120hz, Unreal games and SmoothedFramerate

[Mirh 102]

There are some games yeah. Usually if a game supports 120Hz it also support 120 fps as well. But some games do not. You can easily see it by using FRAPS. It shows refresh rate as 120, but frame rate is capped around 60 fps.

Besides triple buffering there is also an adaptive v-sync option for NVIDIA cards. Personally I like it more than triple buffering.

AMD users have something similar too (via RadeonPro) :p

Anyway, I think I don't care about v-sync cause my monitor is quite quick refreshing pixel (2ms GtG) (shitty colors though)

 

When I connect the computer to the 32" TV, tearing is terrible

[Marioysikax 89]

There are some games yeah. Usually if a game supports 120Hz it also support 120 fps as well. But some games do not. You can easily see it by using FRAPS. It shows refresh rate as 120, but frame rate is capped around 60 fps.

Besides triple buffering there is also an adaptive v-sync option for NVIDIA cards. Personally I like it more than triple buffering.

Actually Hz and fps gets mixed up a lot as they usually mean same thing with you seeing 120fps so it means 120 frames per second which means it's shown with 120Hz monitor. 

Only game I actually needed vsync was Dead Space as it had massive screen tearing in areas with blinking lights even with 144Hz monitor but vsync messed everything up. Adaptive vsync actually worked and there wasn't any problems that were related to vsync. 

 

As for main problem I think it's now pretty much solved as it clearly states how to get the game working and there's alternative solution and extra info linked. 

E: What I noticed that many pages actually re-write games config path to fix itself instead of linking it. Isn't this bad especially with games that have mac version or goty edition?

[Mirh 102]

Actually Hz and fps gets mixed up a lot as they usually mean same thing with you seeing 120fps so it means 120 frames per second which means it's shown with 120Hz monitor. 

Only game I actually needed vsync was Dead Space as it had massive screen tearing in areas with blinking lights even with 144Hz monitor but vsync messed everything up. Adaptive vsync actually worked and there wasn't any problems that were related to vsync. 

 

As for main problem I think it's now pretty much solved as it clearly states how to get the game working and there's alternative solution and extra info linked. 

E: What I noticed that many pages actually re-write games config path to fix itself instead of linking it. Isn't this bad especially with games that have mac version or goty edition?

Even if they got usually mixed up, we shouldn't confuse the steady monitor refresh rate with the variable number of frame for second. (what you are saying is true only with v-sync though)

And btw I feel weird the actual implementation we took (with UE games at least). We should only tell how to disable the cap there. Claiming to raise it is secondary imo, it's the v-sync that should handle the tearing.

 

And wtf? Are you claiming you hadn't any hassle with Dead Space running at more than 100 FPS ??

As soon as I exceeded the 60, game view control became a shit. And when I say this, I mean the worst ever created. Something like I had to move the mouse through the entire mousepad TWO times to turn 90° right

V-sync in that games is bugged and locks framerate at 30FPS then

 

and could you make an example of config path fixing/linking?

[Marioysikax 89]

Even if they got usually mixed up, we shouldn't confuse the steady monitor refresh rate with the variable number of frame for second. (what you are saying is true only with v-sync though)

And btw I feel weird the actual implementation we took (with UE games at least). We should only tell how to disable the cap there. Claiming to raise it is secondary imo, it's the v-sync that should handle the tearing.

 

And wtf? Are you claiming you hadn't any hassle with Dead Space running at more than 100 FPS ??

As soon as I exceeded the 60, game view control became a shit. And when I say this, I mean the worst ever created. Something like I had to move the mouse through the entire mousepad TWO times to turn 90° right

V-sync in that games is bugged and locks framerate at 30FPS then

 

and could you make an example of config path fixing/linking?

I was just thinking it from perpective of regular user but you are right at that one.

 

I still don't see smoothing as cap. Smoothings job isn't to cap or vsync but to smooth out jumping framerate, you can still cap and vsync after smoothing if you want to. I usually put game settings that they run minimum of 60fps so it may go anywhere over 60fps. If I disable smoothing it's clear when game fps goes down fast where with smoothing on you actually have to look at fps meter to see it. So when you are playing the game you won't focus on how framerate goes. To summarize smoothing is actually even more vital with over 60Hz monitors if your computer doesn't have power to output every frame to monitor. For those with 4x Titan rigs it's fine either way but for regular gaming PC it's usually better to go with smoothing instead of lowering settings to look like console game. 

