Question Questions about refresh rates

[jdaprile18]

I have noticed that despite meeting or exceeding most of the recommended specs for my games and getting a consistent 60 fps or higher, moving my pov around feels very choppy and makes it difficult to process the information. Most recently I have noticed its very bad in MORDHAU, it works better when using v sync, but is still not alleviated and i don't like the mouse lag. My Question is 2 parts; 1: can anyone with a 144 or 240 hz monitor lmk if it really does feel smoother, and 2: if I have a gtx 1070 and an ryzen r5 cpu with 8gb of ram, is there a specific 144 hz monitor that will work best?

 

[Moot_Senpai]

By choppy do you mean screen tearing? This problem can be solved easily.
Adaptive Sync means that the monitor doesn't refresh until the next frame, which eliminates screen tearing.

Adaptive Sync, also branded as AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-SYNC, corrects this:
Since you have an NVIDIA card, I will just relay relevant info. Any monitor that supports NVIDIA G-SYNC will work. Many monitors that support AMD FreeSync will also work with your GPU using a DisplayPort cable.

If you are going the FreeSync route (generally cheaper), check online to ensure the monitor is G-SYNC compatible.

Edit: As far as smoothness goes, yes, I can tell a big difference between 60Hz and 144Hz. I don't have any specific recommendations.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

No.
Refresh rate of the monitor doesn't mean anything unless you can run the game at frame rates that match.

So even if you have a 144hz monitor, if you are getting 60fps in your game then it won't make a difference.

The reason for this is that the higher frame rates are what make it feel smoother, but it only feels smother if the monitor can refresh itself at a rate that matches the higher fps so that you are actually visually seeing all those frames.

In regards to screen tearing, if the input lag of V-Sync is too much for you, then an adaptive sync monitor is in order.

The way adaptive sync works is that instead of forcing the GPU to wait on sending frames to the monitor so that everything synchronizes, the monitor is forced to change its refresh rate to match whatever the GPU is spitting out as long as the fps is between the two values that the monitor supports.

In most cases for the budget G-Sync monitors this range is between 30hz and whatever the max refresh rate of the monitor is (which is usually 144hz)

 

[Moot_Senpai]

@jdaprile18 noted that they are getting consistent or higher than 60fps (which I assumed is their current monitor's refresh rate). Why the No? The information I relayed is relevant. Unless you're referring to the OP's question about 144 vs 240Hz. On that point I would wholeheartedly agree with a "No."

Caveat: If I am consistently getting higher than 60fps in games, I may benefit from a higher refresh rate monitor.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

@jdaprile18 noted that they are getting consistent or higher than 60fps (which I assumed is their current monitor's refresh rate). Why the No? The information I relayed is relevant. Unless you're referring to the OP's question about 144 vs 240Hz. On that point I would wholeheartedly agree with a "No."

Caveat: If I am consistently getting higher than 60fps in games, I may benefit from a higher refresh rate monitor.

The no wasn't in relation to anything you said.
It was in relation to the OP's original question:

My Question is 2 parts; 1: can anyone with a 144 or 240 hz monitor lmk if it really does feel smoother

Along with the statement about playing at 60fps.

While the OP could have said 60fps simply in regards to syncing on a 60hz monitor, the OP hadn't specified anything about their average full frame rate in games without syncing turned on.
So I had to approach the question directly and specify for the OP that having a higher refresh rate monitor won't do anything for you in terms of smoothness if the frame rate isn't also higher to match.
Even in in the case of a 144Hz monitor and playing games at 100fps, that would be smoother, but in general having a higher refresh rate monitor doesn't make thing smoother when upgrading from a 60hz monitor if you are still playing at an average of 50-70fps in games.

So therefore I went on in my post to explain how it works and specify things for the OP so that they understood in full that higher refresh rate, while it can be smoother, will only be smoother if you also are getting frame rates that take advantage of the higher refresh rate.

You might be surprised by how many people I've come across in this forum alone that posted a question asking why things don't look or feel better/smoother after upgrading to a high refresh rate monitor, and it turned out that they were still playing at around 60fps in their games, and they were under the assumption that a higher refresh rate monitor in general just makes things smoother regardless of frame rates and that simply is not the case, and I overall blame tech news guys on YouTube and the tech industry as a whole for not properly explaining these things to the customers and just only talking about how higher refresh rate just feels so much better but they assume that the individual watching/reading already understands that you need higher frame rates to match for it to be effective.

So as a precaution I elaborated on the technology and how refresh rate and frame rate go hand in hand and also elaborated a tiny bit on how adaptive sync technology alters this a bit when thrown into the mix.

And yes, the OP did say 60fps "or higher" but they didn't really specify how much "higher" so I have to assume not enough to warrant worthwhile results when switching up to a 144hz panel from a 60hz one.

 

[Moot_Senpai]

Ok I get what you're saying.

"Works better when using VSync" indicates (to me) the issue is probably screen tearing, which is why I posted the link and asked as a question, and offered solutions.

 

[jdaprile18]

No.
Refresh rate of the monitor doesn't mean anything unless you can run the game at frame rates that match.

So even if you have a 144hz monitor, if you are getting 60fps in your game then it won't make a difference.

The reason for this is that the higher frame rates are what make it feel smoother, but it only feels smother if the monitor can refresh itself at a rate that matches the higher fps so that you are actually visually seeing all those frames.

In regards to screen tearing, if the input lag of V-Sync is too much for you, then an adaptive sync monitor is in order.

The way adaptive sync works is that instead of forcing the GPU to wait on sending frames to the monitor so that everything synchronizes, the monitor is forced to change its refresh rate to match whatever the GPU is spitting out as long as the fps is between the two values that the monitor supports.

In most cases for the budget G-Sync monitors this range is between 30hz and whatever the max refresh rate of the monitor is (which is usually 144hz)

I have turned vsync on i nvidia panel so i max out at 60 to keep things smoother but im fairly certain i can get consistantly above 60 in most games, sometimes i sacrifice settings but thats worth it to me, so im thinking a gsync 144 hz monitor might be something I actually want. I was mostly just curius about the refresh rate part since i had never used a high refresh rate monitor and am not sure whether it was a noticeable change. When i play certain games without vsync, it seems like i often lose sight of what im looking at when i move the screen around, worse comes to worse, i can sacrifice some graphics settings if i cant get a high enough fps for it to look smoother.

 

[DEADLY9996]

You have a GTX 1070 so i imagine you'd have enough power there, even if you had to lower some graphics settings.

I cannot answer how much of a difference there is as i'm still on a 60hz monitor myself, and it will be 3 months before i can consider buying an ideal monitor.

But to answer what would work best for you, we would need to know what resolution you want to be playing at, and whether TN, IPS or VA is a requirement and whether you want/need HDR.

Nvidia can now work with FreeSync (2?) Monitors, aslong as those monitors are marked as G-Sync Compatible, but my research still says G-Sync has less Lag overall compared to FreeSync, how noticeable that is i cannot say, however there is a FreeSync monitor that seems just as capable: https://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/gigabyte_aorus_ad27qd.htm#lag

However that is a 2k resolution monitor.