Vsync On = Mouse Lag

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Ub3rn00b

[H]ard|Gawd
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I've seen a couple threads that attempted to address this issue, but those were all threads started on a different topic and the mouse lag issue was talked about but never resolved.

So, anyone have a resolution for this? If I get 125fps + in a game, I'll run with vsync off and have no problems with tearing and whatnot. It's still there, but very minor.
If I get below 125fps, I notice tearing. So, if I can't run a game at 125+fps, I choose to use vsync. Makes everything very smooth and nice to look at. The problem is that with vsync on, there is a noticible mouse lag. It doesn't matter what mouse I use. I've tried 4 different mice and they all acted the same way.

I'm using an nvidia 8800GT video card. I was using an SLI setup before and never used vsync. Would very much like to do so in a few games right now...if I could get rid of this lag issue.
 
Triple buffering can cause this to a degree, but I prefer the way things look with both triple buffering and V-Sync on. I've had this problem in the past with some games, but I haven't seen it lately. I prefer a nice constant synced rate to three million frames per second with tearing. Some games' mouse smoothing can cause this as well I've noticed. You may try playing around with those settings. How many games (or better yet, engines,) have you noticed this on. Everything? or just a particular one or set of them?
 
J3RK said:
Triple buffering can cause this to a degree, but I prefer the way things look with both triple buffering and V-Sync on. I've had this problem in the past with some games, but I haven't seen it lately. I prefer a nice constant synced rate to three million frames per second with tearing. Some games' mouse smoothing can cause this as well I've noticed. You may try playing around with those settings. How many games (or better yet, engines,) have you noticed this on. Everything? or just a particular one or set of them?
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Each game and engine may have it's own fixes for this. If I can collect all those fixes and apply them, I might have to do that if there isn't another way. I was hoping for an over all fix like maybe it's a driver issue or a video card control panel fix or whatever.
Right now, for COD 4, I'm using /com_maxfps 60 which is my monitor's refresh rate so it's CLOSE to the good fix for it....but still not as smooth looking as having vsync on.

The games I've noticed this on are :

COD 2
Quake 3 (same engine as COD 2)
COD 4 (similar engine)
Quake 4
Unreal Tournament

I haven't really played much else recently. May have been there in FEAR as well and maybe TF2.
 
The Quake series is where I noticed this with triple buffering on. (check your video card settings for this) Quake IV specifically has some strange effects from its mouse speed settings. I had to move both sliders back and forth to varying degrees before I found something both responsive and accurate (especially when zoomed in.) Funny that these were the games that I had in mind when I mentioned everything in my first reply. :D

I actually reduced the effect in those games enough to leave TB on through various tweaks back when I had the problems though. (TB makes things silky smooth, so I don't like having it off.)

Strangely enough though, I haven't seen this issue on my more recent systems. (only closer to when Q4 actually came out)
 
Ub3rn00b said:
I've seen a couple threads that attempted to address this issue, but those were all threads started on a different topic and the mouse lag issue was talked about but never resolved.

So, anyone have a resolution for this? If I get 125fps + in a game, I'll run with vsync off and have no problems with tearing and whatnot. It's still there, but very minor.
If I get below 125fps, I notice tearing. So, if I can't run a game at 125+fps, I choose to use vsync. Makes everything very smooth and nice to look at. The problem is that with vsync on, there is a noticible mouse lag. It doesn't matter what mouse I use. I've tried 4 different mice and they all acted the same way.

I'm using an nvidia 8800GT video card. I was using an SLI setup before and never used vsync. Would very much like to do so in a few games right now...if I could get rid of this lag issue.
Click to expand...

Mouse lag is just a byproduct of vsync, depending on how the engine is written it's usualy not noticeable, tripple buffering amplifies this effect by the way.

In general the higher your frame rate the more obvious tearing should become, above 125fps you should be seeing far more tearing than with something less.
 
Frosteh said:
Mouse lag is just a byproduct of vsync, depending on how the engine is written it's usualy not noticeable, tripple buffering amplifies this effect by the way.

In general the higher your frame rate the more obvious tearing should become, above 125fps you should be seeing far more tearing than with something less.
Click to expand...


Ok...well i experience just the opposite of that tearing effect. At 120fps and higher, it's barely noticeable. From 70fps to around 105fps, it's horrible.
 
at 120FPS and a 60Hz monitor you've getting 2 images per refresh on average which will leave on average 2 tear lines per frame, with something a lot less, closer to 60FPS you're getting 1 image per refresh and so 1 tear line on average.

In a similar way as you go above 120 fps you will start to aproach 3 frames per refresh and so again get more tearing.
 
Frosteh said:
at 120FPS and a 60Hz monitor you've getting 2 images per refresh on average which will leave on average 2 tear lines per frame, with something a lot less, closer to 60FPS you're getting 1 image per refresh and so 1 tear line on average.

In a similar way as you go above 120 fps you will start to aproach 3 frames per refresh and so again get more tearing.
Click to expand...

Yeah I understand the logic of what you're saying. All I'm saying is that...well...you're wrong.
In some games with uncapped framerate, at 60hz, I'll show 300+ frames per second and the game will be very smooth. You're saying that I should have 5 images at a time on the screen at that rate, but I don't. It's very smooth playing. And at just over 60 frames per second until almost 110 frames per second, there is definitely noticible tearing.

I'm not trying to debunk your logic. I'm just giving you real word data.

Whatever the case, I have mouse lag with vsync on locked at 60fps to my 60hz and with vsync off, no matter what the framerate, I have no mouse lag even if i have the in game framerate capped at 60fps.
 
If the refresh is 60, and your game is running 120, then I fail to see how it would tear. You're getting two full frames written to the buffer/screen. Wouldn't it only tear when you have some odd value, and the difference gets drawn over the currently displayed full frame?
 
Ub3rn00b said:
Whatever the case, I have mouse lag with vsync on locked at 60fps to my 60hz and with vsync off, no matter what the framerate, I have no mouse lag even if i have the in game framerate capped at 60fps.
Click to expand...

I wish I knew the exact point when my games stopped doing that. I refuse to play without VSync and TB enabled. Right now, none of my games lag, including the ones that used to at some point. I think Quake 4 might have stopped doing it after one of the patches, but that wouldn't explain the other games. UT3 is snappy as can be as well.

One of the things I used to do in the Quake engine games is mess with the mouse X and mouse Y parameters (I think there are a few related commands for both X and Y movement) in the CFG file.
 
This is really the only down side of having an LCD that I can think or at the moment. Have to run with vsync on or get more than 120fps in a game. So if you can get a solid 60fps, run with vsync on or limit the game's engine to 60fps because with vsync on, I get mouse lag OR run at least 120fps and run with vsync off. No in between on this :p
 
Thankfully, this should stop being a problem once LCD monitors get 120Hz processing, so that tearing will be too fast to notice.

I miss my CRT though....at 85Hz, I could not notice one bit of tearing, no matter what the framerate was (or at least it was too minimal to notice).
 
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