Question about refresh rates

[lunitari]

Okay, a couple of questions. I have been tinkering with my refresh rates, trying to get the best possible experience in games without having to enable vertical sync. My monitor is set to a refresh rate of 100 Hz, but I play most of my games in 1280x1024. My monitor will do 1280X1024 at 85 Hz. To avoid a lot of vertical or horizontal tearing, I use the override control in the Catalyst control panel to 85 Hz. Now, to the questions.....


1) Does forcing a higher refresh rate in a game lower your frames per second? The picture is so much more crisp and clear. I know that a lot of games run at 60 Hz.

2) Enabling vertical sync kills fps, right? I mean, it sort of caps your fps based on your monitor's refresh rate as I understand it. Well, let's say that I am getting 60 fps in Doom 3. Now, if I turn on vertical sync, I will get no more fps than my refresh rate setting, correct? Well, then why does certain games seem to slow waaaaaaay down when I enable vertical sync? I thought that it just capped your fps based on your monitor's refresh.

Thanks everyone.

 

[kamranziadar]

Don;t force a higher refersh rate if your monitor does not support it. That could damage your monitor.

 

[lunitari]

No, my monitor supports the refresh rates. I just want to know that by running games at higher refresh rates, if it slows the games fps.

 

[dguy6789]

It must be some hardware\software conflict. Enabling Vsync just caps the fps at the moniter's refresh rate. It should have absolutely no impact on performance under that refresh rate.

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: lunitari
1) Does forcing a higher refresh rate in a game lower your frames per second? The picture is so much more crisp and clear. I know that a lot of games run at 60 Hz.

No, a higher refresh rate won't do anything to hurt your performace.

Originally posted by: lunitari
1)2) Enabling vertical sync kills fps, right? I mean, it sort of caps your fps based on your monitor's refresh rate as I understand it. Well, let's say that I am getting 60 fps in Doom 3. Now, if I turn on vertical sync, I will get no more fps than my refresh rate setting, correct? Well, then why does certain games seem to slow waaaaaaay down when I enable vertical sync? I thought that it just capped your fps based on your monitor's refresh.

No, Vsync doesn't kill framerate, but doublebuffering can kill framerate when paired with vsync. Fortunatly, Ati lets you force triplebuffering though the OpenGL compatablity settings in the drivers; turn that on and your framerate will be just the same with or without vsync aside from the framerate being capped at your refresh rate due to vsync.