Adaptive Vsync sounds like a great idea, want on 7970

[railven]

Physx on high.

Does it really impact a GTX 680 that much? Most people maxed out Batman:AC with PhysX on a GTX 580 @ 1080p, at least those who I know who ahve a GTX 580.

Still makes no sense. That v-sync graph don't look right haha.

 

[ArchAngel777]

You guys are missing the point about adaptive vsync. What it's primarily made to do is significantly increase your minimum FPS. Yes, you will get tearing when framerate dips below your refresh rate, but there will be less of a hit to the smoothness of gameplay as the gpu no longer needs to sync frames.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...2616-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-2gb-review-4.html

Actually, this graph is misleading. Virtually every game has triple buffering as an option. That makes this V-Sync On graph inaccurate in the above case. The above case is with V-Sync On and double buffering.

No one who uses V-Sync is going to leave the triple buffering disabled. The only people who would be, are those who have no clue on what it does.

Based on that graph, Adaptive V-Sync is awesome. But that graph is grossly misleading and it would only apply to some obsure game where triple buffering does not exist.

JAG87 really has been spot on this entire thread. Adaptive V-Sync is worthless in all cases except for when triple buffering does not exist... Which, I can honestly say, I have not encountered in years and years and in the event that you did encounter the missing option in an older game, it would likely never dip below 60 frames per second anyway, making the 60/30/20 chop irrelevent.

 

[tidy]

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[f1sherman]

Actually, this graph is misleading. Virtually every game has triple buffering as an option. That makes this V-Sync On graph inaccurate in the above case. The above case is with V-Sync On and double buffering.

No one who uses V-Sync is going to leave the triple buffering disabled. The only people who would be, are those who have no clue on what it does.

The F are you talking about? There are like 3 games that don't have tripple buffering enabled, and Batman AC is not one of them.

You guys are missing the point about adaptive vsync. What it's primarily made to do is significantly increase your minimum FPS. Yes, you will get tearing when framerate dips below your refresh rate, but there will be less of a hit to the smoothness of gameplay as the gpu no longer needs to sync frames.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/52616-nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-2gb-review-4.html

Right. And also less input lag, which can be particularly annoying when Vsyncing on low fps.

 

[tidy]

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[f1sherman]

Actually, most games have V-Sync, and therefore Triple Buffering, disabled by default. Examples off the top of my head: Crysis, Warhead, FEAR, AoEIII, Assassins's Creed, Metro 2033, CoD4, CoD5, UT2004, UT3 etc. etc... Skyrim is one of the few that actually comes with V-Sync and Triple Buffering pre-enabled.

No kidding Well of course TB will be disabled when Vsync is disabled.

Batman AA doesn't have Triple Buffering enabled by default (Why would it have, unless V-Sync was enabled by default also?) I think Batman AC is probably the same, although I don't own the game.

Both game enable Tripple Buffering when Vsync is ON. Like 99% of games out there.

However those UE3 games usually employ the 62fps frame limit (aka. 'framerate smoothing') that many people mistake for V-Sync.

Probably what the V-Sync/Triple Buffer results would have been had they included that in the test :

Those ARE V-Sync/Triple Buffer results, and not "62 smoothed".
Both Batman's are Triple Buffered when Vsync is on.

Here, I've modified one of NVIDIA's slides to illustrate my concerns about fluctuating input lag (as per my last post). Disclaimer: I can't remember exactly how much lag you get with V-Sync at 60Hz, think it's around 16ms. What do you guys think:

You are missing few things. First of all input lag does not consist only of lag caused by rendering, so your criticism of lag fluctuation should account for a larger total input lag window.
So why would you think lowering input lag in sub-60 scenario when whole system is constrained,
and stuttering is a real possibility is a bad thing.

FPS also fluctuates, yet rarely anyone caps it to 30fps.
Then again input lag is not constant even with Tripple buffering.

And for all our discussion, it still remains purely theoretic, but THAT from cannucks was observed in real life.

