Do you use Vsync?

[ArchAngel777]

Just wanted to make it aware to people who may not know this, but enabling Vsync will allow your CPU and GPU to run cooler. I am of the opinion that people should always use Vsync. I don't personally understand why anyone wouldn't use it. Steady frames per second, no tearing, lower temperatures... What is not to like about it? Perhaps the relatively low frame rate of 60 frames per second on an LCD, which is fine with me because 60 frames per second is smooth as butter to my eyes. Just thought I would share this information. If you enable tripple buffering, you don't have to worry about the 60 to 40 to 30 frames per second drop if you drop 1 below 60, 40, etc...

I thought I would also take a poll to see who uses it and perhaps figure out why someone wouldn't use it. Perhaps there is a draw back that I have not taken into consideration.

 

[CP5670]

I always use it along with TB. High framerates don't look quite smooth without it to me due to the tearing effects. TB introduces a bit of input lag in some situations, but it is needed to maintain good performance with vsync.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: CP5670
I always use it along with TB. High framerates don't look quite smooth without it to me due to the tearing effects. TB introduces a bit of input lag in some situations, but it is needed to maintain good performance with vsync.

Ahhh... I did not know that it introduced input lag. This would explain why the pro gamers would not use Vsync. Thanks for the information.

 

[jzodda]

With a 37 inch LCD I have little choice to use it because the tearing can be terrible. I think the larger the LCD the worse it can look. As for temps being lower I never heard that before. Why would it lower temps? In Cyris for instance I get the same FPS with it on and off and 60 fps is only a dream. Why would the temp go up with it turned off?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

I want a 1gb video card to use it in all my current games.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: jzodda
With a 37 inch LCD I have little choice to use it because the tearing can be terrible. I think the larger the LCD the worse it can look. As for temps being lower I never heard that before. Why would it lower temps? In Cyris for instance I get the same FPS with it on and off and 60 fps is only a dream. Why would the temp go up with it turned off?

In that situation, temperatures would remain similar, unless they are spiking north of 60 frames per second frequently. Actually, it is a pretty simply test you can run yourself on games that break the 60fps barrier consistantly. Just disable Vsync and run a benchmark, record the temps. Wait 5 minutes, enable Vsync and run it again. You will find the temperature is lower for both CPU and GPU.

As to why the temperature would go up with Vsync disabled is because the GPU is doing less work. Over 60 frames per second is argueably a waste of GPU power, so it stops all FPS north of 60. When the frames per second dip below 60 (assuming 60Hz refresh rate) heat output remains the same. So, if you never break 60 frames per second with Vsync disabled, then enabling it will do nothing for temperatures. Make sense? Maybe someone more technical can explain it better that I am. Feel free to do so.

 

[BFG10K]

I only use it for compatibility in some older games, like NOLF.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: jzodda
With a 37 inch LCD I have little choice to use it because the tearing can be terrible. I think the larger the LCD the worse it can look. As for temps being lower I never heard that before. Why would it lower temps? In Cyris for instance I get the same FPS with it on and off and 60 fps is only a dream. Why would the temp go up with it turned off?

In that situation, temperatures would remain similar, unless they are spiking north of 60 frames per second frequently. Actually, it is a pretty simply test you can run yourself on games that break the 60fps barrier consistantly. Just disable Vsync and run a benchmark, record the temps. Wait 5 minutes, enable Vsync and run it again. You will find the temperature is lower for both CPU and GPU.

As to why the temperature would go up with Vsync disabled is because the GPU is doing less work. Over 60 frames per second is argueably a waste of GPU power, so it stops all FPS north of 60. When the frames per second dip below 60 (assuming 60Hz refresh rate) heat output remains the same. So, if you never break 60 frames per second with Vsync disabled, then enabling it will do nothing for temperatures. Make sense? Maybe someone more technical can explain it better that I am. Feel free to do so.

actually your video card always renders the same image and uses the same resources regardless. Capping your fps to your refresh rate has nothing to do with how much work your GPU does.

