Your opinion on Vertical Synchronization

on your monitor, you won''t ever get a higher framerate than your monitors refresh rate, so there''s no point in rendering more frames than you will see. If you disable it, there can be that tearing, and there''s no real con of enabling it. It doesn''t look any better or smoother if you disable vsync.

Most games have that option to turn it of for people who want to benchmark their system. If you just bought a geforce fx or so, you want to have a higher framerate than you used to have on your old tnt. Even if it looks equally smooth.

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There is the problem of having the fps drop below something like 60fps (assuming a 60hz monitor refresh) and having to wait 1/30th of a second for a frame rather than just 1/60th of a second. (since you have to wait for 2 full vsyncs to happen before the frame is displayed) This can make the game seem like its lagging like crazy or poorly programmed, etc..

If your fps is always going to stay above the refresh of the monitor, then its not a big deal.

Personally I turn vsync off on everything.


-=[ Megahertz ]=-

Many monitors have a very high refresh rate: 100, even 120 hz. Most likely you will not be able to render scene in such a small amount of time, so better turn it off.

Have you guys ever actually played a game w/ VSync on? I''ll gladly take a frame rate hit to have VSync enabled. The animation on a good game becomes flawless and completely smooth. Maybe my eyes are more sensitive to it, but I can DEFINTELY see when VSync is disabled, and I can''t stand it.

If I can get @60 fps w/ VSync on, I''m turning it on.

Just my own -wrong- opinion.
-- Aesthetic

personaly i always go for on, the tearing alone is enuff to annoy me.
I''ve got my monitor forced to 75hz on all rez (I tried 100hz on some but it seemed to hurt and 60hz has the same effect) and games run fine.

As for what you should do, leave it on by default but give the option to turn it off in game.

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Original post by Succinct
Have you guys ever actually played a game w/ VSync on? I''ll gladly take a frame rate hit to have VSync enabled. The animation on a good game becomes flawless and completely smooth. Maybe my eyes are more sensitive to it, but I can DEFINTELY see when VSync is disabled, and I can''t stand it.

If I can get @60 fps w/ VSync on, I''m turning it on.

Just my own -wrong- opinion.
-- Aesthetic

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Of course, if you can''t get 60 FPS constant with it on, then it looks REALLY REALLY bad. In some games, I can get 100fps with vysync off but only 20-40 eratic fps with it on. It doesn''t make sense, but it happens, and I wouldn''t want it forced on in such cases.

Veteran quake/counterstrike players don''t like vsync because they want to get as much fps as possible. They want 200 fps when there are 2 models on screen because it might lag when suddenly 8 appear.
The problem is that if you wait for vsync at eg. 70 Hz and you cannot make it in 1/70th second, then it will wait for the next one, so your frame rate suddenly drops from 70 to 35 fps.

I pity the person who has a computer which can do 200fps with 2 models and only 35fps with 8, i run at a capped 72fps and never see it drop off that with vsync, even back in my TNT2 days i could run @ 1024*768*32 without dropping below 60fps

If you make sure that the WCET of the game is so good that you won''t miss a frame then Vsync should be used cause it looks much better. But as said before if you run at 60 fps on 60hz and one frame misses it''s deadline then you will get 30 fps on the monitor. To sum it up, the fps-count is not the important thing. Th best way to make a game run smooth is to target a constant execution time. We all now that q3 gamers and so on prefer 300 fps or so. But that''s just becuase when the game get''s really messy, you still stay above the monitor hz. If you run q3 at 65 hz, at some messy moments it will run in 30 hz or even 15 hz.

Ok, seems to me like there is no right or wrong answer, but apparently most people prefer to leave VSync on. Thanks guys for your input.

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Original post by _the_phantom_
I pity the person who has a computer which can do 200fps with 2 models and only 35fps with 8, i run at a capped 72fps and never see it drop off that with vsync, even back in my TNT2 days i could run @ 1024*768*32 without dropping below 60fps

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You epenis is giantic, sir!

Seems nobody in this thread heard about triple buffering .

It minimizes the huge framerate loss with Vsync on.

[edited by - M3d10n on December 11, 2003 10:14:52 AM]

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Original post by quasar3d
on your monitor, you won''t ever get a higher framerate than your monitors refresh rate, so there''s no point in rendering more frames than you will see. If you disable it, there can be that tearing, and there''s no real con of enabling it. It doesn''t look any better or smoother if you disable vsync.

Most games have that option to turn it of for people who want to benchmark their system. If you just bought a geforce fx or so, you want to have a higher framerate than you used to have on your old tnt. Even if it looks equally smooth.

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Yeah, most games also use it if the frame rates arent'' at or above 60 as well, since if it is running at 59fps, with v-sync on would run at 30, which IS a big difference than 59. Also, the annoying thing about that is, some frames it may hit 60 and just catch, others it just misses and it jumps back and forth between 30 and 60! Now, there isn''t a good way to check for the card always being over 60fps to know if it should be turned on, because some cases it may be, and others it may not be. Best bet is to leave it optional, or let them set it from their drivers!

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Original post by M3d10n
Seems nobody in this thread heard about triple buffering .

It minimizes the huge framerate loss with Vsync on.

[edited by - M3d10n on December 11, 2003 10:14:52 AM]

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Sorry, but no. It just means it renders 2 frames in advance, but if it''s still swapping at 30fps, it doesn''t matter how many frames in advance you''re rendering, it''s still going to max at 30fps.

Draw first frame @ 45fps, swaps to back buffer.. while waiting for vsync to display, renders to second back buffer @ 45fps, first back-buffer goes on screen, draws to first buffer @ 45fps.. still has to wait for vsync to flip that one... so all the sudden, your program is waiting to draw to a buffer again, @ 30fps... so it takes a few extra draw frames to hit get capped, doesn''t solve the problem after the first 3 frames are drawn.

I second the comment about triple buffering... triple buffer, and V-Sync.. then have a well designed system to balance the engine load (ie get more physics time in the spare gap until the V-Sync etc). This can give apparently smooth performance.. and a more consistant framerate.. that people tend to interpret as being smoother (average player.. not framerate junky who justs wants to see 200fps and he is happy). In fact.. I think I''ll make a fake fps counter that ups the reading by 2x to please even more people .

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Original post by Captian Goatse
You epenis is giantic, sir!

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Why thank you sir, it the pills I got from email spam, works wonders

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Original post by chacha
Ok, seems to me like there is no right or wrong answer, but apparently most people prefer to leave VSync on. Thanks guys for your input.

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But there is a correct answer... it''s a near religious issue with some people. Some need it on, some need it off, and others don''t care. To make everyone happy you just need to make it optional. One little checkbox. 10 minutes of your time, and you''ll make tons of people happier (well, tons of people if you release a hit game).

Most games leave it as an option, as you noted in your initial post. If there is annoying tearing, ruining the game, I turn it on. If there it''s causing excessive slowdown, I turn it off. If either one happens and I can''t fix it, I delete the game and make sure I don''t rush out for that companies next release.

Try both, whichever you like better is what you should use. It should be optional.

On a side note this discussion about refresh rates have given me another think to slam people with when they upgrade to go from 200 to 300 FPS. Already tell them there eyes can''t tell the difference between my 60 and there 300.

At 300 fps without v-sync you might as well use single buffering.

[edited by - PinkyAndThaBrain on December 11, 2003 3:12:55 PM]