 

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[blackened23]

I don't know what to make of adaptive vsync, I don't really care for it too much. I'm using a 2560 resolution monitor. It actually turned on ingame vsync in a couple games for me, I started Dragon Age 2 and Crysis 2 with vsync off and later turned on adaptive vsync in the control panel. Then I later found that the ingame vsync options were turned on (??) Either i'm crazy or AVsync turned ingame vsync on for me LOL.

Bf3 it seemed to work but its not better than turning vsync on. I still had slight tearing. From what I read , I was expecting to play games with vsync off and get no tearing, that was probably an unrealistic expectation to be honest and it didn't work out that way.

 

[f1sherman]

Then again input lag is not constant even with Tripple buffering.

It's constant enough to be a non-issue.

You are clueless.
There's 16 ms fluctuation of input based solely in which frame mouse input ends up, and that's on 60fps(!), 32ms on 30fps - and that's when Vsync/TB play nicely!

OTOH whole average difference between input lag with Vsync ON / Tripple buffered, and Vsync OFF is ~25ms - Team Fortress 2 example as measured by Anandtech.

Bottom line, there are hundreds of games and countless hardware combinations, try it, and if you don't like it don't use it.

But if you're gonna be all theoretic without actually trying it, at least do it properly.

@blackened23
Adaptive is gonna cause tearing when droping beneath 60fps - by design.
Vsync turns off, and you get all benefits and drawbacks of Vsync=Off

 

[BrightCandle]

Theoretically if you have Vsync on (double buffered) then input lag doubles to 32ms if you miss the 60fps target and is 16ms worst case average when you are on time.

With adaptive it would be worst case 16 ms in either case, smoothing out input lag. The frame however is only partially completed, so some of the frame is actually 32ms old. This should smooth out input lag to be a consistent 16ms, it will also smooth out fps to be better. The cost of all this smooth behaviour however is tearing, a fairly significant IQ loss. But its better than having the frame rate halve for moments during the game, which at times can make it near impossible to play.

I wish more games supported triple buffering, and I wish the drivers supported forcing it with xfire.

 

[taltamir]

Someone explain this to me because I don't get it. Why is Batman: AC even dipping under 60FPS? Is this at like 1600p? I get around 80-100FPS @ 1080p.

Console port with poorly written code.

These charts rather confuse the issue and don't accurately explain it.
If your monitor is a 60Hz monitor then it displays 60 images per second, aka 60FPS.
Every 1 s /60 frame = 16.(6) ms/frame it will read the image buffer and replace the current image with the one on the image buffer. Reading the image buffer is not an instantaneous process, it takes several ms to perform.

If you have vsync on, then the GPU will match its rendering of frames to the actual refresh rate of the monitor. If it fails to render a frame in time for the refresh (16.7 ms) it will leave the previous frame there and wait until the next refresh (33.2 ms) to swap buffers (it uses 2 or 3 buffers and swaps their label rather then copying from one buffer to another).
Thus the instantaneous "drop" in FPS from 60 (16.7 ms per frame) to 30 (33.2 ms per frame) and what causes one of the many forms of micro-stutter. And opponents of vsync claim it affects input rate (it doesn't with the exception of very badly coded games. Input is independent pathway. What it will do is give you an image lag, the enemy will appear on your monitor a maximum of 16.7 ms = 1/60th of a second later then his actual arrival in game). It does however potentially affect the time of executing a command, if you saw it later and hit the button later.

Your overall FPS will still measure as something higher then 30, for example 50, because it displays the average of all of the FPS over the last second not the per frame FPS. But without vsync you would have seen it average out to something even higher... like say, 55. However that would be entirely due to tearing frames.

If vsync is off and you are generating 150 fps then you are making a new image every 6.(6) ms.
0 ms - render start
6.7 ms - first frame done
13.3ms - second frame done, first frame discarded and was a waste to even bother rendering.
16.7ms - reading frame buffer by monitor starts (from top).
20 ms - third frame finished, tearing will occur as monitor is now reading the third frame not second frame.
21 ms - monitor finishes reading the third frame. Got a stitched together image from frame 2 and 3.
The figure of 21ms is hypothetical as it varies based on resolution and speed of your connection (DVI, DP, HDMI, and various versions of those formats).

