Any reason not to globally enable Adaptive Sync? And what settings to use?

Cyber Akuma

Cyber Akuma

Gawd
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Jan 3, 2009
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I have a GTX 670 SLI system (does the 670 even support adaptive sync? I heard it was 680 and above). And no, I don't have a G-Sync supported monitor. There is an upgrade available for mine, but it costs as much as the monitor itself and I would lose my HDMI and DVI ports.

Anyway, I always turn on Vsync because I really really cannot stand screen tearing. But most everyone here probably already knows the cons of Vsync, nearly all of which Adaptive Sync is supposed to fix.

Yes, I have tried Googling about it, but a lot of the articles are outdated and forum posts just trail off into other discussions.

First of all, if I do enable it, then does the Vsync in the app do anything or would Nvidia's Adaptive sync override it regardless of what it's set to? And if not, what should I set it to in-game?

Second, as I said in the title, where there be any reason NOT to use it instead of Vsync if I always enable Vsync in my games anyway? And are the any cons that are exclusive to Adaptive Sync that aren't present in Vsync? Would it will work if you also enable 3D Vision? Or should I enable it on a per-game basis instead of globally? Would this effect FMV/Video playback in games in any way since most video is not 60FPS?

Oh, one last thing that has to do with Vsync itself. My monitor is 144hz, so then does that mean since the framerate can also be divisible by 144 and 120 as well as 60, if it dips below 60FPS and I am using Vsync, will it go down to 48FPS then 40FPS then 36FPS instead of immediately from 60 to 30? Or am I completely thinking of it wrong? And if this is true, then is there any point in using adaptive sync if I have so many ranges between 60 and 30FPS? Would adaptive sync help reduce the stutter when vsync has to switch between different FPS caps?

I mainly want to use Adaptive Sync to remove screen tearing, and it seems like that's basically what it's for while not having as many drawbacks as Vsync.
 
First, Yes you can use adaptive Vsync, adaptive vsync its available from kepler and above card. (i use with my 660ti so you will be fine)

second nope, the vsync will not be divided the vsync its on or off.. (you can also enable adaptive vsync half refresh rate). adaptive vsync work by simply disable vsync when you are under the monitor refresh rate.. and activate it when you reach the refresh rate.. thats it.... if you use half refresh rate adaptive your vsync line will down to 72FPS max.. i never like to use adaptive vsync as a global setting because there are a lot of games where i can stand happy locked at 120fps, I only use it in games where i can't maintain high FPS or games that i want to be limited to 60FPS (i have a 120hz panel) like Skyrim, in other games i just use vsync off... also yes you can use it with 3Dvision enabled..

if you enable it globally it will override any other ingame vsync setting not matter if its on or off it will override it... and nop. if you monitor are set at 144hz then the lower tier refresh rate its 72 and then 36.. if you set it at 120, then it change to 120-60-30... adaptive work by overriding all that and just enable at 120/144 and disable above of those..
 
I would change the topic title, as it's misleading...

Adaptive-sync = VESA standard for variable refresh rate technology in DisplayPort 1.3.

Adaptive VSync = NVIDIA software implementation to enable and disable VSync when framerates are less-than-or-equal to the refresh rate set.

I have run into no situations where disabling Adaptive VSync would be preferable. It is a better solution than Triple Buffering+VSync on NVIDIA Kepler and later cards.
 
Armenius said:
I have run into no situations where disabling Adaptive VSync would be preferable. It is a better solution than Triple Buffering+VSync on NVIDIA Kepler and later cards.
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If you play in a 60hz monitor adaptive Vsync can cause tearing when not lock the frame rate at 60fps fast.. instead of that you can receive a momentary FPS variance of 59-60-62 producing tearing for a couple of seconds in some games adaptive vsync cause extremely weird frametime variances if you use half refreshrate adaptive vsync if you don't have a strong single threaded CPU.. going from 16.6ms to 33.3ms at 60fps and in some times even wilder 8.3ms to 66ms causing some stuttering again Skyrim its a great example of this =D.. New vegas can also present this behavior or batman arkham origins or dead island as few games examples.. so yes not all games handle well the adaptive vsync.
 
Araxie said:
If you play in a 60hz monitor adaptive Vsync can cause tearing when not lock the frame rate at 60fps fast.. instead of that you can receive a momentary FPS variance of 59-60-62 producing tearing for a couple of seconds in some games adaptive vsync cause extremely weird frametime variances if you use half refreshrate adaptive vsync if you don't have a strong single threaded CPU.. going from 16.6ms to 33.3ms at 60fps and in some times even wilder 8.3ms to 66ms causing some stuttering again Skyrim its a great example of this =D.. New vegas can also present this behavior or batman arkham origins or dead island as few games examples.. so yes not all games handle well the adaptive vsync.
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I guess that's true... As a rule I shoot for 110-130 FPS, though, so the ceiling is nice to have on the occasions when the detail on the screen allows a game to shoot above 144 FPS. It doesn't happen too often in my case, so I guess I don't notice it too much. I'm sure that tolerance is a lot less on a 60Hz screen.
 