 

[taltamir]

You just told him he is wrong and proceeded to agree with him. He just explained it in more detail and accuracy... Anyways, I agree with ArchAngel there, his description is pretty good. As long as your video card is working at 100% it uses max amount of power, if vsync is keeping it from going over 60fps than it will use less power. It does not "use the same amount of power regardless". At lower utilizatopm you get better thermals, thats why everyreview site measures an idle and load temperature.

 

[BFG10K]

actually your video card always renders the same image and uses the same resources regardless. Capping your fps to your refresh rate has nothing to do with how much work your GPU does.

Uh, what?

If you're running vsync without triple buffering it most certainly will reduce the workload of the GPU because it'll always be waiting for the next refresh cycle before it starts working on the next frame.

That means it'll be idle between the time its finished the current frame to when the next refresh cycle arrives which will most certainly reduce power consumption and heat.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: taltamir
You just told him he is wrong and proceeded to agree with him. He just explained it in more detail and accuracy... Anyways, I agree with ArchAngel there, his description is pretty good. As long as your video card is working at 100% it uses max amount of power, if vsync is keeping it from going over 60fps than it will use less power. It does not "use the same amount of power regardless". At lower utilizatopm you get better thermals, thats why everyreview site measures an idle and load temperature.

You're still rendering the same frames, the same polys, triangles, shaders, pixels, same AA methods, same AF levels, etc

If it makes you feel better to believe that you're saving the world by running vsync sure go ahead. To me it just avoids tearing.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

actually your video card always renders the same image and uses the same resources regardless. Capping your fps to your refresh rate has nothing to do with how much work your GPU does.

Uh, what?

If you're running vsync without triple buffering it most certainly will reduce the workload of the GPU because it'll always be waiting for the next refresh cycle before it starts working on the next frame.

That means it'll be idle between the time its finished the current frame to when the next refresh cycle arrives which will most certainly reduce power consumption and heat.

most modern games (Crysis, Bioshock, etc) don't reach high enough FPS for long durations of time to make a difference one way or another even if this were true.

 

[BFG10K]

You're still rendering the same frames, the same polys, triangles, shaders, pixels, same AA methods, same AF levels, etc

Yes but you're rendering less of them.

A GPU pumping out 120 FPS will have higher thermals than the same GPU being restricted to doing 60 FPS given the latter has half the workload of the former.

 

[BFG10K]

most modern games (Crysis, Bioshock, etc) don't reach high enough FPS for long durations of time to make a difference one way or another even if this were true.

Again if you're running vsync without a triple buffer this is irrelevant since vsync can affect systems getting less than the refresh rate.

So you're only getting 40 FPS on a 60 Hz system but the frames aren't in line with the refresh cycles the GPU will still be stalling until the next refresh cycle.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

most modern games (Crysis, Bioshock, etc) don't reach high enough FPS for long durations of time to make a difference one way or another even if this were true.

Again if you're running vsync without a triple buffer this is irrelevant since vsync can affect systems getting less than the refresh rate.

So you're only getting 40 FPS on a 60 Hz system but the frames aren't in line with the refresh cycles the GPU will still be stalling until the next refresh cycle.

so what? you save .00000001w and get .000000001c less temp? I don't get the thinking here...

 

[BFG10K]

so what? you save .00000001w and get .000000001c less temp? I don't get the thinking here...

Sorry, no, it'll be a lot more than .00000001c less temperature.

From my tests using vsync/game framecaps can stop my fan from spinning over the default 60% while uncapped games can easily cause the fan to hit 100%. Clearly it means the former is causing the temperature to stay below the threshold required to increase the GPU fan.

Doom 3 based games in particular - which use a 60 FPS cap by default - generate much better thermals and less noise than uncapped games.

 

[terencek]

I have to be honest. I have always enabled it and not known what it was, in my ignorance. Thank you for explaining what it was. I had the 640MB GTS and just wanted to see what the performance was with all of the features turned on. It worked well, so I left them on. So, can you explain what LOD Clamp is? Or is there another thready that explains what all/most of the features in the nVidia Control Panel are/do?

