Is this ghosting?

Toro 45

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
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I'm using a Samsung Syncmaster 710n with a Radeon 9800 pro. I thought ghosting would be a blurring affect from side to side when turning quickly. But Since I've been hammering BF2 lately, what I do notice is when turning quickly I get a a screen roll from top to bottom, kinda like a slow refresh rate you might see on a crt monitor.

Never any blurring from side to side, I'm running my game at 1024x768 60mhz(60mhz is my desktop setting) So should I just turn up the refresh rate in my game or is this "ghosting"? I believe my monitor is 12ms
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
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try it w/ the refresh rate higher... the 9800 (im assuming is what you meant) and the monitor can support higher. I'd turn up the desktop refresh too, it'll put less strain on your eyes when reading text and stuff.
 

ssvegeta1010

Platinum Member
Nov 13, 2004
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Originally posted by: gorcorps
try it w/ the refresh rate higher... the 9800 (im assuming is what you meant) and the monitor can support higher. I'd turn up the desktop refresh too, it'll put less strain on your eyes when reading text and stuff.

Gocorps, hes using an LCD. The refresh rate is not like that of a CRT.

It almost seems like youre talking about horizontal tearing. Do you have v-sync on?
 

kylebisme

Diamond Member
Mar 25, 2000
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Yeah, that isn't slow refresh rate; that is lack of vertical syncronsation.
 

Gamingphreek

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
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Exactly. Enable VSYNC. As for your other problem, yes that is ghosting. Youll get used to it. The only solution is to buy a faster monitor.

-Kevin
 

Toro 45

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
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Ok I enabled vsync and it got rid of the vertical tearing but man did I take a hit on my fps. Had to turn the settings to 800x600 medium to keep it smooth.
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
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Originally posted by: Toro 45
Ok I enabled vsync and it got rid of the vertical tearing but man did I take a hit on my fps. Had to turn the settings to 800x600 medium to keep it smooth.

VSync doesn't do anything to your FPS (well, it might drop it *slightly*, but nothing dramatic). It does, however, cap your FPS at your refresh rate. So if your monitor is set at 60Hz, and you turn on VSync, you'll "only" be getting 60FPS.
 

Toro 45

Diamond Member
Oct 12, 1999
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So is that normal to have to have Vsync enabled on games, I never payed much attention to it before? Not to argue all day but at 1024 med/high my fps was pretty smooth(45fps avg) until I enabled vsync it dropped to(20-25fps). Then I had to drop it to 800x600 med to get the same smoothness as before.
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
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Originally posted by: Toro 45
So is that normal to have to have Vsync enabled on games, I never payed much attention to it before? Not to argue all day but at 1024 med/high my fps was pretty smooth(45fps avg) until I enabled vsync it dropped to(20-25fps). Then I had to drop it to 800x600 med to get the same smoothness as before.

Ah. You need to enable triple buffering as well as VSync (I thought it was enabled by default these days). Without it, it has a tendency sometimes to cut your framerate in half.

The problem is that with only double buffering, the card has to stop rendering as soon as it finishes one frame, and can't start again until the next refresh. While this isn't a problem if you're pushing 100+FPS normally, it can be problematic if your FPS is lower than the refresh rate, since your card will only be able 'sync' every other refresh or so.

I play with VSync on all the time, but I also can't stand the tearing artifacts you get without it. Other people don't seem to care.