Vsync with triple buffering question

[bystander36]

Now I admit, that this is the part I've never fully understood about playing with v-sync ON.
If you're averaging 40fps - 50fps, wouldn't it run smoother to just lock it at a constant 30fps?
Or does it still give the "perception" of a smoother gameplay experience allowing the frame-rate to fluctuate at 40-50fps?

I personally don't disable v-sync because i hate tearing and really only play SP games anyway.
And i regularly play games where I'm not able to achieve a consistent 60fps and fluctuate in the 40fps - 50fps ranges.
So what exactly is the best/smoothest settings combination for this type of scenario?

Pcper did an article on this topic recently, and asked people to give their opinion on the videos they showed. It was a little split on what people thought was better between 30 FPS and 40-50 FPS with v-sync on.

Oh, and one of the benefits to 120hz or 144hz is you get an extra frame time between 30 fps and 60 fps (40 fps) or in the case of the 144hz monitor, 36 fps, 48 fps, 72 fps. This does help keep things more consistent than with the 60hz monitor.

 

[Mr Expert]

If you're averaging 40fps - 50fps, wouldn't it run smoother to just lock it at a constant 30fps?

Yes it would but then again 30fps is not really optimal for playing with a mouse that has a high dpi where the screen pans directions fast. Frame rate fluctuation it very bad and cuses input lag and stuttering. People think it's all about max and average framerate but really for the smoothest gameplay and animation quality you need the frame rate locked to the monitors native refreshrate. I get a headach without Vsync on.

 

[bystander36]

Yes it would but then again 30fps is not really optimal for playing with a mouse that has a high dpi where the screen pans directions fast. Frame rate fluctuation it very bad and cuses input lag and stuttering. People think it's all about max and average framerate but really for the smoothest gameplay and animation quality you need the frame rate locked to the monitors native refreshrate. I get a headach without Vsync on.

Interesting. I get nauseated when my latency is high due to low FPS (below 80, though 60 FPS is tolerable for nearly an hour).

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Which you find more jarring, between the 2 different types of smoothness, and which you think is visually a better trade off between the 2 different types of smoothness, is purely subjective.

It's been known for a very long time that some people simply cannot see frame time inconsistency, micro-stuttering was denied by many to exist with multi-GPU until it was evaluated carefully and found to demonstrably exist and be percieveable, all you can really do is understand how this all works and what the complete set of trade-offs are when using something like vsync, and then test and see which feels better to you.

I ALWAYS play with vsync off and that's because personally I'm sensitive to display lag (often called input lag), where as tearing doesn't bother me, in fact I still maintain that tearing is actually useful or beneficial in some circumstances as it allows your brain to infer more from a scene of 2 frames stitched together than what exists in a single unique frame alone. That's a whole other discussion though

 

[Mr Expert]

Which you find more jarring, between the 2 different types of smoothness, and which you think is visually a better trade off between the 2 different types of smoothness, is purely subjective.

It's been known for a very long time that some people simply cannot see frame time inconsistency, micro-stuttering was denied by many to exist with multi-GPU until it was evaluated carefully and found to demonstrably exist and be percieveable, all you can really do is understand how this all works and what the complete set of trade-offs are when using something like vsync, and then test and see which feels better to you.

I ALWAYS play with vsync off and that's because personally I'm sensitive to display lag (often called input lag), where as tearing doesn't bother me, in fact I still maintain that tearing is actually useful or beneficial in some circumstances as it allows your brain to infer more from a scene of 2 frames stitched together than what exists in a single unique frame alone. That's a whole other discussion though

Frame tearing sucks. I did not buy an exspensive GPU to see broken video image quality I bought one to make game look good and smooth. Frame tearing is not smooth.

 

[Mr Expert]

Interesting. I get nauseated when my latency is high due to low FPS (below 80, though 60 FPS is tolerable for nearly an hour).

I doubt that because when the animation is running buttery smooth there is no issue. 60fps is not low fps. 80fps is not ideal because it is not a native refreshrate.

 

[bystander36]

Frame tearing sucks. I did not buy an exspensive GPU to see broken video image quality I bought one to make game look good and smooth. Frame tearing is not smooth.

Smoothness tends to be viewed in two ways:
1) consistent frame times.
2) responsive to your mouse movements or low latency.

You obviously view #1 as the most important. I view #2 as the most important (I get nauseated as a result poor latency).

Those who view #2 as most important, usually have no issues with tearing, because even the tearing results in better latency times.

