Do video card work harder with Vsync disabled?

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Soyo13

Gawd
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I run two client of EVE at same time on top of watching Youtube/Video chat program.

Never had problem until a month ago. Suddenly my video chat program would start lagging badly. I tried everything I can think of to fix the problem... Updated the drivers and everything... Nothing changed.

Then I tried Catalyst December's patch and at same time Enabled EVE's Vsync... Everything all smooth again. Could it be the drivers or two EVE client with Vsync disabled that caused the problem?
 
vsync means that the video card locks the frame rate to the refresh rate. this prevents "tearing" which happens when the top half of the video has been rendered but on the lower half the image has been already been updated and now is out of sync with the top.

in effect you are locking to probably 60fps, so both the computer and the video card now probably have idle time while waiting to render the next frame.

generally people hate vsync
 
AFAIK (and I may be completely wrong), V-sync enabled puts less load on the GPU.

The GPU tries to churn out as many frames per second as possible, so it will go to a high load even if the game is easy. With v-sync disabled, I can easily get my HD 5850 to put out like 300fps in TF2 under full load. If I put v-sync on, it stays steady at 60fps, and the card isn't under as much load.

This was like the SC2 overheating issues in the summer. The menus were stupidly easy for the card to render, but because the game didn't limit the FPS, the GPU would run at 100% load and crank out like thousands of frames per second and then overheat.
 
Yes they do, in my experiences anyway.

Coincidently I was playing Eve as well, with the old graphics client (before Trinity). I took note that my GPU was breaking 85c+ with my 120+ FPS and I was very concerned, I turned on V-Sync and I was running a decent 55c immediately after.
 
they do work harder, but v-sync can cause probs in some games, GTA4 being a great example
 
I never figured why someone would NOT want to turn on VSync on a 60Hz monitor. Its not like you'll see the extra frames being rendered.
 
xbonez said:
I never figured why someone would NOT want to turn on VSync on a 60Hz monitor. Its not like you'll see the extra frames being rendered.
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slowdown is more noticeable and some games have input lag with it enabled. Dead Space comes to mind.
 
Vsync is one of those things that will likely split the forum down the middle :) There's no real consensus opinion for casual gamers.
Personally I'd rather not play a game at all if it's going to tear like crazy. Vsnyc all the way for me.
 
yea you never want to turn v-sync on because it creates a large amount of mouse lag on an lcd monitor. Your games only tear if it dips below 60fps.
 
123Lanoix said:
yea you never want to turn v-sync on because it creates a large amount of mouse lag on an lcd monitor. Your games only tear if it dips below 60fps.
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Not true. I can average 200fps. in Half-Life 2 but when you look left to right quickly it tears nearly every time. Ditto for other games like Bioshock, Far Cry, etc. where I should *never* go below 60fps.
Plus, "large amounts" is in the eye of the beholder and can vary depending on whether Triple Buffering is enabled.
 
with a high frame rate the screen does not tear since the changes from one frame to another are very small and not as noticeable. the problem occurs more with a low frame rate
 
Domingo said:
Not true. I can average 200fps. in Half-Life 2 but when you look left to right quickly it tears nearly every time. Ditto for other games like Bioshock, Far Cry, etc. where I should *never* go below 60fps.
Plus, "large amounts" is in the eye of the beholder and can vary depending on whether Triple Buffering is enabled.
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I think... it's backwards.
You will never see tearing when your fps is below your monitor's refresh rate. You will only see tearing above the refresh rate.

