNC ON -- it all boils down how consistent or erratic the frametimes are.

ZTylerDurden wrote:Ok, but do you see what I'm getting at here? The pendulum demo looks EXACTLY THE SAME between vsync and gsync if you set the monitor's refresh rate to 60hz. There's no superior smoothing effect.

Exact!

And yes many people and tech reports give the impression that there is a so called smoothing effect. And that bothers me a lot as well.

ZTylerDurden wrote: Input lag is negligible for games like Black Flag, I'm not worrying about twitch reactions for a game that's impossible to die in.

That's pretty debatable. Different people have different sensibility to input lag. It also depends on the total input lag chain. The bigger it is, the more it dilutes the V-sync lag. It also depends on input methods, games and V-sync implementations.

Haste wrote:

ZTylerDurden wrote:Ok, but do you see what I'm getting at here? The pendulum demo looks EXACTLY THE SAME between vsync and gsync if you set the monitor's refresh rate to 60hz. There's no superior smoothing effect.

Exact!

And yes many people and tech reports give the impression that there is a so called smoothing effect. And that bothers me a lot as well.

Yes, it was already super smooth at 60 fps @ 60hz vsync... they never claim Gsync built anything on top of that. The gsync smoothing comes from when the frame rate drop below refresh rate

fenderjaguar wrote:

Haste wrote:

ZTylerDurden wrote:Ok, but do you see what I'm getting at here? The pendulum demo looks EXACTLY THE SAME between vsync and gsync if you set the monitor's refresh rate to 60hz. There's no superior smoothing effect.

Exact!

And yes many people and tech reports give the impression that there is a so called smoothing effect. And that bothers me a lot as well.

Yes, it was already super smooth at 60 fps @ 60hz vsync... they never claim Gsync built anything on top of that. The gsync smoothing comes from when the frame rate drop below refresh rate

Yes exactly. Nobody said gsync look smoother than vsync when your fps is always locked to refresh rate of the monitor. Gsync shine when you go below the refresh rate, and when you have a 144hz gsync monitor, it shine from 30 fps to 144 fps. But it depends on games also, FC 4 feel stuttery when below 60 fps even with gsync at 144hz. Gsync don't fix game engine stutter too, neither it fix sli micro-stuttering.

Gsync fix tearing and stuttering cause by vsync repeating the same frame twice (or more) when fps is below refresh rate. It wont fix any other stutter. I was a bit disappointed when i 1st experimented gsync. There is so many games that stutter for other reasons than what gsync fix. But still...i can't live without gsync now.

And for now, freesync suck big times. Not really the fault on freesync, but more cause of the monitors manufacturer. The biggest problem is the minimum frequency at witch freesync operate with some monitors. Some min are 40 even 45 hz. When the fps go below that minimum, it is even worse than a 40-45 fps on a 60hz screen, vsync or not.