Doom 3 + 6800 series = Buzzkill?

[Nazo]

Uhm, if you don't mind watching everything tear like that, why do you buy an expensive video card like that? Just buy something really cheap like this and you can play even stuff like Doom 3 with low detail settings. If you don't care about watching everything rip apart, it can't possibly bother you having lower detail settings... Let's go ahead and trade, this is more than enough for you. ^_^

That said, don't worry about Doom3. Let it use double buffering or whatever and drop to low framerates. Unless you use temporal anti-aliasing or something, it really doesn't matter if it slows down to anything reasonable. Remember, the human eye can only see so much when it comes to full movements. And like they were saying, Doom3 isn't at all a "twitch" type game like UT2004. You don't need fast movements and it won't really make much difference whether it's just over 23 or 123. In fact, I hated this part. Unlike UT2004 or something, you can't just snipe out an enemy with a quick flip of the write. It's a pain to kill even the imps... Other than stuff like the rocket launcher, your best bet for getting them in one blow is a PERFECT shot at point blank range with the shotgun. I keep thinking to aim for the head, but that just doesn't seem exactly right. A huge pain, usually it seems to need three shots to get them even with that. Yep, this is no twitch game. Get used to heavy firearms and more than anything else dodging shots.


Personally, I'm getting along just fine with this old thing and I guess that means no triple buffering.

 

[DigitalEmperor]

I have a Mitsubishi DP930SB and it will do 85Hz at 1600x1200 but you'd have to look into a 21" or 22" CRT if you wanted higher then that.

You dont need v-sync unless your playing an older game where the fps is really high. Your not going to be going much over 85 fps in todays games if you have the IQ maxed and playing at 1600x1200.

tearing doesn't occur only when exceeding the refreshrate.

 

[burningrave101]

tearing doesn't occur only when exceeding the refreshrate.

Tearing generally occurs when your fps exceeds the refresh rate of your monitor. This is usually found in older games where you getting well over 100 fps.

Tearing CAN occur when your fps is lower then your refresh rate and when your fps spikes up and down alot but usually this isn't an issue on a good CRT.

I play Morrowind with v-sync disabled and my fps stays well below 85 fps (85Hz) and it the fps goes up and down alot depending on where i'm at, but i dont notice tearing.

On CRT's, you really dont need v-sync for todays games.

 

[Nazo]

Are you sure it's not possible for it to tear even at low FPS? I never thought my card could do so well... I've seen tearing even at quality/resolution settings that seemed to be running pretty slowly when I had vsync off.

Anyway, if nothing else, you might want temporal anti-aliasing. Provided your FPS is high enough for you to not see it jumping around, it has twice the effect for the same cost as half what you want.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Are you sure it's not possible for it to tear even at low FPS? I never thought my card could do so well... I've seen tearing even at quality/resolution settings that seemed to be running pretty slowly when I had vsync off.

Anyway, if nothing else, you might want temporal anti-aliasing. Provided your FPS is high enough for you to not see it jumping around, it has twice the effect for the same cost as half what you want.

By raising my refresh to 100hz I was pretty much able to eliminate tearing in D3 at 1600x1200 8xAF with vsync disabled.

 

[burningrave101]

Are you sure it's not possible for it to tear even at low FPS? I never thought my card could do so well... I've seen tearing even at quality/resolution settings that seemed to be running pretty slowly when I had vsync off.

Tearing CAN occur when your fps is lower then your refresh rate and when your fps spikes up and down alot but usually this isn't an issue on a good CRT.

Anyway, if nothing else, you might want temporal anti-aliasing. Provided your FPS is high enough for you to not see it jumping around, it has twice the effect for the same cost as half what you want.

Temporal AA is only available on the ATI cards and v-sync is enabled with it.

Temporal AA is also a nice PR term because its pretty much useless in todays games. You have to be getting over 60 fps with Temp AA enabled in order to not get the flickering and shimmering effect and it has to STAY over that amount.

If your getting an avg. FPS of 60 fps or over, you might as well turn up the AA higher because higher AA will look better then what Temporal AA can do. Temporal AA only applies AA to every other frame and blends it togethor. This is why you have to have over 60 fps in order for your brain not to be able to distinguish the difference.

 

[Captain Kirk]

Stupid question, but, are the 6800's not capable of triple buffering due to hardware, or software limitations?

 

[Nazo]

Considering the nature of the issue with the Radeon and the fact that no one has complained about it being a hardware issue with any other games, I would imagine it's software. Just a guess though.