I normally try to shoot for 120FPS simply so if playing the game in 3D instead of 2D I will still be getting 60FPS, but I know that's not going to be viable for much longer on my setup on newer games. I am going to have to brush up on all these modes that have flown by me over the years like FXAA, MSAA, etc, I probably don't need to have everything enabled at max.

Hmm, looks like adaptive Vsync isn't for me then since the whole reason I use vsync is to disable tearing.

So, you said my limits below 120 were 72 and 36. I am curious why. 72 makes sense as it is half of 144, but 36 is a quarter of 144. Can these framerates only be in multiples of two, thus no 144 / 3 = 48 FPS? Or do they have to be powers of two, so the next divisible number would be 8?
 
exactly.. multiples of 2.. 144-72-36-18. 120-60-30-15. only few laptop screen have a adaptive refresh rate that can work in 2 or 3 intervals with certain hardware scalable level and can drop from 60 to 48 to be smoother.. than just drop to 30.. its the main background over the new VESA adoption of Adaptive refresh rate.. the adaptive vsync help a lot in games with very poor performance where you can drop constantly below the vertical synchronization if you are at 60hz instead of drop to 30 you can drop to 50 or 55 and avoid the hiccup for that moment.. with high refresh rate panels you can avoid that by just disable vsync and enable a frame limiter (EVGA precision or MSI afterburner have a good one :) )..
 
So it's only laptop screens (and a small fraction of them) that can do multiples of three? No desktop monitors can?

My cards are also EVGA cards, I use Precision X to overclock them slightly, what's this about a frame limiter? Do you mean just capping the FPS? What's the difference between just capping the FPS and using Adaptive Vsync then? Or even if the game supports the option, capping the FPS in the game itself?

(Come the think of it, I was playing Borderlands the Pre-Sequel yesterday and it had both a "capped" and "smooth" FPS option, wasn't too sure what they meant by the smooth option, and if there was any point to enabling it if I had already enabled Vsync. Strangely, it let me cap it to 120 but not 144.)
 
capped its with vsync off but with a maximum of desired FPS... smooth FPS its with a sort of adaptive vsync (same as used in some unreal engine games like mass effect where you can find in the Engine.ini file 2 command lines called maxsmoothframe and minsmoothframe which work together with vsync to cap the max FPS even with vsync off..

Frame limiter its just that a cap in the maximum FPS posible.. if you limit your framerate to 144fps then you can play perfect any game with vsync off.. it will not produce tearing because the game will not go above 144fps never which its where generally tearing its produced..
 
Wouldn't I also get tearing when a game goes under 144FPS though? Isn't that the whole reason Adaptive Vsync can still cause tearing?
 
nope.. the whole reason adaptive vsync can cause tearing its because for a brief moment can activate the vsync too late.. as per example it can activate at 62FPS instead of 60.. it take 2FPS to activate it. if the game have a poor performance and you are constantly drooping frames.. it may take even up to 62-63FPS to cap again up to 60 and activate vsync sometimes isn't just fast enough.. in those brief periods every frame go above 60FPS may cause a bit of tearing.. (some people didn't even notice it but others are too sensitive and immediately become noticeable).. at 144hz the history its completely different as the imput latency its so extremely low at a such high FPS that make that brief instant above 144fps make little noticeable.. I can for sure notice it as im just too sensitive to tearing and used to always game at a high framerate.
 
Araxie said:
nope.. the whole reason adaptive vsync can cause tearing its because for a brief moment can activate the vsync too late.. as per example it can activate at 62FPS instead of 60.. it take 2FPS to activate it. if the game have a poor performance and you are constantly drooping frames.. it may take even up to 62-63FPS to cap again up to 60 and activate vsync sometimes isn't just fast enough.. in those brief periods every frame go above 60FPS may cause a bit of tearing.. (some people didn't even notice it but others are too sensitive and immediately become noticeable).. at 144hz the history its completely different as the imput latency its so extremely low at a such high FPS that make that brief instant above 144fps make little noticeable.. I can for sure notice it as im just too sensitive to tearing and used to always game at a high framerate.
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i can confirm this.

i tried adaptive Vsync on my nvidia 680 gtx, with my ivy bridge rig, 16gb ddr3 ram, intel i7-3770 cpu, samsung 850 pro SSD game is installed in, Dell u2413 24'' AH-IPS lcd 60hz refresh rate

even with it on, i notice tearing ..... but when i just use vsync with triple buffering, no tearing whatsoever ...... that is why i don't like adaptive Vsync, because for me it didn't solve the tearing while keeping high fps as possible as it had promised it would :rolleyes: even minor tearing if noticeable is not acceptable in my book.

some of the games i tested

- storm of heroes
- diablo 3
 
Vsync is better than adaptive in terms of reducing screen tearing. All adaptive really does is reduce the amount of time you are stuck at 30fps by allowing fps to be uncapped when its between 31-60. Which isn't a good tradeoff if the end effect is just screen tearing.
 
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