adaptive vsync is meant to appease those upset with the skipping of a frame. It will not allow FPS over 60 like vsync already does, but if the monitor started updated an image it will not skip it for the next cycle but use it now (as if you have no vsync).
It is still vsync, its just god a different policy on what to do when you miss the deadline. Rather then waiting until next refresh it will immediately turn it in, mixing it in with the previous frame. This actually guarantees that you will see tearing every time your FPS drops below 60. But you reduce your image lag for the lower half of the screen (or was it upper?), since half the screen is the old image and half is the new image displayed earlier then it otherwise would (the two half images are separated at the tear). You do not actually get a full 1/60th of a second though, since by definition it was only an issue because the image was late to render. You get between 16.(6) and 16.(6) - X where X is the time it takes to transmit the image.

While I personally will use regular vsync, adaptive is useful for those who find regular vsync unacceptable and will now be able to use it instead of leaving vsync entirely off. (this will greatly improve their thermals, power consumption, and GPU lifespan too since its doing less work)

Further benefits of vsync, adaptive or not, is that if an image is done early then the GPU idles, and that means it can start on the next image sooner. And it works even better with nvidia's new GPU turbo boost, where the extra idle time gives it time to cool down and reduces overall power consumption.

 

[videogames101]

Listen, any kind of V-Sync introduces Input Lag (Unless you're triple buffering, right?), therefore this feature is useless for gamers who would rather have tears than lag. (AKA Me)

 

[taltamir]

Listen, any kind of V-Sync introduces Input Lag (Unless you're triple buffering, right?), therefore this feature is useless for gamers who would rather have tears than lag. (AKA Me)

Actually no vsync of any kind introduced input lag. They introduce image lag which can reduce your time to executing a command as well as cause micro-stutter. But that is not due to input lag. Terminology is important.

Triple buffering involves rendering an additional frame ahead which reduces or eliminates micro stutter at the cost of making image lag (and the eventual execution time) even worse.
Furthermore, adaptive vysnc + GPU turbo = improves time to execute (due to reduce image lag) compared to vsync off.

Time to execute from best to worst:
1. Adaptive vsync w/ turbo
2. Adaptive vsync no turbo
3. Vsync off.
4. Vsync with double buffer
5. Vsync with triple buffer

Tearing will occur with scenarios 1,2, & 3 above (and each instance of tearing will have half the image contain micro stutter and half not contain stutter).
Full screen micro-stutter will occur with scenario 4 above, only.

A competitive FPS player get the best time to execute. A normal player playing most other genres is probably going to be best served by scenario 5 (the thing I always use when gaming).
Scenarios 3 and 4 have been the scenarios of choice for competitive FPS players before but have been rendered obsolete by adaptive vsync (as in, nobody at all should use them if they have adaptive vsync as an option)

 

[ArchAngel777]

You are clueless.

No, he is not. He has been spot on as well. You have already demonstrated you don't know what you are talking about in your multiple posts within this thread.

 

[f1sherman]

No, he is not. He has been spot on as well. You have already demonstrated you don't know what you are talking about in your multiple posts within this thread.

spot on what ROFL

wait a sec, you're telling someone he's clueless, and you are the guy who wrote this:

Virtually every game has triple buffering as an option. The above case is with V-Sync On and double buffering.

No one who uses V-Sync is going to leave the triple buffering disabled. The only people who would be, are those who have no clue on what it does.

Four sentences, and all four of them false. That's beyond clueless.


Your post was fine in terms of adhering to the rules but you went off-track with that last quip:

That's beyond clueless.

Please don't post flamebait.

Administrator Idontcare

 

[ArchAngel777]

spot on what ROFL

wait a sec, you're telling someone he's clueless, and you are the guy who wrote this:




Four sentences, and all four of them false. That's beyond clueless.

I have seen how you treat people in this forum. Why would I even bother to enter into a debate with you when everything is 'ROFL, WTF and condescending" with your posts? You act childish - plain and simple. Therefore, I won't waste my time and come down to your level. Bye.

 

[Tempered81]

What is a scenario where the benefits of this feature shine?

 

[f1sherman]

Okie I double checked, and I was wrong about Batman AC.