 

[Zodiark1593]

John Carkmack in his latest Quakecon Keynote talk actually touched on this and talked about pushing for standards for an extra bit (channel) to the monitor to show support for this, I think that's just something that he thought it would be nice to have, I don't expect to see anything come of it. It would help reduce latency a lot and basically solve tearing. Although there would have to be a minimum frame render time because LCDs have fairly slow pixel response times the primary factor stopping them getting faster than 120hz.



I have a 2600k@4.9Ghz and SLI 580's overclocked a little, a vast majorety of games will pull 100+fps in 1080p, feels really sharp on my 120hz panel, sometimes you have to sacrifice absolute max settings but that's not really a problem.

There's this really huge stigma in gaming where graphics are put ahead of everything, most of our console games are made for 30fps which is completely disgusting, a lot of PC gamers are happy with 30ish, some prefer 60fps which is commendable but few demand anything in the 100fps region. But when you realize that it positively effects your game play experience to have much tighter feedback you become less stubborn about dropping the quality sliders a few notches to achieve a better frame rate.

This is what I like about Carmack, he pushed for 60fps in Rage on the consoles, it's one of the few AAA 3D games on the consoles to run at a solid 60fps, he had to fight almost everyone on the development team to keep that the standard during development, but they did it and it looks AND runs fantastic.

Even though my hardware is quite limited (Radeon 5470), I definitely appreciate the 60 fps I can get in older games. As for the console, Mario Kart 7 on the 3DS is quite awesome, and can recall only one time where it ever dropped below 60 fps, the visuals themselves, while not fantastic, don't detract any from the experience either. Same for the CoD series, say what you will, but the fact that they too push for 60 fps is something worthy of note as well.

 

[Mr Expert]

Smoothness tends to be viewed in two ways:
1) consistent frame times.
2) responsive to your mouse movements or low latency.

You obviously view #1 as the most important. I view #2 as the most important (I get nauseated as a result poor latency).

Those who view #2 as most important, usually have no issues with tearing, because even the tearing results in better latency times.

Mouse input lag cannot create nausea. If you need more mouse input speed crank up the Dpi.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Frame tearing sucks. I did not buy an exspensive GPU to see broken video image quality I bought one to make game look good and smooth. Frame tearing is not smooth.

You're over-simplifying the situation.

Go read my last post on the previous page, it describes 2 different but related types of "smoothness" which both contribute to the overall subjective look and feel.

To infer rendering is smooth with vsync off, whereas frame tearing is not smooth is to conflate the 2 different meanings of smooth. Different people are sensitive to the 2 different types of smoothness by different amounts, because the weighting is different you may subjectively prefer on vs off.

 

[bystander36]

Mouse input lag cannot create nausea. If you need more mouse input speed crank up the Dpi.

Simulator sickness (what causes nausea and headaches) can be caused by a number of things. Also, cranking up DPI does not help one bit, all it does is make the mouse fly across the screen faster, but it does not speed up the responsiveness of moving and that action being displayed on the screen based on that action. DPI effects how far the mouse moves for an action, not how long it takes for that action to be represented on the display. Frame rendering times do effect that, however.

Look up simulator sickness, it is full of all sorts of causes, including bad latency, inconsistent frame times, bright lights and other causes. There is no definitive answer on what causes the problem for people, only that people experience it. The US Army found about 40-50% of their personal got it in their flight simulators.

I used to get a lot of simulator sickness at 30 FPS back in the day, in first person mouse driven games. I learned that 40 FPS helped a lot, and eventually found 60 FPS to be pretty good, but I still would get sick after 1 hour sessions. I later found 80 FPS is the point I stop getting sick all together. Later I found that watching real time animated cut scenes in games felt very smooth, even at 30 FPS, and watching others play also has no effect on me. This is why it appears to be responsiveness that causes the issue for me, which high FPS helps greatly.

 

[Mr Expert]

To infer rendering is smooth with vsync off, whereas frame tearing is not smooth is to conflate the 2 different meanings of smooth.

Anyway I did not infer anything. I definatly did not infer anything is smooth with vsync off. Framerate flutuation is the enemy of smoothness. Frame Tearing just makes it look like the video card is damaged or cheap onboard.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Mouse input lag cannot create nausea. If you need more mouse input speed crank up the Dpi.

You're confusing 2 different things again.

He's talking about vsync adding artificial delays into frame rendering by adding a delay from when the frame has finished rendering, to when it's displayed, this causes what is colloquially called "input lag" but actually a more proper term for it is display lag - either way the effect is lag beween input and output.

It has NOTHING to do with DPI of the mouse, that merely effects the accuracy of the input, not the latency.

And this can cause nausea because you get a more pronounced delay between your actions of your body and what you visually see on screen, compared to when vsync is off.

