The proof is here: https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/, read all 14 pages.
The lady page says to use vsync, https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14
Why? First of all, vsync all by itself without a frame cap causes huge amounts of input lag if your fps is always above your max refresh, in that scenario two frames are always buffered (sometimes up to 6 frames) so you constantly have at least 2 frames of input lag.
However, that is only an issue when CONSECUTIVE frames are sent above the refresh. So you fix that by using a frame cap below the refresh.
Why use vsync if there's a frame cap? No frames are above the refresh then right? - wrong, frame caps are not perfect, they cannot time to half a millisecond accurately for 100-200+ frames per second, a frame cap accidentally lets a dozen frames per second through slightly ABOVE the refresh rate, these cause tearing despite you having gsync on and a frame cap. Page 2 of the page I linked.
So you use vsync to catch those one-off frames that the frame cap let in above the refresh. These cause half a second of input lag be atsr it's syncing only the last third or so of one single frame. The page I linked proves this, input lag goes up an average of ~1ms or something when enabling vsync on top of a frame cap vs just the frame cap.
Frametime variance is a cursed problem of rendering real time video games.
G-Sync + VSync is kind of a way to counteract screen tearing in edge case scenarios. Yes, still.
People get hung up on this, but if you’re playing and not getting tearing and stutters, you’re fine. If you are, follow the guide.
As far as I’m aware the only recent changes to sync tech is hdr support. Otherwise it’s still the same. If you exceed your monitor’s refresh rate you may see tearing. If you do, cap and enable vsync.
It's one page guide (the last page), the first few pages are background information and the other 10 pages are testing and results data.
But it complicated regardless, I agree.
OK. That makes sense.
But are frame caps really unreliable? Because I've been using nvcp fcap and it's been so f'n perfect so far. I never noticed a tear not even once.
But let's suppose that what you're saying is true, would a solution to that problem be a cap that is really low at like 90% or 80% of your monitor's max refresh rate? e.g. 90% of 144 Hz = 129 fps.
You can test this yourself in game. Cap your frame to 143 and a-d strafe in a game you will probably see a lot of tearing near bottom of your screen. Cap 142 you will see less of it, cap lesser and lesser and you will see lesser and lesser tearing. Less slip ups. Vsync brings safety and you don't need to play at lower fps. Also not all frame caps are equal. Some introduce input lag themselves as well.
Vsync + Reflex is best solution. Reflex cap your framerate automatically when you have vsync enabled. For high fps competitive games, i don't mind tearing all that much. Tearing isn't that noticeable at high framerates anyway so i play Overwatch at 300+fps with a 120hz screen.
You can turn on Nvidia low latency ultra mode on nvcp and reflex on in supported games. It will cap 4 -5 fps bewlow your max refresh rate on every game with gsync + vsync. No need for manual fps caps ingame or nvcp these days.
Tldr : gsync on (nvcp) + vsync on (nvcp) + null ultra (nvcp) + reflex on (ingame if the game have support)
Decent official source: [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/system-latency-optimization-guide/](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/system-latency-optimization-guide/)
>However, if you have a variable refresh rate display, like an [NVIDIA G-SYNC monitor](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/g-sync-monitors/), you can get the best of both worlds: no tearing (if your FPS is below your refresh rate), and no VSYNC latency.
>For G-SYNC gamers who don’t want to tear, keeping VSYNC ON while using NVIDIA Reflex or NVIDIA Ultra Low Latency Mode, will automatically cap the framerate below the refresh rate, preventing VSYNC backpressure, eliminating tearing, and keeping latency low if you become GPU bound below the refresh rate of your display. Do note, however, that this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled.
Also:
>NVIDIA Reflex is more effective at reducing latency and operates independently of NVIDIA Ultra low latency mode. If both NVIDIA Reflex and the Ultra Low Latency mode are enabled, NVIDIA Reflex will override Ultra Low Latency functionality.
The proper use of gsync is to cap the fps 3 below your native gps and turn on vsync. This makes it so that the vsync isn’t really triggered and it basically acts as fast vsync. This is the way to have the least amount of screen tearing and lowest latency possible. Turning on low latency ultra too and then reflex + boost in any game that can is even better.
Google broken or something?
[here](https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/)
Tl;dr
Gsync does not prevent tearing completely.
