High refresh rate Gsync monitor + Doom = Jaw drop

[Carfax83]

I bought my first high refresh rate Gsync monitor yesterday (ViewSonic XG2703-GS), and I've been playing games and seeing how they compare to my previous monitor, which was 60Hz only. I had my previous monitor for a long time, about 5 years or so. I guess I'm old fashioned, but I never had any problems gaming at 60hz. Plus my old monitor had a glossy screen that was to die for! Made the colors pop really well.

Anyway, so far I've tested Mass Effect Andromeda, Batman Arkham Knight, Witcher 3, Deus Ex HR and Doom. All of these games played extremely well at 144hz with Gsync enabled and better than on my old monitor, with the possible exception of Batman Arkham Knight. I don't think the engine handles high framerates very well, because I noticed some odd bit of stutter going on which I never noticed on my 60hz monitor.

But what really hit home, was Doom! OMG, I can't believe how much better Doom is at high refresh rates with Gsync enabled! I swear to God, the game actually LOOKS better to me now, because I can see more detail clearly.

How this is, I have no idea, but I guess it might be because the monitor is refreshing so fast that it somehow presents a clearer picture during all of the fast paced mayhem that I never noticed before on my slow monitor.

So how is this possible? Because I am sure I am not hallucinating!

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Have you tried the non gsync backlight strobing thing yet?

 

[casiofx]

Welcome to the world of clarity and smoothness.

Now did you think that you should have bought it much much earlier? I did lol

 

[Carfax83]

Have you tried the non gsync backlight strobing thing yet?

You mean ULMB? No I haven't. How does it compare to Gsync?

 

[Carfax83]

Welcome to the world of clarity and smoothness.

Now did you think that you should have bought it much much earlier? I did lol

Yeah I have to admit, this stuff is amazing and I should have bought into it earlier. I am actually going to replay Doom now so I experience it again the way it's meant to be experienced

 

[showb1z]

Seeing how much you spend on GPU's annually you really should've done this way sooner. I couldn't miss it anymore even on my lowly 390.
Playing DOOM at 60fps feels like a slideshow

 

[Flapdrol1337]

You mean ULMB? No I haven't. How does it compare to Gsync?

Dunno, I don't have it on my screen.

 

[railven]

I became "that guy" when I finally got a 100hz screen, and I'm not even on the higher refresh rate sub-group. Trying to catch up on a massive back log, when a game is 60 FPS capped holy crap doesn't it feel "jittery." Am finally getting into the Trials of the Sky series, and due to insane settings menu, I was locked to 24 FPS and setting it to the 30 FPS limit locked me to 14 FPS. The judder almost killed me. Thankfully resolved and now at 100 FPS and dat buttery smooth feeling.

Did you get the "window effect" as I like to call it? Some games with beautiful outside scenery gives me this effect as if I'm looking through a window because the motion is so fluid. Where as at 60 FPS, I can now "feel" the movement.

Anyways, happy gaming!

 

[Carfax83]

Did you get the "window effect" as I like to call it? Some games with beautiful outside scenery gives me this effect as if I'm looking through a window because the motion is so fluid. Where as at 60 FPS, I can now "feel" the movement.

I don't know, is that what you call what I am experiencing with Doom? Whatever it is, I like it! The extra clarity is definitely noticeable to me.

 

[pj-]

You can see detail better because the higher refresh naturally leads to less motion blur. That's why most LCD tvs are 120hz with motion interpolation.

You mean ULMB? No I haven't. How does it compare to Gsync?

If you can maintain a solid 120fps (or whatever your monitor's ULMB rate is), it's pretty nice. It dims the image but the reduction in motion blur is great.

Try it out with this: https://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates

It's great for seeing exactly how various modes and refresh rates affect what you can see.

 

[tg2708]

Welcome to the club. But one has to wonder with the specs of your rig (current and previous) I would have thought you already had the monitor to take advantage of such beefy specs along time ago.

 

[2is]

I'm with you. When people first started moving to high refresh rate monitors and mentioning how much smoother everything was, I was thinking to myself "this feels perfectly smooth to me, how much smoother can it possibly be" then I bought a 144Hz GSYNC display and I finally understood. In fact, when I go back to a different computer running a standard 60hz display, it feels completely different then I remember it. It's like there's always micro-stutter.

 

[crisium]

Now you can see why I preach the good word of Doom every chance I get. Also why I always recommend 1440p 144hz Freesync / Gsync (or WQHD 100hz... close enough).

The interesting thing about Doom is that many scenes force 60fps. And it makes 60fps look so sluggish by comparison when you switch back to normal gameplay. A similar thing happened when Overwatch reset the graphics settings and set a max framerate to 70fps for some reason. It felt so choppy (partly because OW uses absolutely input lag).

Gotta feed the framerate cravings.

