Blur Busters Forums

I know this has probably been asked a lot, but I recently got a 144hz Dell S2716DGR and hooked my old monitors up as secondary. They run at 60hz and make my new 144hz monitor stutter when there is video or any movement on the secondary displays. Even things like an animated wallpaper engine background make the main display stutter when not in fullscreen mode. Reading online, it seems to be an issue with nVidia drivers (I have a 1070) and the windows forced vsync?

Has anyone found a solution to this without purchasing monitors with the same refresh rates? I.E dual or triple 144hz setups?

This problem seems pretty common when using multiple monitors with different refresh rates. Windows seems to drop the refresh rate down to the lowest of the lot when you have something active on the other monitor. I like to have twitch playing on the 2nd monitor myself but this problem is too annoying to deal with. I plan to get another xg2402 or the new model when it comes out.

Yes, it is very annoying. I have been doing a lot of reading on other sites, but I was hoping that someone or Mr.Chief would know a trick or something that I can't seem to find.

Always use Full Screen Exclusive with your games to prevent refresh rate interference.

There's no solution for windowed apps -- it's a Microsoft issue.

If you are running a 144Hz windowed app, simply make sure all your 60 Hz windows are minimized for the duration of needing full 144Hz windowed apps.

If too annoying, download and use DisplayFusion to allow you to use a hotkey or easy click -- to disconnect/reconnect your 60Hz secondary via a click or hotkey. Basically turning on/off your secondaries and disconnecting them (without needing to touch the monitors or cables physically).

Thank you for the reply Chief! I do use exclusive fullscreen when I play games. Am I correct in thinking that buying 144hz monitors for my outside/secondary displays would make this issue disappear since all two/three monitors are running at the same refresh rate? Also, does DVI-D support 1080@144hz?

So I posted on Reddit... https://old.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comme ... _question/

and there is a LOT of suggestions people are giving. I'm curious what Chief has to say about these. Going to test them myself regardless.

Disabling DWM VSYNC can help, but it makes all monitors tearing at Windows desktop. I hate tearing while scrolling or dragging windows. You might not mind, but I do...

Disabling VSYNC in games can help but you will have frameskipping on the high-Hz monitor (which not everyone realizes), meaning more amplified stuttering on the windowed game when activity occurs on the other monitor.

This is easily seen when you run www.testufo.com/frameskipping on two separate Hz monitors at the same time. Even that issue happens on AMD too an extent, though AMD may behave better in some apps for multimonitor according to that reddit thread.

Static simple text like Windows Notepad (not browser windows) usually are OK though.

Thanks Chief! I hate tearing as well when scrolling, so as of right now I am just going to deal with the issue until I can afford to buy two new secondary 144hz displays. Hopefully my GTX1070 can drive them over HDMI/DVI-D at 1080p.

have you tried using riva tuner's scan line sync feature?

Kheri wrote:have you tried using riva tuner's scan line sync feature?

Not even the same ballpark of tool because it's a Windows behaviour issue.
It's like asking for a screwdriver and getting a table saw instead.

The thing is that any sync method ever invented in humankind, doesn't solve the "different-Hz multiple displays stutter problem", and a Windows 10 bug makes it worse.

Example:
1. Open two different http://www.testufo.com windows
2. Put each window on two monitors running at different Hz.
3. You will see the problem.
4. This affects all windowed applications.

Even when you do tricks like VSYNC OFF or scanline sync or others, there are still side effects/compromises of each and every single fix, that doesn't do a thing to address the root cause. Even when you're doing Fast Sync or Enhanced Sync or some triplebuffering, there is still visible amplified stuttering (not caused by a performance problem) on one display when the other monitor (even at only 1% GPU/CPU) does something in a windowed window.

That's what this thread is about -- refresh rate interference behavior between two simultaneous monitors under Windows 10.

The main fix is simply to run your videogames on your primary in full screen exclusive (FSE) mode. This avoids the refresh rate interference from the other display.