Some games have built-in fps limiters (Not Vsync).
I find these are the best options. You stop tearing and avoid input lag. :)
 
^ That's more like what I was thinking. The games where tearing is the worst are the ones where I'm WAY over 60fps. Games like Crysis have almost no tearing because I'm typically below it. Frame limiters are definitely good if the games have 'em. The source games all seem to, Far Cry 1 & 2, etc.
 
vsync on for me, it puts way less stress on the GPUs. with it disabled, my GPU utilization would be like 80% +/- in bc2. with it on its more like 40-50%. the chips run cooler because they arent working as hard either, which means the fan isnt running crazy high either, so they arent as loud
 
Vsych on for me. Since i game on a 106 inch projector picture (in 1080p) tearing make me sick ;) That's one of the reason's a sold my PS3 and XBox, too many tearing in my games. On PC it's almost always locked to 60fps with me setup (in 1080p) (espacially with console ports)
 
in eve, often slow downs are caused by having the "chat logging" enabled, as well as a very busy window (like help, or allince) open... the system Si writeing the logs to disk, and there is so much data it causes issues.

PS my in game name is biggie fluffy, drop me a line in game if you want.
 
I never noticed tearing on my xbox360, am i missing something? Anyhow, V-Synch is on for me. I don't game online much on my computer anymore so i don't care so much about frame rates or mouse lag. give me a nice smooth experience and i'm happy. I think this is partly why my 8800 gts is still working just fine for me.
 
jiminator said:
with a high frame rate the screen does not tear since the changes from one frame to another are very small and not as noticeable. the problem occurs more with a low frame rate
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It isn't only a problem of frame rate, it is also a problem of the speed of change(in the basic example, the speed of turning in a fps).


If you increase the frame rate and also the speed of turn//change then yeah, you won't get "tearing" but you may notice that vertical objects suddenly get deformed when you do a twitchy turn(i say notice and not see, because the effect happens so fast that it tends to not register entirely).


IMHO leave vsync off for competitive games like multiplayer FPS's, and leave it on for pretty much everything else.
 
UtopiA said:
I think... it's backwards.
You will never see tearing when your fps is below your monitor's refresh rate. You will only see tearing above the refresh rate.
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Thats (hypothetically) not true,

Lets say:
G9x mouse, 5600dpi
60Hz monitor
Videocard that spits out at least 60fps.

Situation:
You are playing UT3 online and you know someone is behind you.
You turn 160 degrees to retaliate.
There will be tearing if you have any reflexes at all.
Vsync on or off will not help in this case.

Lets say your on the ball today and it took .1 Seconds to move the mouse the 1 inch required to turn 160 degrees at 5600dpi.

The Math:
(60frames/1second)/10seconds (to get frames in .1 seconds) = 6 frames.
Thats 6 frames to render 160 degrees of the gaming environment.

Other considerations:
We only see 24fps, so our brain fills in the gaps and we will only catch 2ish of those 6 frames.
No one cares if there is tearing when they are whirling around like a madman.
I (HOPE) no one actually games @ 5600dpi without cranking down the sensitivity.
 
LTomes said:
We only see 24fps, so our brain fills in the gaps and we will only catch 2ish of those 6 frames.
Click to expand...

Snipped the rest, mainly because this bit is complete and utter crap. Human beings do not see in FPS, and even if we did, it certainly isn't limited to 24FPS.
 
UtopiA said:
I think... it's backwards.
You will never see tearing when your fps is below your monitor's refresh rate. You will only see tearing above the refresh rate.

Some games have built-in fps limiters (Not Vsync).
I find these are the best options. You stop tearing and avoid input lag. :)
Click to expand...
You will often get tearing when your FPS is lower than your refresh rate. You will tear nearly every frame if it's higher. You will tear nearly twice every frame at 120fps on a 60Hz monitor. Frame limiters do nothing to stop tearing, except to cap it at ~1 tear per frame. If you want to eliminate tearing and minimise input lag, use triple buffering.

There are numerous threads here covering all this in excruciating detail, but you can find a very good summary in this article.

LTomes said:
No one cares if there is tearing when they are whirling around like a madman.
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Whirling around like a madman is when it's worst. Every vertical line suddenly looks like a staircase. It baffles me that people can obsess over IQ, insist on 24xAA and gripe about minute differences in AF quality, and yet happily put up with such a severe visual anomaly.
 
