Background: My monitor has a local dim option that produces flicker when combined with VRR. So for games where I care about HDR I have been turning off VRR.
My question is, to avoid judder and have evenly paced frames, what is the recommendation?
I have a max refresh of 160 so if I can’t hit that consistently should a cap at something that divides evenly into 160? For instance, 80 or 40. Should I avoid other common frame caps, like 60 or 120?
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Essentially yes, although frame capping is not always perfect, and your refresh rate is also not exactly aligned to the reported number, so you might still see some lingering frames every once in a while. Changing your monitor’s refresh rate to 80hz and turning on regular vsync should give you the smoothest experience, then after that is capping your fps to 80 with a 160hz refresh rate which should give you smooth frames pretty much all of the time, then last up is capping your fps to 60 with a 160hz refresh rate should result in stutters at fairly predictable and regular intervals.
https://www.testufo.com/stutter#demo=microstuttering&foreground=ffffff&background=000000&pps=720
On this site if you switch between “smooth” and “microstutters”, you should be able to notice a difference with slight frame pacing errors even at fairly high refresh rates, so you are definitely not crazy if you believe you can notice a difference between vsynced 100fps vs 160fps.
Capping frame rate is about what’s sent to the monitor.
So if you’re send 80 frames a second to a 160hz screen. Each frame from your gpu shows twice on your monitor.
Rather than try to find the optimal lower amount of frames to send to your monitor, what you want to do is change the refresh of your monitor. You can usually do it thru windows or your GPU software, usually right next to where you set resolution.
So like if you can push 120+ but want it to stay steady and match. Set your game settings to 120 cap, and underclock your monitor to 120.
If you can’t push 120 consistently, set both at the same lower number.
Judder is when it hits a weird ratio where like a frame shows on a monitor once, then the next frame shows for two monitor flashes before the GPU sends a new one. As far as I know anything past 60fps judder just doesn’t exist.
That being said, you’re likely to not even be able to notice the difference between doing all that and just keeping on doing what you’re doing.
Like, seriously the difference ain’t just negligible, it will be imperceptible.
We can only conscious perceive 60, maybe as low as 30fps. Everything over that is just giving a tiny advantage in picking up direction changes because it’s more likely you pick up a frame where the change started. Like, the higher the fps the more likely what you see picks up the change.
Which I think is why judder stops being a thing past 60hz, even if it’s happening, we can’t tell.
So it’s interesting to learn about. But these days it’s pretty archaic knowledge
Maybe it’s in my head, but I feel like if I am running a game at a weird rate, like hover 100 it’s pretty noticeable with VRR on and off in terms of smoothness.
So you are saying the cap doesn’t matter so much as the consistency to hit that?
Wait, are you just turning VRR off and on to test the difference?
You’ll notice it if you play one long enough to get used to it and switch. Consciousnessly we only get like 60hz, but especially with really fast paced shooters, the parts of our brains that process it get used to it being perfect. And feeling “weird” is just that part of our brain signally to the rest that something has changed. It’s a change in perception and that could be a big deal sometimes.
If you switch back and forth that will always happen, it’s meant to.
But if you have VRR, just use VRR. Literally nothing is going to be better than that. Then only issues you’d have is if VRR range wasn’t all the way up to the max 180hz. That’s what I mean, there’s likely something else going on.
But just pick one and stick with it and it’ll stop seeming weird.
Read my original post - for HDR content I need to turn off VRR. Not ideal but it’s the reality for my monitor.
Hey little curious, can you tell us the display model?
CoolerMaster Tempest GP27U
I would not recommend it for anything besides running Windows as it has issue connecting to Linux and Mac devices (duel booting Linux and have a MacBook).
Actually I wouldn’t recommend it period. I’ve had a lot of problems with it.
I’m sorry to hear.
I’ve not heard of a display specifically not working well with Linux (or other operating systems). Are you within the return window?
Unfortunately no.