This is also why smoothing removing fix was listed under engine page so if someone want's to remove there's tutorial for it and if same person runs into same problem at another game (s)he already knows how to do it then. Of course this is just what I have tested and googled, I linked best source I found as reference on engine page. It's still pretty easy to just change the fix and I won't update it to games I do not own. 

 

Dead space worked fine with disabling vsync entirely and then turning mouse speed to 2.00 from config. With vsync mouse was unusable and loading times were huge. Like said only problem was flashing lights so I turned on adaptive vsync and everything still worked. It has been some time but I can test it again just out of curiosity. 

E: Yeap. Perfectly playable with adaptive vsync and 144fps.

 

OK most recent example coming to mind is Batman Arkham Asylum, which has Windows and Mac versions available. There doesn't appear to be much Mac gamers though as config directory for mac is missing. Still point is that there's config file listed at the top of the page. When you scroll down every fixbox tells user to "Go to %USERPROFILE%..." even if user used Mac. I don't know how steamworks conversion effected config files but at least there were non-GOTY edition purchareable and Mac still has. For me it sounds fix should link to top of the page instead of rewriting config path over and over again especially when it doesn't apply to every version of the game.

[Mirh 102]

OK, I think I found. some. references for our debating

I see your points. My simple opinion would be more in-line with this man, but i understand how game developers seems to have invented this weird thing called frame render ahead.

 

But I have never experienced such "spike lags" like those tweakguides talks of btw

An agreement on both fronts could be this (quote from HARDOCP article)

 

[...] graph is quite clear, with the bSmoothFrameRate option enabled framerates are smoother, but it can hardly be called an improvement in overall framerate performance. The whole point of such frame-limiting features is to keep CPU time available for other tasks, such as audio, network, input, and physics. If we were limited in such tasks by our CPU, we may consider this option useful, but we are not so limited

 

Advising to raise the framerate 2+ more than your refresh rate for example..... and so on is too longwinded for the common, noob user

A link to the detailed UE3 smoothing explanation would be better

 

btw my testing with dead space revealed that mouse speed never changes under 60FPS.. then, the double the framerate the half the sensitivity

Yes, you can hack the configuration file, but as the framerate flutter, you'll have you'll have different mouse feedbacks..

 

And you are right, linking to #configuration files should always be preferred

 

 

EDIT: Look at Mass Effect page. Do you think this could be a nice compromise?

[Marioysikax 89]

OK, I think I found. some. references for our debating

I see your points. My simple opinion would be more in-line with this man, but i understand how game developers seems to have invented this weird thing called frame render ahead.

 

But I have never experienced such "spike lags" like those tweakguides talks of btw

An agreement on both fronts could be this (quote from HARDOCP article)

 

Advising to raise the framerate 2+ more than your refresh rate for example..... and so on is too longwinded for the common, noob user

A link to the detailed UE3 smoothing explanation would be better

 

btw my testing with dead space revealed that mouse speed never changes under 60FPS.. then, the double the framerate the half the sensitivity

Yes, you can hack the configuration file, but as the framerate flutter, you'll have you'll have different mouse feedbacks..

 

And you are right, linking to #configuration files should always be preferred

 

 

EDIT: Look at Mass Effect page. Do you think this could be a nice compromise?

Well this definitely turned out to be tougher thing that it looked. You may be right about the longwinded thing too. 

I'm still in favor of smoothing. I was watching that HARDOCP article image about smoothing that 30fps difference just can't be right when I got something like 1-2fps avarage difference before noticing article was from 2007. I would bet if someone owns monitor with high refresh rate they would at least have medium gaming PC which shouldn't have that much difference in frame rate. BUT that just proofs there may be someone with lower end PC and regular monitor would like to turn smoothing off and so many games default it on! 

AND that proofs that maybe we shouldn't just put one fix and link to another one so I was wrong with that. Mass effect page may be little too summed up for someone and I think link should be clearer. This way person can fix issue simply reading that box and not having to go to perfect explanation to engine page. I adjusted Mass Effect page a little with those things in mind.

 

As for Dead Space I played it like that, didn't have massive problems and was glad that second part wasn't that poor PC job :P

[Mirh 102]

OK, i made other searches today.

Nvidia cards seem never had this problem, while ATI/AMD ones have addressed their "frame pacing" issues in February

If you are really interested I even found an in-depth review of the problem

 

Would be a nice thing to understand if all those problems they had in the past were linked to this thing. This would mean finally frame smoothing is useless :p

Because like I previously said, my mind has an hard time trying to figure that waiting = faster