120hz LCD monitors

[Alan]

I game with v sync on which limits my FPS to 60. I want to cap my FPS as high as possible to make the dips less noticeable. Will these new 120hz 3D monitors allow for FPS caps at 120FPS?

monitors like this one

http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/samsung-2233rz-wide-screen-p-5836.html.

 

[P924]

I'm not sure that increasing the upper vsync cap will make the dips less noticeble, it seems that the vsync algorithm is somewhat flawed with regards to dips. It will have the advantage of being 120hz and very quick response time, though.

I did a test once with a little online app that measures reaction time - light turns green then you have to click. My reaction time was pretty consistent, but it was double on an LCD compared to a CRT - LCD response time and overdrive delay was the cause.

 

[Necuno]

I game with v sync on which limits my FPS to 60. I want to cap my FPS as high as possible to make the dips less noticeable. Will these new 120hz 3D monitors allow for FPS caps at 120FPS?

monitors like this one

http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/samsung-2233rz-wide-screen-p-5836.html.

not too sure, afaik know it's not real 1:1 120hz unless that's changed. it's for 3d so the pic can be split in two 60hz parts...

The Samsung 2233RZ takes a 120Hz image and splits it into two 60Hz images

:e

Hi There,

Let me try to explain the different display technologies we support.

DLPs
- We have tested and validated almost all Mitsubishi DLPs to date and have done additional work to support them. There is an option in our Control Panel and Wizard which explicitly finds Mitsubishi and helps you set it up.
- We have not had a chance to validate all Samsung DLPs yet. There are some issues we are still working through, and here's one knowledge base article on how to setup a Samsung DLP.

120 Hz LCDs
- There has been some confusion in the market about 120 Hz display support. HDTV LCDs on the market today operate at a 120 Hz refresh rate (frequency), but they only accept a 60 Hz input. 3D Vision requires a display that can accept a 120 Hz input in order to operate and display all frames. Samsung and ViewSonic are the first two LCDs to be pure 120 Hz LCDs.
- The best way to check if your LCD supports 3D Vision is to check our System Requirements at www.nvidia.com/get3d since we always keep that list up to date.

Hope this helps and I am happy to answer any additional questions.
Need help with 3D Vision? Find what you need quickly.

[link]

 

[Alan]

Yeah that's my concern. Is it even true 120hz. Doesn't look like it

 

[Necuno]

Yeah that's my concern. Is it even true 120hz. Doesn't look like it

see my edit. only recent samsung and viewsonic is pure 120hz. so you have to ****ing sure if it accepts 60hz or actually 120hz.

 

[Chevron]

That 2233rz was the LCD that nVidia first bundled with it's 3d goggle. Yes it's 3d. But if I were you I'd say rather upgrade your pc.

 

[Archer]

Getting a 120hz screen is going to do nothing for sorting out the dips (minimum fps). Your GPU will always go for max fps, by enabling Vsync you simply cap the max at 60.

 

[Alan]

Getting a 120hz screen is going to do nothing for sorting out the dips (minimum fps). Your GPU will always go for max fps, by enabling Vsync you simply cap the max at 60.

That's what I originally thought but I've done some testing and it seems that without the cap on the dips don't drop as low. Almost as if the extra FPS cushion the blow when you entire a particularly graphic intensive area of a game

 

[killadoob]

If your graphics is dipping so low then lower your settings alan. If it is noticeable then it is not capable of handling those situations.

Vsync is to ensure it never drops below 60 as far as i understand. You cap it at 60 because your frames should never go below 60 or above meaning the experience is smooth, if you are dipping below 60 vsync is useless unless i am badly mistaken.

Essentially there should be no dips with vsync on, everything will be capped at 60, if your vga is slow and dipping below 60 then surely that is defeating the object of capping FPS 60?

 

[SaiyanZ]

I thought V-sync worked like this:

With it on you get:
1. 60fps if your cards capable of more than 60fps
2. if your card dips to 46fps then you drop from 60fps to 30fps
3. similarly, once you card drops below 30fps then then actual output is only 15fps.

i.e it keeps on halfing the fps and so on.
I think if your card can do more than 120fps then v-sync should cap it at that and if your card does between 60fps and 120fps, then your're capped at 60fps.

 

[Rudimental]

V-sync works by introducing an interval to ensure that the frame buffer is only passed single complete images, so that you don't get a frame made up of two separate images, which can cause tearing. Tearing comes about because any screen can only ever display a maximum FPS equal to its refresh rate, obviously. Since your GPU, however, can churn out frames faster than this, one frame displayed on your monitor can be made up of multiple frames from your GPU and if those multiple frames are different, then you will get a vertical break in the image displayed. What vsync does is to stop this by only allowing the GPU to pass a frame to the frame buffer every Xms, where in ideal circumstances X = 1/screen refresh rate, i.e. one frame per screen refresh.