Anyway, about the TFSAA, ok, I was wrong about that, I forgot Geforce series cards didn't do it. And I assumed that such a high end expensive card would do better in Doom 3 than that (yeah, I know it pushes things, but, still, if it can look good on this, it should do pretty darned well on that thing.) However, don't forget that TFSAA can be set to enable and disable based on the current FPS. Great for maintaining a more stable speed I would presume.

Yes, I admit, you'd still have to get it to a decent enough framerate so you can't see it.

 

[vsyncer]

the same here: the tearing is very extreme without vsync!! expacially by strafing around ...
so i can't (won't) play d3 without vsync enabled !

settings d3:
1600x1200, High Details, NoAA, 8x AF

my System:
Athlon64 3.0
GF 6800 GT (Leadtek)
1 Gig Ram (Corsair)
(nothing overclocked)

fps timedemo1 (second run):
vsync off: 56 fps (equal to the official id benchmarks with this card)
vsync on: 39 fps

so i get a loss of 17 fps with vsync on - and yes there are lags in the game which are not when vsync is off ... so it is a difference even when i get 39 fps avg ...

is it possible that the ati is faster (and smoother gameplay) with vsync enabled and so it is faster with doom3 and not as all benchmarks say the GF 6800 ??

if it is so all benchmarks which are made with vsync off are obsolete (for D3 and my expectations) ...
set the Monitor to 100 Hz (in the nvpanel) does not eleminate the tearing!

pls can anyone tell me the benches from an ati x800 (pro and xt ...) with vsync and triple buffering on?

thanks anyway !

 

[tranCendenZ]

Stupid question, but, are the 6800's not capable of triple buffering due to hardware, or software limitations?

Nvidia purposefully do not support triple buffering in their drivers, the hardware is perfectly capable of it.

 

[tranCendenZ]

if it is so all benchmarks which are made with vsync off are obsolete (for D3 and my expectations) ...
set the Monitor to 100 Hz (in the nvpanel) does not eleminate the tearing!
!

What monitor do you have?

 

[vsyncer]

@tranCendenZ

Samsung SyncMaster 900NF (19")

i have tried it with 1280x1024 because my monitor can't handle 100 hz @ 1600x1200
.. but with 85 and 100 Hz i get the tearing ...

so i think it is the same effect with an monitor which can handle 100 hz @ 1600x1200
or do you think that a better monitor can remove the tearing complete?

but the fact: when the new ati card has better fps and smoother gameplay with triple buffering and vsync on it's (in my oppinion) better to take an ati for the "same" money as to buy an new monitor (+ 400-600$ for a 21,22" with good frequencies ...)

 

[odin30]

i get the texture tearing also (and cannot stand it)and have to use vsync and notice the halving of framerates, im gonna try the force refresh rate thing.

 

[tranCendenZ]

@tranCendenZ

Samsung SyncMaster 900NF (19")

i have tried it with 1280x1024 because my monitor can't handle 100 hz @ 1600x1200
.. but with 85 and 100 Hz i get the tearing ...

so i think it is the same effect with an monitor which can handle 100 hz @ 1600x1200
or do you think that a better monitor can remove the tearing complete?

The reason you probably wouldn't get tearing at 1600x1200 at 100hz is because its unlikely your framerate would exceed 100fps at 1600x1200 unlike 1280x1024. Tearing happens when vsync is disabled and your framerate exceeds your refreshrate. I run 1600x1200 @ 100hz with vsync disabled and don't get tearing with my 6800GT simply because the framerate rarely exceeds 100fps at 1600x1200 8xAF High Quality.

but the fact: when the new ati card has better fps and smoother gameplay with triple buffering and vsync on it's (in my oppinion) better to take an ati for the "same" money as to buy an new monitor (+ 400-600$ for a 21,22" with good frequencies ...)

The problem with triple buffering is that it introduces mouse lag which is very undesirable especially for an FPS game like Doom3.

Your best bet is no vsync with high refresh rates. If you are getting framerates over your refresh rate, bump up the eye candy until the framerate on average is lower than your refresh rate with vsync disabled.

 

[vsyncer]

The reason you probably wouldn't get tearing at 1600x1200 at 100hz is because its unlikely your framerate would exceed 100fps at 1600x1200 unlike 1280x1024. Tearing happens when vsync is disabled and your framerate exceeds your refreshrate. I run 1600x1200 @ 100hz with vsync disabled and don't get tearing with my 6800GT simply because the framerate rarely exceeds 100fps at 1600x1200 8xAF High Quality. .

pls can you tell me which monitor do you use?

then ... i have tried it with 1280x1024 @ 100 hz with ultra details 8xAA 16 AF to avoid getting over 100 fps ... and the tearing is still there ... maybe lesser as with 85 hz but still disturbing for me ... maybe for you not ... are you sure that you have absolutely no tearing at all ??

