More than 60 frames per second on 1920x1080 display?

[Pavel Soulimov]

Hi everyone!

I went onto this site: http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce...
And I could not understand how can you get more than an average of 60 frames per second on 1920x1080? I swear with that resolution, you can only get a maximum of 60 frames as the refresh rate on that resolution is 60Hz?
Can someone explain this to me please!

P.S. I'm hoping to get the alienware 18, which will have a geforce gtx 880M graphics card, that's why I am curious about more than 60 frames on 1920x1080.

 

[Kekoh]

If the monitor is 60hz, you simply won' be able to see more than 60fps.

The GPU is capable of rendering more than 60fps, but a 60hz monitor is physically limited to only displaying 60 of those frames per second. An example would be playing counterstrike and the GPU is rendering at 100fps. Even though the GPU is outputting 100fps, only 60 of those will be seen per second on the monitor, due to the refresh rate.

 

[Traciatim]

If you have a 60hz screen, then yes it will only ever display 60FPS. If you refresh rate is not in sync with the frame rate then you will get tearing, but if your video card is capable of 120FPS and you have V-Sync turned on and the game slows down to half it's usual speed due to what's happening in the speed then you will still be seeing 60FPS where someone else who has a card only capable of 60FPS is now seeing 30FPS.

Alternatively you can leave V-Sync off and that will help with the lag you experience waiting for the screen to refresh, but may cause annoying screen tearing while playing. If that doesn't bother you then this is the better way to play for accuracy and responsiveness, but personally I can't stand tearing so I always run with V-Syn enabled and teal with it.

G-Sync or whatever variable refresh rate technology becomes the standard will fix thesee issues though and allow for the screen refresh to be tied to the frame rate of your game rather than being stuck to a fixed refresh. You might want to wait just a bit and see if you can find a laptop that uses something like this in the near future... unless of course you need the laptop very soon.

 

[lowriderflow]

above is correct... this is why we have Vsync. no reason for your GPU to run full speed to make 100+ fps when you cant see them anyway. better to letyour card run at 70% and give you the steady 60fps

 

[vagrantsoul]

If you have a 60hz screen, then yes it will only ever display 60FPS. If you refresh rate is not in sync with the frame rate then you will get tearing, but if your video card is capable of 120FPS and you have V-Sync turned on and the game slows down to half it's usual speed due to what's happening in the speed then you will still be seeing 60FPS where someone else who has a card only capable of 60FPS is now seeing 30FPS.

Alternatively you can leave V-Sync off and that will help with the lag you experience waiting for the screen to refresh, but may cause annoying screen tearing while playing. If that doesn't bother you then this is the better way to play for accuracy and responsiveness, but personally I can't stand tearing so I always run with V-Syn enabled and teal with it.

G-Sync or whatever variable refresh rate technology becomes the standard will fix thesee issues though and allow for the screen refresh to be tied to the frame rate of your game rather than being stuck to a fixed refresh. You might want to wait just a bit and see if you can find a laptop that uses something like this in the near future... unless of course you need the laptop very soon.

Pavel, this

 

[Pavel Soulimov]

What if I connected the gaming laptop to a tv through hdmi and i was able to play the game off the tv, and that the tv had a larger refresh rate, eg: 120hz? will i be able to play more fps?

 

[vagrantsoul]

depends on the revision of hdmi, beyond my knowledge, but i think most are limited to 60 hz... sorry, going to need to get someone else's input

 

[Traciatim]

What if I connected the gaming laptop to a tv through hdmi and i was able to play the game off the tv, and that the tv had a larger refresh rate, eg: 120hz? will i be able to play more fps?

You can do that with a 120 or 144Hz monitor. 120Hz TV's don't actually take a 120Hz signal like a monitor does. They use their motion compensation engine for decoding video in order to simulate a frame in between other frames which make motion looks smoother. It also allows for easier scaling 24fps and 30fps movie content since 24fps video doesn't display properly on 60hz TVs causing judder.

 

[vagrantsoul]

you're the man Traciatim

 

[bystander]

I just want to clear something up, as it still has not been explained well.

When you have more FPS than your refresh rate, or even if you don't but don't have V-sync on, you get tearing, but what hasn't been explained is those tears are a result of more than one frame being displayed at once. So in a since you do see more FPS than your refresh rate. You just want get a full image on each refresh. You'll get multiple partial images.

120 FPS on a 60hz screen results in an average of each frame having half its image displayed, but every frame is displayed. Just not the whole frame. Each tear you see is where the display changes from displaying an older frame and starts to display a newer one.

 

[Kekoh]

Also, just because you have over 60fps on a 60hz screen, doesn't mean you automatically get screen tearing. I used to routinely get 80+fps in some games when I had my 7950 and a 60hz screen, but I never saw screen tearing once. There are a few ways around screen tearing though so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[bystander]

Also, just because you have over 60fps on a 60hz screen, doesn't mean you automatically get screen tearing. I used to routinely get 80+fps in some games when I had my 7950 and a 60hz screen, but I never saw screen tearing once. There are a few ways around screen tearing though so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Without V-sync, you get screen tearing, period. If you are getting 80+ FPS on a DirectX title with a 60hz screen, you are getting screen tearing, period. There is no way around it. You may just not notice it, but it is there.

Now if you have V-sync on, and getting 80+ FPS, then you are using OpenGL, and some of those frames just are not being displayed at all. OpenGL will ignore a frame if a newer frame is created before the next refresh. MVP Virtu, will do something similar. You will not see 80+ FPS, but it will register that FPS rate. Actually, with MVP Virtu, they will call to have a frame created multiple times, but never actually create them until the last moment it believes the frame can be made and still be read for the next refresh.

Some people are less sensitive to noticing the tears, but they are there. It is generally harder to see them on a 120hz screen as well, but they are there.