Is it possible to generate a fake display adapter in Windows 10?

[SkyJax]

I'm not very well versed on the technical side of displays so please bear with me on this.

I'm wondering if it it's possible to trick windows into thinking a display adapter exists when it actually doesn't. The reason I ask is related to a game that I play.

In the game, the frame rate affects the physics and gives a big advantage to players who have a higher fps. The only problem is that the games frame rate is locked to whatever your main displays native refresh rate is, making it pretty much pay to win. People have been able to modify the game code to allow an unlocked frame rate, but using that method is classified as illegitimate since it changes game files.

One interesting thing about the game is that its fps will always default to the refresh rate of your main display, regardless of the display you're playing it on. Using this info, a player managed to trick the game into capping at 499fps by plugging a HDMI to VGA adapter into their GPU. For some reason, without even plugging the adapter into a monitor, Windows detected it as a display adapter with a maximum refresh rate of 499hz. By setting the device as their main display they were able to play the game at 499fps regardless of their actual refresh rate. The method has been deemed legit and is allowed to be used by anyone who can get it to work.

So far only one person has shown this method working since it's very new. So we're yet to know if it works consistently between different systems. For this reason I've been theorizing on how this could work without using any extra hardware. It'd mean that you'd have to somehow create a virtual display device, which I have no idea how to do, or if it's even possible. I imagine that modifying the refresh rate of a virtual display adapter would be pretty simple with something like CRU, but creating it in the first place is my problem.

If anyone has advice on this it would be fantastic. Thanks in advance!

[Chief Blur Buster]

Short answer is.... Yes.

Virtual display drivers can run at a different Hz than the actual display.

It is also possible that NVIDIA and AMD may eventually add a Hz-virtualization feature, perhaps as part of a frame rate amplification technology. Some technologies (interpolation, extrapolation, reprojection) can display displays more frames than the game engine output -- sometimes flawlessly and laglessly.