Smooth gameplay with 250fps @144hz with vsync off?

[barroso]

So i've been led to believe that vsync(triple buffering) causes lag input and that i should play competitive games like CS:GO with it off.

Gave it a try and with fps capped at 300 by default i average 250 with the occasional 50-100 frames drop in CPU intensive situations but gameplay is a shaky/stuttery mess and i find it absolutely unplayable.

The vids by cs go pros where i saw that recommendation in the first place are as smooth as is mine when i have triple buffering on though, even though they have the same exact fps fluctuation. So what am i missing?

I also wonder if those extra frames really make any difference when they exceed both the server's tick rate of 64hz/128hz and the monitor's refresh rate of 144hz?

 

[ryguybuddy]

No the extra frames do not show any difference, but can act as a buffer (in quotes) for frame drops.

 

[harboym]

No the extra frames do not show any difference, but can act as a buffer (in quotes) for frame drops.

The extra frames are not even used as a buffer. If you have vsync off and your GPU is outputting frame rates higher than your monitor can output, than you going to see roughly however many frames your monitor can display per second. There's no buffer because it's a game and you would be left behind everyone else that didn't lag. If you have vsync on than a slight buffer comes into play but that is why competitive FPS games are played with vsync off.

 

[barroso]

K so basically vsync/triple buffering causes the rendered frames to be shown with a delay of a fraction of a second?

But what about the screen tearing, shaking and stuttering?

 

[harboym]

Stuttering refers to the slight lag caused by vsync. Screen tearing happens when vsync is off because your gpu is pumping out frames faster than the monitor can display them. So for screen tearing, the monitor will stop in the middle of scanning a frame onto the screen and just start working on the next one. That's what creates the partial frames you see or "tears."

 

[barroso]

And any idea how to limit the screen tearing and "shaking"? No way someone is playing professionally with the game behaving the way im seeing it without triple buffering on and fps fluctuating between 150-300, there must be some way to fix this.

 

[harboym]

Well for one he's recording, so depending on how he's recording it can be smoother to piece together and replay frames than when you're viewing them in real time.

But assuming the video shows us exactly what the gamer saw, there are many things that could give a smoother experience. They could have a better internet connection than you, they could be playing on a better server, they could have a better CPU, or more RAM, your computer may have unknown programs running in the background (or worse, downloading updates or something in the background). There are a lot of factors that go into your visual experience while gaming besides how fast your gpu can pump frames.

 

[barroso]

I saw a couple of his videos where he had netgraph on and he has roughly same fps behaviour as i do, same average fps at 250, same drops to 150fps in CPU intensive situations, although in that specific video he had drops all the way down to 90fps, which i never got. But ye as you said those streams dont have the monitor refresh rate in the equation so its not a good example.

With that said im testing these things offline on 128 ticks server with 6700k, R9 390, 8GB RAM, SSD and lowering resolution from 1920x1080 to 1024x768 and video settings from max to lowest makes almost no difference at all fps-wise while the game eats 1.2GB of RAM max.

Oddly enough even though the fps drops mentioned above seem to be due to a CPU bottleneck CPU utilization by the game is max 50%. But im not sure this has anything to do with the original issue addressed in this thread. Still if anyone has something useful to say about it im all ears as im not really sure this is wai.

As for the screen tearing and shaking, the game is quiet playable while the fps is 230+ although not as smooth as with triple buffering on, but as soon as it falls to around 200 it gets shaky/choppy as hell, movement of the mouse feel slower.

Im certain thats not something anyone(especially not a pro competing for 500k) would settle for and if that was the price for that lag input caused by triple buffering im sure anyone would take the lag instead so there must be some tweak to make all smoother or to at least fix whatever is causing that excessive amount of tearing in my case.

Im also playing R6 siege with vsync off(as its bugged for me and turning it on downright halves fps), and even though average fps is lower than the refresh rate, as opposed to the issue mentioned here which happens with fps above it, i just wanted to mention that there are no issues at all and gameplay is smooth with minimal screen tearing.

 

[harboym]

Yeah Ubisoft games like to kill your FPS, it's pretty sad. If you are experiencing issues not related to screen tearing there has to be something causing the issue. However, if you are just getting jumpy frantic frames from tearing there's less to do to try and remedy that. It sounds like you'd be a prime candidate for a monitor with gsync or freesync, both of which greatly improve, if not completely fix, those tearing and lag issues associated with no sync and vsync respectively.

However, I would try limiting your fps to about 5-10 FPS higher than your monitor refresh rate. I know it sounds weird but a fluctuating FPS that is much higher than your refresh rate can fluctuate the severity of your screen tearing. As an example, if you run a 60Hz panel with the gpu pushing 120 FPS, it will run smoother than if the gpu is pushing say 132 frames because it can just leave every second frame out. When you have an unusual FPS coming from the gpu its harder for the monitor to display them in a smooth fashion. That's why vsync tries to match gpu output with monitor refresh rate, it's just bad at it. If you can cap your FPS just above your refresh rate, you'll stay close to what your monitor can handle well and not deal with vsync lag. In theory.

 

[barroso]

I already tried all the variations of fps caps - 143 point something, 144, 145, 150, 300 - and unlocked but there is always that excessive amount of shaking.

But you were on point with that free/g-sync remark, in fact that guy from the video i showed you uses a freesync monitor so i checked a couple of streams from players who reportedly use regular monitors and in fact they tend to have much higher fps with unlocked fps or capped at 300 and while i saw them retain 300+ and 300 average on some maps on others they sit on 250 with the same drops to 150 as the ones i experience.

I tried testing on dust2 where on certain locations i could maintain 300+ (with fps locked at 300) and it indeed is very smooth(on a 128 tick server) as long as there is no significant fps drops under 280. Thats close enough to the equation you mentioned with 60hz and 120fps, guess fps locked at 288 would be the sweet spot, although my GPU seems to behave better with fps unlocked.

Still, not sure if its realistic to expect constant 288+ on all maps and i also still dont know how those guys cope with tearing when they dont manage to achieve it. As i said, if the amount of shaking and tearing that accompanies fps drops would indeed be the price to be paid to get rid of the input lag caused by triple buffering id take the lag any day as i can barely see distant enemies when moving fast on certain locations and i dont think pros settled for that.

What bothers me the most though is the fact that my rig pumps 250fps with both CPU and GPU sitting under 50%, can barely hear the coolers. I guess its due to CS GO poorly utilizing resources as R6 Siege manages to get them both to 100% with the 390 being my main source of heating during winter.

This is probably a topic for another thread although there's already dozens of them around addressing the same issue and offering the same tweaks and magical console/launch commands that should solve it. I tried -high, -threads 4, +mat_queue_mode 2, set power management to "high performance"... But none actually did anything so if anyone reading this knows of a possible solution please share.

@Harboym friend you helped me a lot in getting to better understand the situation, thank you a lot for that.

 

[RobCrezz]

Tearing can depend on the monitor. On my two monitors only one of them shows tearing (at least, that I can see) when the FPS is higher than the refresh rate.