The reason this can causes nausea is the same reason people get sea sick, their physical senses (hands, operating the mouse in the case of computers, and their orientation tracking done by the inner ear in the case of sea sickness) both report movement that is contradictory to what your brain expects based on what you observe. Basically you have conflicting sensory information, the bodies natural response is to assume its due to poison and make you sick to eject the poison.

Again that's subjective, people react to it differently so peoples preferences differ, it's a concept you're going to have to come to terms with.

 

[Mr Expert]

This is why it appears to be responsiveness that causes the issue for me, which high FPS helps greatly.

You are not quantified. Your hand moving a mouse will not make you sick. It;s the images on screen that could make you sick or have a seizure but not the mouse input lag. Anyway if you need to run without Vsync it's not the end of the world if that's what works for you then great.

 

[bystander36]

You are not quantified. Your hand moving a mouse will not make you sick. It;s the images on screen that could make you sick or have a seizure but not the mouse input lag. Anyway if you need to run without Vsync it's not the end of the world if that's what works for you then great.

I am more qualified than you. I experience it. I have also only given you my experience of the problem. Look up simulator sickness for many articles and posts on the topic if you want an expert opinion. Unfortunately, the topic is pretty wide open.

The delay between what is displayed based on the movements of the mouse is what causes it for me.

I never said the mouse alone causes sickness. I said using a mouse with low FPS causes a delay between your movements and what is displayed, causing almost the same problem found with people who get sea sick or car sick. I.E. - the mind expects a different view based on body movements than what is presented. This sort of issue is very different from person to person, and why some people do not get sea sickness and others do. Why you get headaches with screen tearing, and others don't.

 

[Mr Expert]

I am more qualified than you. I experience it. I have also only given you my experience of the problem.

That's why your not "quantified".

 

[beginner99]

I prefer consitant 60fps locked. If I could afford 120fps then that would naturally be it.
...
I get a headach without Vsync on.

In a lot of games especially BFBC2 vsync causes an extreme input lag which makes the game unplayable...once you notice it. My KDR doubled after disabling it. I'm pretty sure that players that cry out "Cheaters" all the time play with vsync enabled. I don't really see much of a difference. I'm sure there is one if would look for it but in MP action it does not matter at all but the input lag does.

About headache that can be caused by other things like stuttering and head-bob. I could not play CoP. I got sick and a headache after less half 30 min pf playing. it sure stutters like crap even on low setting low res (issue with game engine IMHO). What I'm saying is that this might be limited to onyl a few games you play.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

You are not quantified. Your hand moving a mouse will not make you sick. It;s the images on screen that could make you sick or have a seizure but not the mouse input lag. Anyway if you need to run without Vsync it's not the end of the world if that's what works for you then great.

Actually what is important is the latency between those 2 things, lag can occur in either the input device, the processing or the output, and lag from all of those sources all contribute to the total lag.

Vsync causes a pause after processing but before output, that's just a known, demonstrable fact, and so it contributes to and overall latency increase and hence causes nausea in those who are sensitive to small discrepancies between input motion and output display.

You don't need to be quantitative about how nauseated you feel in order to know that it increases when the latency does. The difference in sensory information causing nausea is fairly well understood these days, this is not anything new or unexpected, people have felt nauseated playing games for a long time, and we know that different people are sensitive to it by different amounts and so their preference towards things that trigger it are obviously different.

 

[bystander36]

That's why your not "quantified".

And what makes you qualified to say that I cannot experience due to the mouse and display latency?

I have not called myself an expert yet, but I have explained what causes it for me, and PrincessFrosty also explained it, and I even gave you the topic for you to look up; Simulator Sickness.

What more do you need. Just shut your pie hole when talking about things you know nothing about.

EDIT: Ok, so was that a typo, or are you actually saying, "quantified". What the heck do you even mean by that.

Btw, your headaches are a form of simulator sickness. As someone who has it, you'd think you'd have a little more understanding on the subject when someone else has a similar problem.

 

[Mr Expert]

In a lot of games especially BFBC2 vsync causes an extreme input lag which makes the game unplayable...

That's your opinion. I have been playing and winning and enjoying that game for years with Vsync on. The lag to me is a non issue to the point of being negligible.

 

[Lonbjerg]

Frame tearing sucks. I did not buy an exspensive GPU to see broken video image quality I bought one to make game look good and smooth. Frame tearing is not smooth.

No, you bought a GPU to run scripted animations of your CPU...:sneaky:

 

[JAG87]

Now I admit, that this is the part I've never fully understood about playing with v-sync ON.
If you're averaging 40fps - 50fps, wouldn't it run smoother to just lock it at a constant 30fps?
Or does it still give the "perception" of a smoother gameplay experience allowing the frame-rate to fluctuate at 40-50fps?

