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Help me decide sync or no sync?

Z

zombix

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Sep 27, 2005
Messages
1,164
I love my 8800 gts but im wondering if i should be using vsync or not? Im running a LCD monitor and i heard that vsync is for crt's? I might be totally wrong though.

I have noticed in different games that performance acctually increases in speed with vsync disabled.
 
If your card can consistently pump out frames at a rate faster than your refresh, then go ahead and use vsync. If it can't, then you risk losing big chunks of fps if you use vsync.
 
Depends on the situation. If you can't tell, or don't care, don't enable vertical sync. If you're interested in viewing only completely rendered frames, then by all means, enable vertical sync, and enable triple buffering where applicable. You bought a pretty high end card, and it seems applicable to start enjoying the luxuries of high end cards, so I'd recommend using vsync.

Oh, and vertical sync is useful for any and all types of monitors because it's a GPU-based functionality.
 
Vsync is a necessity with my 8800gtx and LCD monitor. Makes everything nice and smooth and gets rid of the tearing.
 
Thanks for clearing up some confusion about vsync. Guess ill test out some games with it enabled.
 
Try playing with vsync on for a few weeks. Then suddenly switch it off one day and see what happens.

If you normally get 60+ fps then I bet you'll suddenly be saying, "WTF? And wondering what is going on with your screen tearing in half all over the place."
 
zombix said:
Thanks for clearing up some confusion about vsync. Guess ill test out some games with it enabled.
Click to expand...
just go on a game by game basis since performance can vary so much. if you are using Vista vsync may not work in some opengl games unless you have the latest drivers.
 
Five easy steps to determine if you like vsync:

1. Turn it on

2. Play a game

3. Turn it off

4. Play a game

5. Decide

Vsync prevents "tearing". Tearing can be described as taking a photograph, tearing it in half horizontally, then putting it back together without getting it lined up quite right. Some people don't notice it, some people do. If you don't notice it, I would advise you not to look for it :p. I found it and now I enable vsync whenever performance allows it.
 
prtzlboy said:
Five easy steps to determine if you like vsync:

1. Turn it on

2. Play a game

3. Turn it off

4. Play a game

5. Decide

Vsync prevents "tearing". Tearing can be described as taking a photograph, tearing it in half horizontally, then putting it back together without getting it lined up quite right. Some people don't notice it, some people do. If you don't notice it, I would advise you not to look for it :p. I found it and now I enable vsync whenever performance allows it.
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
The thing that gets me using vsync in fps games is that the mouse seems to drag a little behind (lag?) si I mainly don't use vsync. In fps games you'll be moving the mouse around at lightening speeds so no time to spot any tearing anyway :). In say, driving games if the fps are high enough I would opt to turn vsync on.
 
I turn on vsync. It makes for a much smoother and more stable display (as long as the card is managing to supply over 60 FPS).
 
SuperKeijo said:
The thing that gets me using vsync in fps games is that the mouse seems to drag a little behind (lag?) si I mainly don't use vsync. In fps games you'll be moving the mouse around at lightening speeds so no time to spot any tearing anyway :). In say, driving games if the fps are high enough I would opt to turn vsync on.
Click to expand...

I don't have any appreciable mouse lag when V-Sync is enabled.
 
When I play Counter Strike 1.6, I have it turned off.
I can not tell the difference between it on or off.

I just notice, 60 FPS or 100 FPS.
My LCD locks out at 72Hz, but I just leave it at 60.

SamSung SyncMaster 712n, 17"s of joy!

My friend who plays CS 1.6 REALLY competitively told me to force VSync off, so I can have 100 FPS.

I can't argue with 100 FPS.

Is this wise?

I just see VSync as an option that locks my FPS to 60.
I honestly don't notice tearing. Then again, my eyes are terrible.
 
ShiningHolden said:
When I play Counter Strike 1.6, I have it turned off.
I can not tell the difference between it on or off.

I just notice, 60 FPS or 100 FPS.
My LCD locks out at 72Hz, but I just leave it at 60.

SamSung SyncMaster 712n, 17"s of joy!

My friend who plays CS 1.6 REALLY competitively told me to force VSync off, so I can have 100 FPS.

I can't argue with 100 FPS.

Is this wise?

I just see VSync as an option that locks my FPS to 60.
I honestly don't notice tearing. Then again, my eyes are terrible.
Click to expand...
From what I understand the potential frame rate of any monitor (be it LCD or CRT) is dependant on the refresh rate, which if set to 60hz will allow the user to actually see no more than 60fps.
 
ShiningHolden said:
When I play Counter Strike 1.6, I have it turned off.
I can not tell the difference between it on or off.

I just notice, 60 FPS or 100 FPS.
My LCD locks out at 72Hz, but I just leave it at 60.

SamSung SyncMaster 712n, 17"s of joy!

My friend who plays CS 1.6 REALLY competitively told me to force VSync off, so I can have 100 FPS.

I can't argue with 100 FPS.

Is this wise?

I just see VSync as an option that locks my FPS to 60.
I honestly don't notice tearing. Then again, my eyes are terrible.
Click to expand...

If you've tried it both ways and don't see the difference then I wouldn't worry about it. Just remember in the future if you do notice it you can always turn it on.
 
trek554 said:
From what I understand the potential frame rate of any monitor (be it LCD or CRT) is dependant on the refresh rate, which if set to 60hz will allow the user to actually see no more than 60fps.
Click to expand...
Basically correct. Some game engines do behave somewhat differently at different frame rates, however (this is sometimes referred to as the tic rate, or essentially a global polling rate). In Quake 3, for instance, certain trick jumps are only possible at 250fps, and because Source does not have a fixed tic rate, you can expect similar sorts of things with Source-based games.

