Lil help on the whole v-sync thing

[Edge1]

After some quick reading on V-sync, what it is, what it does, its perfomance effects (dropped FPS in some cases, elimination of tearing), I'm trying to develop a strategy for determining whether to enable or disable it.

Sounds like:
1) If you're not experiencing tearing, keep it disabled
2) Conversely, if tearing is evident, enable it and hope for respectable FPS

I haven't really had any issues w/games yet, but just thought boiling it all down to a simple strategy would be a good idea.

What do you think?

Thanks for any input on this!

 

[Lithan]

I leave it on in hellgate... doesnt seem to effect fps, and lets me say "max settings". I dont get tearing with it off, but whatever.

 

[imported_Scoop]

I have it off unless every other setting is maxed out and the game plays nicely with it on. It does make the playing experience a lot better when turned on but the impact on framerate is often too much.

 

[v8envy]

120 hz at 1600x1200 on a CRT. What is this 'tearing' and 'vsync' you speak of?

I do enable vsync on some older titles (notably Eve Online) because otherwise it runs at >>>> 200 fps and needlessly heats up my office. Once my CRT gives up the ghost I'll probably have to settle for some crappy TN panel LCD and learn to cope with tearing, input lag, nasty viewing angles, live & dead pixels, uneven backlighting and backlight bleeding -- but I'm hoping that day will not be any time soon.

 

[CP5670]

120 hz at 1600x1200 on a CRT. What is this 'tearing' and 'vsync' you speak of?

I often use the same setting and can see it easily in most games. A higher refresh rate will certainly help but you won't ever get rid of the tearing completely without vsync.

 

[v8envy]

I was mostly joking. Older titles which post well over 200 fps demand vsync on. But anything new-ish with eye candy cranked runs well under 100 fps for me, so I hardly ever see tearing.

 

[chizow]

Simplest solution is to leave it to application preference in the drivers. This does not mean you have to use Vsync or are forcing it off. You simply choose within the game itself. Keep in mind, the drop in performance was only observed when you forced Vsync off in the driver. Most modern games (made in the last 2-3 years) allow you to specify Vsync on or off within the game options. Basically, the only time you would need to force Vsync off in the drivers and expose yourself to this problem is if you preferred Vsync off and the game did not have an option to turn it off.

 

[BFG10K]

I personally control settings like this only through the driver, not through the application. That gives me control of it in one central place. In general I force vsync off.

Should it turn out Crysis is actually faster with vsync on (I haven't tested this on XP + DX9 yet), I'll simply adjust its profile to use vsync.

 

[Edge1]

Hey just a follow-up "thanks" guys. I assume when you say handle this at a "driver" level, you mean using something like Rivatuner, or Nvidia's native software (I forget what its called ).

'Preciate the input and will fiddle with those settings a bit tonight.