I personally don't disable v-sync because i hate tearing and really only play SP games anyway.
And i regularly play games where I'm not able to achieve a consistent 60fps and fluctuate in the 40fps - 50fps ranges.
So what exactly is the best/smoothest settings combination for this type of scenario?

If you render 45 fps into 60 hz, it is still more information than 30 fps into 60 hz. It is not evenly distributed (i.e. it feels less than 45 real fps at even intervals), but it cannot possibly be lower than the perception of 30 fps.

It's somewhere in between since 15 frames are perceived at 30fps, and 30 frames are perceived at 60 fps. Our eyes are much more sensitive to the 15 frames at 30 fps, so it tends to feel lower than 45 fps.

If you play with vsync off you're not really solving anything, instead you're actually making things worse because now a large portion of your frames are damaged and contain incorrect partial information that your eyes cannot make up for.

 

[BrightCandle]

Some people really dislike vsync off and run with it on. Of all the graphics settings this single setting is probably the one that brings the most improvement in visual quality! Depending on the game the tears can be really obvious and some people find them very distracting. If you are running in the no mans land of 40-50 fps it can also introduce some stuttering that is less prevalent at slight lower and higher fps, not that everyone can see it of course but it is there.

Conversely vsync off reduces the latency compared to vsync on. It not only reduces the latency between 16ms and 32ms (with vsync off it can be as low as 32ms, so that would halve the latency) but it also makes the frame rate more consistent. Even at 60 fps constant vsync does reduce the latency and it makes the latency more consistent. It also improves the backpressure latency so the regulation of the game engine is also smoother, thus producing a much more reliable gameplay.

They both have severe problems, some people choose one and some people choose the other. Which you choose depends largely on whether you perceive the latency or not (in my opinion). If you do notice the latency then you will typically choose to disable vsync and accept the tears, because although they look bad they won't make you sick or make it feel like your movements are not attached to what is happening on the screen. Most pros use vsync off for FPS games, but a lot of RTS pros use vsync because it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. Its a complex discussion, there are the broad strokes and a lot of minor points. I already know a lot of people can't see the same problems that I do, the patterns are not easy to spot until you know how to see them and what settings you use will affect the impact of low FPS or inconsistent FPS in different ways.

Neither vsync on or off is right, the users of each just have different priorities in terms of quality and problems with motion which is why both are always offered in games on the PC.

 

[cmdrdredd]

That's your opinion. I have been playing and winning and enjoying that game for years with Vsync on. The lag to me is a non issue to the point of being negligible.

Input lag is not opinion, it's measurable and there are many sites with lists of monitors that have low input lag by default.

You can compensate for it, or learn to deal with it, but to deny it exists is ignorance.

 

[bystander36]

Some people really dislike vsync off and run with it on. Of all the graphics settings this single setting is probably the one that brings the most improvement in visual quality! Depending on the game the tears can be really obvious and some people find them very distracting. If you are running in the no mans land of 40-50 fps it can also introduce some stuttering that is less prevalent at slight lower and higher fps, not that everyone can see it of course but it is there.

Conversely vsync off reduces the latency compared to vsync on. It not only reduces the latency between 16ms and 32ms (with vsync off it can be as low as 32ms, so that would halve the latency) but it also makes the frame rate more consistent. Even at 60 fps constant vsync does reduce the latency and it makes the latency more consistent. It also improves the backpressure latency so the regulation of the game engine is also smoother, thus producing a much more reliable gameplay.

They both have severe problems, some people choose one and some people choose the other. Which you choose depends largely on whether you perceive the latency or not (in my opinion). If you do notice the latency then you will typically choose to disable vsync and accept the tears, because although they look bad they won't make you sick or make it feel like your movements are not attached to what is happening on the screen. Most pros use vsync off for FPS games, but a lot of RTS pros use vsync because it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. Its a complex discussion, there are the broad strokes and a lot of minor points. I already know a lot of people can't see the same problems that I do, the patterns are not easy to spot until you know how to see them and what settings you use will affect the impact of low FPS or inconsistent FPS in different ways.

Neither vsync on or off is right, the users of each just have different priorities in terms of quality and problems with motion which is why both are always offered in games on the PC.

I mostly agree with everything written, but I will say that a lot of people have a hard time noticing tearing at FPS below their refresh rate. I'm guessing it is related to how much the tear line moves from top to bottom at a more random rate has something to do with it. I can see there is tearing myself, but it is not the same as when it is close to your refresh rate or higher.

That said, I'd prefer v-sync, but I get sick from poor latency. Having a 120hz monitor helps a lot.