Does it matter if you get more than 60fps on a 60Hz monitor?

[Zefram0911]

Could someone explain or send me to resources on why getting more than 60fps with a 60hz monitor matters or doesn't matter?

I'm looking for a really good technical explanation.

I think I'm really bad at googling, so any help would be really appreciated. Thanks guys.

 

[NinjaGnat]

In most 3d applications, you're not going to have a steady beat of fps. Heavy action cause it to dip, while staring at a wall could cause it to jump into the 200s. Increasing your average fps above 60 won't cause you to display more frames on a 60hz monitor, but it will reduce the amount of time you spend under 60.

 

[crun]

it also reduces input lag in most games.

 

[geok1ng]

this is a very, very old flame bait. i used to believe that it was useless to have more than 60fps on 60hz monitors, but some people said that it helps. today we know that fps does not measure the gaming experience, hence FCAT frame interval is a better metric than raw fps numbers. i would therefore say that, if FCAT shows frame interval below the optimum, one may need more graphics power than raw 60fps.

but then again, modern VGA have perfect behavior at 1080p 6-hz, so if you have more than 60fps, you more often than not, will NOT have better gaming experience with more than 60 fps.

the harder question today is : do you need more than 120fps for your 120Hz display, which i guesstimate that NO, you won't benefit from more than 120fps on a 120Hz display, unless frame interval is completely off the charts.

 

[Morkai]

If you want to use vsync, you need to have quite a bit higher fps since a drop below will drop you to 40 or 30 fps depending on buffering.

Even if you don't, higher fps proportionally reduces input lag.
Let's say you feed a 60hz monitor with 60fps completely at random, average additional input lag caused by your low fps would be 16.667ms/2 (8.333ms).

If you in an extreme example tried to feed it 1000000fps, input lag from fps would be approaching zero, since a perfectly fresh frame would always be shown when the refresh interval was up.