 

[tential]

I see when I was saying gsync was a requirement you didn't take that seriously carfax.
Let this serve as a lesson to others get your gsync monitor ASAP.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[guachi]

I have Freesync and a 480 but you're experience with GSync is why I'm excited for Vega. Freesync (and GSync) are fantastic but Freesync is cheaper.

It's just that the 480 only excels at 1080. Though the benefit is Freesync is your can use a 480 and note have a terrible experience at 1440.

 

[Bacon1]

Welcome to the club, now you know why people around here recommend freesync as a massive benefit when talking 480 vs 1060. If Nvidia would support Freesync they would get a lot more recommendations.

 

[Face2Face]

I was always wondering if someone could tell the difference between 120Hz and 165Hz? I've upped my monitor to 120Hz and couldn't tell a bit of difference compared to 96Hz. I wonder if you could test that out CarFax? Maybe also have a friend of family member do a blind play test between the two.

Anyway, seems like a really nice monitor. Kind of pricey for 1440p, but still nice. I've always liked Viewsonic's monitors.

 

[Carfax83]

You can see detail better because the higher refresh naturally leads to less motion blur. That's why most LCD tvs are 120hz with motion interpolation.



If you can maintain a solid 120fps (or whatever your monitor's ULMB rate is), it's pretty nice. It dims the image but the reduction in motion blur is great.

Try it out with this: https://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates

It's great for seeing exactly how various modes and refresh rates affect what you can see.

Great explanation, thanks!

 

[Carfax83]

Welcome to the club. But one has to wonder with the specs of your rig (current and previous) I would have thought you already had the monitor to take advantage of such beefy specs along time ago.

I was basically a holdout because I thought that 60Hz was absolutely fine, and for the most part it is. Plus I really liked my previous Yamakasi monitor as it had a really nice glossy screen. But the combination of Gsync and high refresh rates really blows it out of the water, especially in games like Doom which can achieve high FPS but still have lots of detail on screen. That said, I planned on upgrading my monitor this year anyway, but to 4K and HDR. However, the 4K HDR gaming monitors that have been announced so far are 27 inchers, which is ridiculously small for such a resolution.

So what I'll do now is hold onto this ViewSonic for a while, and my next monitor purchase will tick off all the boxes; 4K, HDR, OLED, 120Hz or more and possibly curved. A monitor like that won't be affordable for a while, so I will probably have to wait another year or so before upgrading.

 

[Carfax83]

Now you can see why I preach the good word of Doom every chance I get.

Yeah I really love Doom. This will be my third play through, and that's very rare for me. One thing that the high refresh rates really made me notice a lot more, were the quality of the animations and the particle effects. They are absolutely stunning for such a fast paced game! Can't wait to see IDTech's sequel to Doom 2016!

 

[tential]

It's mind boggling that people still don't understand that you absolutely shouldn't under any circumstances purchase a high end Nvidia gpu if you are not willing to buy a gsync monitor.

Its the worst value proposition ever if you don't get the gsync monitor.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Carfax83]

I was always wondering if someone could tell the difference between 120Hz and 165Hz? I've upped my monitor to 120Hz and couldn't tell a bit of difference compared to 96Hz. I wonder if you could test that out CarFax? Maybe also have a friend of family member do a blind play test between the two.

Anyway, seems like a really nice monitor. Kind of pricey for 1440p, but still nice. I've always liked Viewsonic's monitors.

I don't even see an option for 165Hz in the menu panel. I think it has to be overclocked to achieve that speed. 144Hz is the highest default option I can select, and to be honest, that's plenty fast for me.

 

[tential]

Try 144 vs 120. I feel the 144 hz is just marketing and everything above 120 is massive diminishing returns. I could be wrong though, they do t have high refresh 4k monitors to test with

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[Carfax83]

It's mind boggling that people still don't understand that you absolutely shouldn't under any circumstances purchase a high end Nvidia gpu if you are not willing to buy a gsync monitor.

Its the worst value proposition ever if you don't get the gsync monitor.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Deciding which monitor to buy is perhaps the hardest decision to make when it comes to purchasing computer hardware. Do you know how many monitors I ordered on Amazon and cancelled before I bought this one?

Three.

My first choice was the Acer Predator XB271HU bmiprz. Second choice was the ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q. Third choice was the Acer X34 Predator, a curved screen which would have cost me over $1200 after taxes.

I ordered all three of them consecutively, but every single time afterward I would read a review or something that would put doubt in my mind as to whether I was making a good decision, and I would cancel the order.

This forum post ranking the 27 inch 144Hz Gsync monitors is what caused me to go with the ViewSonic in the end as it was ranked the best 144Hz Gsync monitor (better than the Acer and the Asus), and I must say I haven't felt disappointed by my decision so far! Zero dead pixels, and very minimal backlight bleeding.

The only thing I wish that it had was a glossy screen.

 

[tg2708]

@Carfax83 I totally understand where your coming from since I had to exchange like two asus monitors for the acer predator. Both asus had horrible back light bleed but since i bought them from a local micro center the return and exchange process was fairly simple.