Vsync or no Vsync? That is the question!

[Le Québécois]

I'm curious, how many of you use Vertical Sync?
Myself, I can't live without it.
I've been using it since Quake2...
Its the last thing im going to put off in all my video option.

 

[FluxCap]

Yeah, I use it. Just had a thread about this bothering me while I was playing UT2K3 so I enabled it.

 

[Regs]

In some cases yes. Vsync comes in handy to smooth out high-res games from artifacting. Some framerate junkies like to have their 80+ FPS rate though.

 

[Jeff7181]

I don't see a noticeable difference with it on... of course I limit all my games to 100 FPS at most anyway cause more than that is just useless... and I've found by limiting it, the lows don't drop as low, which makes for smoother play.

I wonder if that has any effect on multi-player games... like... maybe it would lighten the load on things.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: Regs
In some cases yes. Vsync comes in handy to smooth out high-res games from artifacting. Some framerate junkies like to have their 80+ FPS rate though.

Most normal people also have their refresh rate at 85Hz to ease the eyes, so Vsync wouldn't have any affect on their aspirations of 80+ fps

 

[Schadenfroh]

Text

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Lonyo

Originally posted by: Regs
In some cases yes. Vsync comes in handy to smooth out high-res games from artifacting. Some framerate junkies like to have their 80+ FPS rate though.

Most normal people also have their refresh rate at 85Hz to ease the eyes, so Vsync wouldn't have any affect on their aspirations of 80+ fps

Doh, my own monitor does 85! Should of said 100.. I don't know pick a number lol.

 

[dguy6789]

the truth is, a steady framerate is far far better then a jittery one. 60fps constant would be far better then frame rates going from 40 - 900. I have vsync on always even if i have to do 60hz, 60fps is just fine, and less then 3% of the human population can tell the difference between 60fps and 80 without a frame counter.

 

[BFG10K]

Keep that sucker off.

the truth is, a steady framerate is far far better then a jittery one.

Not necessarily. As long as the framerate drop is still above the noticeable threshold of smoothness then fluctuations make no difference. 100-200 FPS is always better than a constant 60 FPS, for example.

 

[Mem]

I always have V-sync on,infact for the last 3 years or so,I prefer image quality over tearing anytime .

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: Mem
I always have V-sync on,infact for the last 3 years or so,I prefer image quality over tearing anytime .

Ditto! I can never play with VSync off anymore, the tearing is so noticable with VSync off.

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the fact that if your refresh rate is 85 Hz, if you cap your FPS at 100, it will look almost as bad as if you weren't even able to maintain 85. Don't believe me? Try it out in a game like CS (or any game where your video card can easily exceed your refresh rate)... turn vsync on and watch how smooth movements are... then turn it off, and set your max fps to 99 and see if it appears just as smooth.

 

[Matt84]

Vsync off causes massive image tearing in most games
Vsyc on ensures a relatively stable frame rate which is good for the perception of fluid movement in a game.

 

[Jgtdragon]

My Vsync has always been off.

 

[TheBuffoon]

how do u turn it on or off with nvidia cards

 

[Matt84]

under the OpenGL properties for nVidi cards just set Vertical Sync to "on by default" I couldn't find any standard option for direct 3d for this so I persume it defaults to on

 

[BFG10K]

use Riva Tuner to give you full control of vsync on nVidia's cards.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
use Riva Tuner to give you full control of vsync on nVidia's cards.

So does the coolbits registry hack.

I played around with Vsync and I've come to the conclusion that it sucks big time... if you want to eliminate tearing, don't overclock your RAM too much. I played Soldier of Fortune 2 with VSync enabled, and it's absolutely horrible... frames drop to 42 all the time, and sometimes even to 21. I just limit my FPS to 85 (which is my refresh rate) in the console and it's smooth as glass... but yeah... my conclusion is...

VSync sucks a big one.

 

[TheBuffoon]

Originally posted by: SpeedKing
under the OpenGL properties for nVidi cards just set Vertical Sync to "on by default" I couldn't find any standard option for direct 3d for this so I persume it defaults to on

ya. there is no way to set it for direct 3d

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: TheBuffoon

Originally posted by: SpeedKing
under the OpenGL properties for nVidi cards just set Vertical Sync to "on by default" I couldn't find any standard option for direct 3d for this so I persume it defaults to on

ya. there is no way to set it for direct 3d

Yes there is... install the coolbits registry hack.

 

[GonzoDaGr8]

Originally posted by: Thor86

Originally posted by: Mem
I always have V-sync on,infact for the last 3 years or so,I prefer image quality over tearing anytime .

Ditto! I can never play with VSync off anymore, the tearing is so noticable with VSync off.

Ditto...Games are much smoother with it on. Vsync off only for benchmarking.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
if you want to eliminate tearing, don't overclock your RAM too much.

That has nothing to do with it.

I played Soldier of Fortune 2 with VSync enabled, and it's absolutely horrible... frames drop to 42 all the time, and sometimes even to 21.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Display\0000\NVidia\OpenGL]
"EnableTripleBuffer"=dword:00000001

Paste that into a .reg file and run it, that will fix the frame rate drops in OGL w/ vsync on.

 

[BFG10K]

So does the coolbits registry hack.

Coolbits does not work with all versions of the drivers. RivaTuner does.

Paste that into a .reg file and run it, that will fix the frame rate drops in OGL w/ vsync on.

Triple buffering introduces new problems including increased mouse lag/latency and it also causes the GPU to use more VRAM than usual.

 

[Viper96720]

There's 2 versions of coolbits use the newer 40 series one. If you try the older coolbits it won't work at all with the newer drivers.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Viper96720
There's 2 versions of coolbits use the newer 40 series one. If you try the older coolbits it won't work at all with the newer drivers.

Yeah, I didn't think that needed to be said... seems to me that it's common sense to use the one that's made to work with the drivers you have.