UtopiA said:
I think... it's backwards.
You will never see tearing when your fps is below your monitor's refresh rate. You will only see tearing above the refresh rate.

Some games have built-in fps limiters (Not Vsync).
I find these are the best options. You stop tearing and avoid input lag. :)
Click to expand...

Uh... yeah why wouldn't they just put in a cap.... oh yeah, because the first half of your post is false! Can we try a little harder not to spread crap?
 
Violator said:
Snipped the rest, mainly because this bit is complete and utter crap. Human beings do not see in FPS, and even if we did, it certainly isn't limited to 24FPS.
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Indeed, even though DPs are VERY careful when they do pans you still see a lot of stutter in hollywood films because 24fps is really badly synched to our eyes/brains and it ends up seeming even worse than not just totally smooth but like it it hitching unevenly.
 
Violator said:
Snipped the rest, mainly because this bit is complete and utter crap. Human beings do not see in FPS, and even if we did, it certainly isn't limited to 24FPS.
Click to expand...

It is true, and we are limited to 24. Go find some sources if you wish to disprove me, You will find none.
 
LTomes said:
It is true, and we are limited to 24. Go find some sources if you wish to disprove me, You will find none.
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I can find several. The most reliable being the fact that I've seen things at 24fps, and I've seen things at 60fps, and there is one hell of a huge difference. The only reason 24fps looks even remotely fluid in films and TV is that anything moving quickly is blurred into oblivion.

Anyway, you're the one claiming this as a fact; the burden of proof is on you.
 
i always leave it on and I've never experienced input or mouse lag in the 15+ year's I've been gaming and yes I'm using an LCD display.
 
LTomes said:
It is true, and we are limited to 24. Go find some sources if you wish to disprove me, You will find none.
Click to expand...

You are the only one claiming this as fact. It isn't. Quick google search brings up this as the 1st result. And this as the 2nd.

Don't see either of these claiming we are 'restricted to 24fps'.
 
We can easily see more than 24fps.

The 24fps myth is one produced from movies, because they were originally filmed at that speed.
Thing is that you forget that due to shutter speed, movies have blurs which help create the ilusion of movement with just 24fps in most situations, but yeah we can see more.

Heck on crt's i needed at least 85hz or i would be able to see the flicker which annoyed me to hell and back.
 
Revdarian said:
We can easily see more than 24fps.

Heck on crt's i needed at least 85hz or i would be able to see the flicker which annoyed me to hell and back.
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"Seeing framewise is simply not the way how the eye\brain system works"
Hz and fps are not the same though.

The reason 24 looks choppy/gives you a headache is because there is no way to sync every frame you see with the frames the monitor spits out. You see 'between' the frames. (Without using a concept like shutter glasses).
The same thing happens with crt monitors, hence the stuttering.

Also tearing still happens if you have a low latency like 1000 reports a second on a high dpi mouse.

Violator said:
You are the only one claiming this as fact. It isn't. Quick google search brings up this as the 1st result. And this as the 2nd.

Don't see either of these claiming we are 'restricted to 24fps'.
Click to expand...

I was going to point you to 100fps.com actually. The exact claim 100fps makes is 18 fps for fluent motion.
 
Last edited:
http://amo.net/NT/02-21-01FPS.html

This is an article I found. It may not be scholarly but it has some useful info in it. Regarding human eyes and fps. By this read I can say we can see higher rates. Some games I play my fps is reported at 80+ and I can see the shutter and tearing still.

And I am not using a CRT. :p
 
I always use vsync. Tearing drives me insane, and the gaming experience is much smoother with it on.

I haven't noticed any mouse lag, though some games perform better with it off.

Also, I don't think fps < refresh rate prevents tearing. I might be the wrong on that though =p
 
LTomes said:
It is true, and we are limited to 24. Go find some sources if you wish to disprove me, You will find none.
Click to expand...
sigh, there is always one person in every thread...

a game is not a freaking pre rendered movie where 24fps appears smooth. and yes the human eye can detect well over 24 fps.
 
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