It gets a little messy, which is why Carmack locked the tic rate in Doom 3+.
 
I don't have to use V-Sync in Doom 3 and Quake 4, they seem to be constant 60FPS almost 100% of the time with no tearing, so I don't bother enabling it. Typically though, games like FEAR and anything source engine based, the tearing is very pronounced and I always use V-Sync.
 
Dan_D said:
I don't have to use V-Sync in Doom 3 and Quake 4, they seem to be constant 60FPS almost 100% of the time with no tearing, so I don't bother enabling it. Typically though, games like FEAR and anything source engine based, the tearing is very pronounced and I always use V-Sync.
Click to expand...
FEAR is definitely the worst when it comes to tearing. The tearing along with the flickering lights was almost enough to cause a seizure.

Doom 3 and basically all other games still bother me enough that I prefer to use vsync on those as well.
 
Dan_D said:
I don't have to use V-Sync in Doom 3 and Quake 4, they seem to be constant 60FPS almost 100% of the time with no tearing, so I don't bother enabling it. Typically though, games like FEAR and anything source engine based, the tearing is very pronounced and I always use V-Sync.
Click to expand...


I had alot of issues with tearing in Doom 3, Quake 4, and Prey. It was to the point where it was very distracting to the gameplay (for me at least). Once I turned V-sync on all my issues went away and I never looked back. Though, I will agree with you on FEAR. I had V-sync on in that game from the beginning.
 
As others have said, test with it on and off in games, but make sure the FPS counter is enabled, if you keep dropping to 30fps or 20fps you might find you have to lower some settings to keep that frame rate consistently.
 
Why are you guys talking about refresh rate on LCD? It basically means nothing. The pixel response time is what maters. I've never had vsync on, ever. I have also never had a tear, and I am a high sensitive twitch styled player. Why use vsync on an LCD when your gpu can pump out 120-250fps, and your lcd's response time can keep up.
 
LCD's still refresh at a set rate, 60Hz usualy. The response time is the time it takes for the pixel to change colour, it doesn't do it faster than 60Hz though.

So a 5ms response time doesn't mean your monitor refreshes at 1000/5 = 200 times a second, it still only displays 60 different frames

You still get tearing on LCD monitors without vsync.

At least this is how I understand it.
 
Don't forget triple buffering as well. If you enable vsync then your framerate will drop from 60 to 30 if it ever goes below 60, suddenly giving you a noticeable difference. With triple buffering on this doesn't occur, however you will notice more 'input lag' as the game is buffering several frames ahead.

Since vsync + triple buffering effectively gives the game a 60fps cap (on LCDs) with a penalty of input lag, wouldn't it be better if games just imposed a 60fps cap across the board? Wouldn't that mean that we would no longer need to use vsync or triple buffering and not have to suffer input lag? Was John Carmack doing us all a big favour by introducing this feature?
 
A cap at 60fps doesn't eliminate tearing on its own, even if your frame rate and refresh rate are bang on exactly the same, the frames need to be synced with the refresh rate, that's always going to incur a drop to 30fps/20fps/15fps etc if your card can't manage to keep up.

Input lag on tripple buffering is too much for me, I'd rather just turn down settings to ensure a constant 60+fps, thats not so much of a problem for a 8800GTX but I can see how others might struggle. I'm one of the lucky ones too busy fragging to notice tearing :)
 
Stalker is particuarly bad for tearing on my system.

Personaly if a game tears I prefer to have Vsync on, perhaps my reactions just aren't twichy enough, but i've never realy noticed any imput lag that (for me) upping the mouse sensitivity didn't fix.

But if theres tearing (or alasing) I always find myself being distracted and looking at the tear (or jaggies) rather than the game.

If i don't notice tearing I'll leave the game at it's default (be that off or on)
 
I'm using a 22" gateway and I must enable vsync because my 8800gtx puts out crazy frames and the 60hz of the monitor cant keep up. Tearing is unbearable on Source games. Impossible to overlook and therefore vsync is a must. Not only that but even if I were to have vsync off and the frames are past the 100's, the game doenst feel right. It seems jerky and not smooth. Everything just gets a lot better with vsync on.

I had the same mentality also that if the game wont allow higher than 60fps then I shouldnt need to enable vsync or triple buffering. This is not the case though. There is still tearing in games like Quake 4 for example.
 
Chaoticon said:
I've never had vsync on, ever. I have also never had a tear, and I am a high sensitive twitch styled player.
Click to expand...
I'd only believe this if you rub Vaseline on your eyeballs prior to playing, or if you have vertical sync forced and don't realize it.
 
i use to have vsynch on for FEAR multiplayer, framerates vary from 20-50, vsynch on it feels like the display is less respnsive and bogs down, almost like the game has to slow down to catch up with the display (maybe thats why they say to only enable it when ur fps is 60+). But I tend to favor the responsivness of Vsynch OFF in super fast paced games.
 
phide said:
I'd only believe this if you rub Vaseline on your eyeballs prior to playing, or if you have vertical sync forced and don't realize it.
Click to expand...
no kidding. that had to be one of the dumbest things any one has ever posted on here. ;)
 
Ok Vsync or no Vsync? If you get tearing use it! if ya dont then dont use it ,Its that simple!

By all means make shure you use the Display Driver for you MONITOR and the Max Hz for your Resolution. This means quiker mouse and game response and your card will be in sync with your monitor. Ive seen too many people say there laggy with a high end card and fail to load thier Monitor driver. This impacts the card more than Vysnc most of the time. Mainly on LCDs ;)
 
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