What this means, however, is that if the FPS produced by your GPU falls below your screen's refresh rate, then the interval needs to be increased by a divisor of your refresh rate, and thus your actual FPS will be reduced to the relevant quotient. Basically, if the FPS produced by your GPU drops below your screen's refresh rate, then you need to divide your refresh rate by a whole number to produce a result that is also a whole number, e.g. 60/2 = 30, 60/3 = 20, but not 60/7 = 8.57. Your resulting actual FPS will be the highest of these numbers that is still below the FPS produced by your GPU.

So, the FPS produced by your GPU drops to 59FPS, then your actual FPS will drop to 30 with vsync on. If it drops to 29, then it will go down to 20, etc...

So, if you are experiencing a reduction in FPS from 60FPS to 30FPS, a 120hz monitor is only going to help you by making that a drop from 60 to 40 (120/3) or, if your system is completely amazing or your game old, from 120 to 60, neither of which are really any better. Your best bet would be to increase the FPS output of your graphics card, either by turning down detail settings or by getting a new graphics card or perhaps even a new CPU.

Of course, you could just turn off v-sync and set a 60fps cap on your game, if possible, though you can also get tearing even if your FPS is below your screen's refresh rate.

 

[Alan]

Thanks for the explanation

So, the FPS produced by your GPU drops to 59FPS, then your actual FPS will drop to 30 with vsync on. If it drops to 29, then it will go down to 20, etc...

So, if you are experiencing a reduction in FPS from 60FPS to 30FPS, a 120hz monitor is only going to help you by making that a drop from 60 to 40 (120/3) or, if your system is completely amazing or your game old, from 120 to 60, neither of which are really any better.

Well 40 is noticeably better than 30. Not much but is something.

I'll wait for a 24" 120hz screen to come out at a reasonable price and go for that.

 

[cerebus]

You'll be waiting a while there....

 

[Pyro]

If your graphics is dipping so low then lower your settings alan. If it is noticeable then it is not capable of handling those situations.

Vsync is to ensure it never drops below 60 as far as i understand. You cap it at 60 because your frames should never go below 60 or above meaning the experience is smooth, if you are dipping below 60 vsync is useless unless i am badly mistaken.

Essentially there should be no dips with vsync on, everything will be capped at 60, if your vga is slow and dipping below 60 then surely that is defeating the object of capping FPS 60?

Please don't explain things if you don't understand how it works.

...

Vsync won't magically drop you from 60FPS to 30FPS, BUT some frames would be displayed for two intervals. While the frame is displayed the processors are free to start rendering the next frame though, so instead of having a single interval to process a frame, it has an interval and a half to complete the next frame in time...

Using VSync avoids tearing, but it might become obvious that the display is stuttering more than normal if you can't maintain the required 60FPS.

 

[Rudimental]

Vsync won't magically drop you from 60FPS to 30FPS, BUT some frames would be displayed for two intervals.

If that's what your game is doing, then it is a bad implementation. When GPU output drops below 60fps, then there ought to be a blanket doubling of the interval so that you get a consistent 30fps rather than the jerkiness of inconsistent interval doubling. It is far better and keeps things smoother and more playable. Try forcing vsync on at the driver level. Works great in Metro 2033, for example.

 

[Pyro]

If that's what your game is doing, then it is a bad implementation. When GPU output drops below 60fps, then there ought to be a blanket doubling of the interval so that you get a consistent 30fps rather than the jerkiness of inconsistent interval doubling. It is far better and keeps things smoother and more playable. Try forcing vsync on at the driver level. Works great in Metro 2033, for example.

Why would it be a bad implementation? It's how page flipping for VSync works the last time I checked, and accordingly how DirectX/OpenGL was implemented.

Your interface does not have to be linked to your graphics - THAT is a bad implementation IMHO.

The rendered tries to get a new page ready as fast as possible, if it's too late for the refresh, it has to wait till the next interval. In cases where reflections only update every second frame for instance, alternating frames might just not make the 1/60th of a second interval, depending on the complexity of that specific frame.

 

[Rudimental]

Why would it be a bad implementation?

Sorry, when i was talking about framerates, I was talking about an absolute framerate, where 60fps = 1 frame every 16.67ms, not an average framerate, where some frames may take longer or shorter. If you have an absolute framerate that is below 60fps (i.e. every frame drawn slower than 16.67ms), and above 30fps (33.33ms), and you don't have a consistent 30fps with vsync on, then something is going very wrong. In the case where you have tripple buffering on, you can replace the 30 with 45.

I took it as 30fps = 1 frame every 33.33ms, because it is mathematically the same thing, and so you would have an output rate of either 60fps or 30fps at any given moment, regardless as to what the actual number of distinct frames displayed over any given second is in a sitation where some frames may take longer than 16.67ms to draw and others less or equal time. So I think that I just misinterpreted what you said, because what I took by 'framerate below 60fps' just is 'a frame takes longer than 16.67ms to draw', so I took you to be saying that when every frame takes longer than 16.67ms to draw, only some frames will be displayed for 2 intervals (well that is true for tripple buffering, so I guess you could have been talking about that situation).