Triple buffering is bugged in Batman AC DX11, same as in Crysis Warhead DX10.
I have to ALT-TAB, and only then it kicks in.

My appologies to ArchAngel777, as it seems he was wrong only 3/4
HWCanucks example was most likely only double buffered.

 

[blackened23]

What is a scenario where the benefits of this feature shine?

I think this feature is more marketing talk than being actually useful. If you have an IPS panel and are lazy about enabling vsync on/off for different games then its helpful, but It doesn't increase fps for games that dip below 60 fps and doesn't prevent tearing past 60 fps/hz. In a couple of cases I think this feature actually turned vsync on for me in a couple of games (ingame options), but I could be wrong. I'll go back and check that again later, I think that happened in Dragon age 2 which i've always played with vsync off. Crysis 2 as well. Suddenly they had vsync turned on for me...weird.

Just my honest opinion. I still play with vsync on. There is no scenario where I found a framerate benefit with adaptive vsync, and you still get slight tearing in games that are over 60 hz/fps.

 

[blackened23]

spot on what ROFL

wait a sec, you're telling someone he's clueless, and you are the guy who wrote this:




Four sentences, and all four of them false. That's beyond clueless.

Good grief. The "ROFL WTF LOL" responses don't seem awfully helpful and are getting pretty old. Are you using adaptive vsync on your 680? What are your thoughts on it?

 

[f1sherman]

What is a scenario where the benefits of this feature shine?

taltamir had 2 pretty good posts. you should read them

 

[railven]

So in short - don't trust all games code and just use D3D : Overrider and be done with it? Haha.

Thanks taltamir, very informative post

 

[Jodeth]

There's a way I've found that reduces image lag greatly with vsync + triple buffering. It's a program called Dxtory. I set a fps limit of 74, just a digit under my refresh rate (being 75hz), turned on vsync+tb, and now I'm able to enjoy competitive games a LOT better! I recommend everyone who has a fiery hate for image lag AND tearing like me to give this method a try. It's like the equivalent of "max_fps" in Source games and "GameTime.MaxVariableFps" in BF3, except that it works pretty much universally, even in later Source games that had max_fps taken out. I can't believe Nvidia doesn't have this Dxtory feature! Adaptive vsync can go F itself! xD
It must be bliss to do this on a 120hz monitor. I'll know soon enough.
Maximum Pre-rendered Frames set to 0 might have something to do with the results too... not totally sure. I keep mine on 0 anyway. No problems.

 

[f1sherman]

There's a way I've found that reduces image lag greatly with vsync + triple buffering. It's a program called Dxtory. I set a fps limit of 74, just a digit under my refresh rate (being 75hz), turned on vsync+tb, and now I'm able to enjoy competitive games a LOT better!

Ah, one of those myths:
Combine vsync/TB with fps limit just below refresh rate FTW

This is from Riva Tuner creator:

combinig artifical delays in frame time (which is framerate limiting) with wait for the nearest vertical retrace (which is vsync) won't result into smooth framerate if the limit is not multiple to refresh rate.

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4227080&postcount=184

 

[PrincessFrosty]

I don't own one so I cannot test it. But JAG87 appears to be correct in this scenario. Not a lot of people realize (I didn't always know this) but just because your frames are lower than the monitors refresh rate does not mean tearing is eliminated. Hence the name "vertical synchronization" because it needs to be synchronized with the display. When they are out of sync, you will get tearing.

I have tested this myself. One thing is for certain though, frames per second lower than your refresh rate 'improves' tearing, but it certainly does not eliminate it.

You get tearing at any frame rate, even if you lock your frame rate at your monitors refresh rate you'll still get tearing, it's an issue of sync and not the actual rate, notice that the rates can differ between 2 things in sync.

Basically the higher the frame rate the more you'll tear, you'll get approximately 1 tear line/border each frame if your frame rate is equal to your refresh rate, when you get to twice the frame rate you'll be getting on average 2 tear lines per frame.

Under your refresh rate you start getting 1 tear but only on average every x frames, so you might get 1 tear line every 2 frames at half the frame rate, and one every 3 frames at 1/3rd frame rate to refresh rate.