Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited July 2015
not entirely sure about this, but wait for vertical sync will force your graphics card to literally wait if your framerate is lower than your monitor's frequency. Probably causing framelag/mouse lag if it gets too low?
A: it prevents screen tearing (horizontal tearing of graphics when moving your aim quickly)
B1: it adds a visual frame delay because it is buffering the frames and it locks your framerate to your monitor's frequency (60Hz is a max of 60FPS), adding to this that it will cause weirdness/slowdowns if your framerate goes below your monitor's frequence
B2: 2x or 3x or fancified Bilinear or Trilinear, the higher the settings the more delay but the less tearing (speed vs quality)
Vertical sync, or Vsync, syncs up the frame rate with the monitors vertical refresh rate. For most monitors this is 60hz with 60fps. This is supposed to make the game look smoother, but at the expense of some input delay.
For a competitive game like ns2, I would recommend not using vsync just to avoid the input delay. If you can not sustain your monitors refresh rate, probably 60 fps, then it will cause tearing defeating the purpose of vsync. Even with an overlclocked 3570k and a 970, I still drop below 60 fps in some extreme late game scenarios. I would not recommend vsync.
I use it because my GPU is sending much more FPS (about 80-100 FPS) than my monitor (60hz) can handle. That means my picture starts tearing, something like this:
The monitor is allready recieving new pictures before he finished drawing the first one.
Thats why i use V-Sync. this means, the GPU don't send a new picture to my monitor until the monitor finished drawing the last one, so i don't have any tearing.
Buffering set to x2 means you GPU is sending one picture to draw and one to calculate by GPU. When the first picture is drawed it will swap to the bufferd one. Because this swap is not synced too tearing can still apear.
With set to 3x you can buffer 3 pictures. One to draw on monitor, one waiting to be sent to the monitor and one that can be calculated by the GPU. This way you don't have any tearing but all this results in a little inputlag.
Because the tearing distract me verry much (feels like my screen get splitted in half, it really looks like the picture) i use V-Sync and accept this little inputlag.
If you are playing with less FPS than your monitor has Hz you shoud turn V-Sync off because it also cost performance. This means, if you play on 60Hz with 50 FPS you will loose aboute 5-10FPS because you turned V-Sync on. Stupid but the only thing you have right now until you get GSync or FreeSync.
Tearing is a weird one but it often depends on weird factors like your graphics card, your monitor, the framerate and what game you're playing.
Source Engine games tend to tear pretty noticibly. Worse, source engine games tend to have the most input lag when vsyncis enabled.
On top of that some people notice it less. I wish I couldn't notice tearing. I can also really feel the input lag caused when vsync is enabled in most games.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Tearing is quite visible in NS2.. (which is another reason why I just love g-sync) but in most games the input lag (like in ns2) is just to big to truly play with vsync on.
@Nordic No it's no my screenshot, it's from the web just to show what tearing means. It's also a very extreme example of tearing. I don't even know if you can screenshot or record tearing on video. I'll try this today when i'm back home. I expect that it doesn't work because vertical desync happens while GPU and monitor communicate. I assume screenshot or videorecord happens on GPU only.
@Nordic No it's no my screenshot, it's from the web just to show what tearing means. It's also a very extreme example of tearing. I don't even know if you can screenshot or record tearing on video. I'll try this today when i'm back home. I expect that it doesn't work because vertical desync happens while GPU and monitor communicate. I assume screenshot or videorecord happens on GPU only.
Its pretty easy to see what screen tearing looks like, just screenshot any game, paste it into microsoft paint then create 3 rectangles from one end to the other on top of eachother then move them slightly left and right
This means, if you play on 60Hz with 50 FPS you will loose aboute 5-10FPS because you turned V-Sync on. Stupid but the only thing you have right now until you get GSync or FreeSync.
Running double buffered Vsync means if you can't stay above 60 fps (capped at 60) you will automatically drop to 30 fps.
Also, the most important here : ANY frame limiting that is not done by the engine itself (vsync is not done by the engine) will incur mouse input delays!!
at 60 fps expect an increase of 8 to 16 ms of mouse input delay. At 30 fps it can be up to 32 ms.... eventually feeling very inaccurate and non responsive for a twitch competitive game.
Because of these very important downsides, and because I am sensitive to laggy mouse controls, I would rather stick with occasional tearing.
Edit: It seems i wasn't the first person to say these things in this thread. Oops
Comments
A: it prevents screen tearing (horizontal tearing of graphics when moving your aim quickly)
B1: it adds a visual frame delay because it is buffering the frames and it locks your framerate to your monitor's frequency (60Hz is a max of 60FPS), adding to this that it will cause weirdness/slowdowns if your framerate goes below your monitor's frequence
B2: 2x or 3x or fancified Bilinear or Trilinear, the higher the settings the more delay but the less tearing (speed vs quality)
in before being corrected on the technical mojo
For a competitive game like ns2, I would recommend not using vsync just to avoid the input delay. If you can not sustain your monitors refresh rate, probably 60 fps, then it will cause tearing defeating the purpose of vsync. Even with an overlclocked 3570k and a 970, I still drop below 60 fps in some extreme late game scenarios. I would not recommend vsync.
Not only does it give you input lag, but it works in jumps.
If you can not maintain 60fps on a 60hz vsync screen it will jump to 30fps. (30x2)
Thats why i use V-Sync. this means, the GPU don't send a new picture to my monitor until the monitor finished drawing the last one, so i don't have any tearing.
Buffering set to x2 means you GPU is sending one picture to draw and one to calculate by GPU. When the first picture is drawed it will swap to the bufferd one. Because this swap is not synced too tearing can still apear.
With set to 3x you can buffer 3 pictures. One to draw on monitor, one waiting to be sent to the monitor and one that can be calculated by the GPU. This way you don't have any tearing but all this results in a little inputlag.
Because the tearing distract me verry much (feels like my screen get splitted in half, it really looks like the picture) i use V-Sync and accept this little inputlag.
If you are playing with less FPS than your monitor has Hz you shoud turn V-Sync off because it also cost performance. This means, if you play on 60Hz with 50 FPS you will loose aboute 5-10FPS because you turned V-Sync on. Stupid but the only thing you have right now until you get GSync or FreeSync.
Source Engine games tend to tear pretty noticibly. Worse, source engine games tend to have the most input lag when vsyncis enabled.
On top of that some people notice it less. I wish I couldn't notice tearing. I can also really feel the input lag caused when vsync is enabled in most games.
Its pretty easy to see what screen tearing looks like, just screenshot any game, paste it into microsoft paint then create 3 rectangles from one end to the other on top of eachother then move them slightly left and right
Running double buffered Vsync means if you can't stay above 60 fps (capped at 60) you will automatically drop to 30 fps.
Also, the most important here : ANY frame limiting that is not done by the engine itself (vsync is not done by the engine) will incur mouse input delays!!
at 60 fps expect an increase of 8 to 16 ms of mouse input delay. At 30 fps it can be up to 32 ms.... eventually feeling very inaccurate and non responsive for a twitch competitive game.
Because of these very important downsides, and because I am sensitive to laggy mouse controls, I would rather stick with occasional tearing.
Edit: It seems i wasn't the first person to say these things in this thread. Oops
For some reason I have little to no issue with tearing, despite being far over my monitor's ability.