Thanks AA777 for educating the unlearned!!

 

[BFG10K]

So, can you explain what LOD Clamp is?

Some games use a negative LOD (i.e. they'll sample more from the larger mip-maps) to sharpen textures but a side-effect of this is texture aliasing, most commonly exhibited as shimmering.

A negative LOD is especially not needed in the case of using AF which sharpens textures without texture aliasing.

Enabling LOD clamp causes the driver to clamp the bias at 0 and won't allow games to go lower.

 

[cputeq]

Play Crysis at high resolution and details with vsync on and tell me how that works out for you.

-----

Personally I hate tearing, but on very demanding games I'm willing to tear in order to get good FPS.

I've pretty much gotten so used to the tearing that it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it used to.


If I could run every game I own at 65+ FPS all the time, I'd definitely enable vsync.

 

[slightlyhuman]

vsync on crysis= fail.

 

[Martimus]

I run my monitor at 85Hz, so I don't use VSync. Maybe when I get an LCD monitor.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777

Originally posted by: jzodda
With a 37 inch LCD I have little choice to use it because the tearing can be terrible. I think the larger the LCD the worse it can look. As for temps being lower I never heard that before. Why would it lower temps? In Cyris for instance I get the same FPS with it on and off and 60 fps is only a dream. Why would the temp go up with it turned off?

In that situation, temperatures would remain similar, unless they are spiking north of 60 frames per second frequently. Actually, it is a pretty simply test you can run yourself on games that break the 60fps barrier consistantly. Just disable Vsync and run a benchmark, record the temps. Wait 5 minutes, enable Vsync and run it again. You will find the temperature is lower for both CPU and GPU.

As to why the temperature would go up with Vsync disabled is because the GPU is doing less work. Over 60 frames per second is argueably a waste of GPU power, so it stops all FPS north of 60. When the frames per second dip below 60 (assuming 60Hz refresh rate) heat output remains the same. So, if you never break 60 frames per second with Vsync disabled, then enabling it will do nothing for temperatures. Make sense? Maybe someone more technical can explain it better that I am. Feel free to do so.

actually your video card always renders the same image and uses the same resources regardless. Capping your fps to your refresh rate has nothing to do with how much work your GPU does.

I don't think so... at least that's not always the case. I know from coding my own 3D apps that there is a a way to enable v-sync within the app, and that makes the video card "wait" for the next screen refrech cycle. Also, in some cases where you get triple-digit fps the video card makes a high-pitched noise which goes away as soon as v-sync is enabled. So, I would say v-sync does lower down the rendering load on the card in situations where it limits the frame rate.

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: Martimus
I run my monitor at 85Hz, so I don't use VSync. Maybe when I get an LCD monitor.

I always use at least 85hz too (more depending on the resolution), but still find vsync essential to get motion to look smooth when the framerates are high.

 

[Martimus]

Originally posted by: CP5670

Originally posted by: Martimus
I run my monitor at 85Hz, so I don't use VSync. Maybe when I get an LCD monitor.

I always use at least 85hz too (more depending on the resolution), but still find vsync essential to get motion to look smooth when the framerates are high.

Maybe I will turn on vsync when I get my Video Card back from NewEgg. (I had to RMA it because the fan didn't work, and I already sold my old card) Triple Buffering shouldn't be too much of a problem either with my current addiction: Oblivicrack. We'll see if that helps the slow downs when turning quickly in certain areas.

 

[Nanobaud]

Sync is just a hold-over requirement for CRT's where the internal oscillators need to keep a steady hum. LCD can update it's image pretty-much whenever (certainly with upper and lower limits, but over a relatively broad range). Why haven't the graphics-card and display manufacturers got together so a digital display connected over a digital link will just accept and display a new frame whenever it is ready (with some minimum interval)? Is there some technical or psychological barrier to that? Seems like it would be aesthetically preferable, and VSync would just be a frame-rate cap instead of needing to keep in phase with the refresh cadence.

nBd