The problem with triple buffering is that it introduces mouse lag which is very undesirable especially for an FPS game like Doom3.

yes i heared often about that ... but no one has definitively confirmed that ... escpecially no one of the ati users ... only nvidia users tell this ... or is here anybody who can tell me "YES ... with triple buffering and vsync on there is a real mouse lag" ?

the other side is that nvidia does support triple buffering ... but only for directx and in the official statement they say that there is no need for tb in openGL and the drivers get more complex at all ...
but i think that it is only more harder to implement in openGL as in dx !! and that is the fact why they don't support tb for openGL ...

pls tell me if i'am wrong


by the way ... thanks for you quick answers and pls tell me what monitor do you use ... maybe i will take my computer to a local store and try a monitor whick can handle the high frequencies ...

 

[tranCendenZ]

pls can you tell me which monitor do you use?

in my sig, mitsubishi 2070SB 22"

then ... i have tried it with 1280x1024 @ 100 hz with ultra details 8xAA 16 AF to avoid getting over 100 fps ... and the tearing is still there ... maybe lesser as with 85 hz but still disturbing for me ... maybe for you not ... are you sure that you have absolutely no tearing at all ??

Might be there, but I don't notice it. If its there its certainly minor.

yes i heared often about that ... but no one has definitively confirmed that ... escpecially no one of the ati users ... only nvidia users tell this ... or is here anybody who can tell me "YES ... with triple buffering and vsync on there is a real mouse lag" ?

you can find info about this on google, its common knowledge.

but i think that it is only more harder to implement in openGL as in dx !! and that is the fact why they don't support tb for openGL ...

pls tell me if i'am wrong

Triple buffering was implemented in OpenGL for the 3dfx Voodoo Rush in 1996 for Quake 1. I'm sure Nvidia could implement it if they wanted to

 

[Lord of Shadows]

The reason I ask these two questions is, without triple buffering, using vsync means that framerates are chopped up. Say the refreshrate of my monitor is set to 85hz, if it can't keep up with that framerate wise (and it won't due to the engine being limited to 60fps) with vsync + double buffering, the framerate is chopped in half to 42.5fps. It can't exceed that, and if it's not able to keep up with 42.5fps, it'll chop down further to 21.25fps. Not really all that sweet huh? Maybe my understanding of this is flawed but it seems to hold up with what i've read.

Vsync chops your frames up not double buffering.

The frame buffer is an area of memory that is used to hold the frame. (the image of whatever is being rendered) The graphics card doesnt draw directly to the monitor because you would see the graphics card working, so it draws to a second buffer and when its done flips the buffers so the monitor grabs the image from the now finished render. This is known as double buffering.

Your monitor can only update the screen at a certain frequency, (refresh rate) it grabs the image from the frame buffer so many times a second as indicated by the refresh rate. Vsync stops the graphics card from drawing more frames than is necessary, or in other words caps the frame rate to a maximum of the refresh rate.

Vsync also attempts to keep the frame rate somewhat constant when the frame rate is below the refresh rate, by imposing a cap which is some fraction of the refresh rate
this fraction is reduced if the frame rate is still below the new limit.

Triple buffering is as one would think an additional buffer, its usefull when the frame rate is being limited by Vsync. Instead of waiting for the buffers to flip and then drawing into the second buffer, triple buffering allows the graphics card to draw into the third buffer instead of sitting idle.

Edit: Oh yeah, "tearing" is when the frame rate is well above the refresh rate, basically what happens in this.

The game flips the buffer and doesnt wait for the monitor to finish refreshing, so the monitor is still reading from the area of memory where the graphics card is now drawing.

Tearing is a mixing of a finished image and an image that the graphics card is still drawing, obviously triple buffering can help with this problem, but doesnt solve it like Vsync does.

 

[vsyncer]

@tranCendenZ

strange situation now ... (i post this in the "display-section" already but want ask here again 'caus i don't know if you read there ...)

i have bought now an iiyama 204dt 22" crt wich can handle the 16x12 @ 100 hz ... but the tearing does not dissapaer ... it es much lesser then with 85 hz but i still can see it
now i synced again and get 49 fps instead of 39 fps with my old display ... nice !!

but ... when i'am working on the desk (16x12 100 hz) all the text (especially in windows-menus) becomes more blurred then with 85 hz ... and with (not exeptable) 60 hz all is very sharp ...

do you know this "feature" or is my monior defect?