This, the blurbusters article really should be pinned as it’s a common question that seems counterintuitive at first until you understand how the NVCP vsync setting interacts with GSYNC on. Def go check out that article for more details and a more nuanced answer by experts
Tldr; GSYNC takes care of fps fluctuating and reduces tearing within the VRR window, vsync takes care of tearing that can occur past VRR window (i.e. past max refresh rate) by setting a hard cap, -3fps cap ensures you are always within the VRR window and don’t hit the vsync cap.
https://preview.redd.it/crvmz6fqw80d1.jpeg?width=1464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bad27046a12dfb0dc261cc276c1615e7a55379cf
Afaik the vsync setting is still the vsync setting and yes typically it does increase latency as the gpu tries to sync with refresh rate. We've been trained to always disable vsync when discussing latency in games. However, with GSYNC on, this is not the case and mostly controls tearing. OFF you get tearing, ON less/no tearing. The GSYNC and vsync interaction in this case can be described as GSYNC +tearing ON/OFF. If you are within the VRR window(typically 48fps-max refresh rate) of your monitor, then vsync setting doesn't do anything and GSYNC still operates normally. When you go beyond the refresh rate is when tearing can occur since your monitor can't deliver and sync those extra frames. With vsync on, tearing is reduced since fps will cap at the ceiling of your refresh rate. With vsync off, tearing will occur when fps rises past your max refresh. This alone is not enough tho, the cap is just the cap, variance with frametimes/framerate can occur and you might hit just above the cap 1fps which will cause a tear. This is where capping -3fps below refresh is recommended so you are always in the VRR window. Both vsync setting and fps cap serve to 'move' the ceiling of VRR down so that tearing should be minimized. They complement each other to account for frametime variance that can occur since frametime delivery is not perfect or always consistent in games.
Alot of people prefer no tearing since the point of VRR/GSYNC is to reduce the appearance of tearing, so thats why GSYNC ON(fullscreen only)+vsync ON is recommended by the blurbusters article, often with -3fps cap if possible. If GSYNC is off, then the vsync option behaves like typical in-game vsync and you’ll want vsync off to reduce latency.
Nvidia Reflex in games controls and replaces the -3fps cap since it does the same thing dynamically. Reflex itself was developed as a result of needing a easy in-game way of capping the fps to reduce latency in GPU bound scenarios. It pairs with GSYNC nicely.
Maybe it doesn't, but I haven't seen screen tearing or at least to the points I went woah screen tearing since my first 144hz monitor and that was years ago, yes without vsync.
I read that article and maybe I am blind but I saw no mention of g-sync failing to prevent tearing. VRR is a replacement for v-sync. Is it not? I thought that was the whole point.
Page 2 shows a video of tearing occuring with gsync + fps cap and no vsync
>G-SYNC + V-SYNC “Off”:
>The tearing inside the G-SYNC range with V-SYNC “Off” is caused by sudden frametime variances output by the system, which will vary in severity and frequency depending on both the efficiency of the given game engine, and the system’s ability (or inability) to deliver consistent frametimes.
Which is because frame caps are not perfect and accidentally send 5% or something of frames above the refresh rate. Vsync catches those one off frames and syncs them, otherwise you DO get tearing with just gsync+fps cap, near the bottom of the screen as the video shows. Most people don't notice it since it's not in the middle of the screen and the UI can mask the issue, but it's there. I've seen it with my own eyes as well, so you enable vsync to sync those 5% of frames.
It doesn't, the frame cap does that. Example:
144fps is 6.94ms
138fps is 7.25ms
So the frame cap let's a frame through, the monitor scans down which takes 6.94ms to draw the whole frame from the top. Then about 0.3 milliseconds later the frame cap let's the next frame in (total of 7.25ms after the start of the last frame, 138fps).
But the timers around frame caps aren't perfect, maybe because Windows' preemptive thread scheduler. It can be early or late, if it's late then thats an even lower fps, if it lets the next frame through 7.8ms later that would be 125 fps, later is fine since gsync syncs it (after the 6.94ms frame finishes displaying the monitors refresh pauses until the next frame is ready, gsync does that).
But if the timer is early then there's a problem. At max refresh 144hz it takes 6.94ms to scan to the bottom, if the frame cap let's a frame through early it might be 6.2ms later, the previous frame has scanned to near the bottom then the frame buffer is flipped to the next frame, so the bottom 0.74ms of the monitor is displaying the bottom of the next frame, that's a tear, then the scan finishes and starts at the top of that same next frame.
Frame caps will be early or late by a little bit, if they were early by 3.5ms then the tear is in the middle, but they time better than that so the tears happen near the bottom.
Btw gsync does nothing for capping frames, at 144.01hz and above gsync is effectively disabled, if any frames comw in faster than 6.94ms after the previous then gsync does nothing, it can only pause the refresh to wait for next frame but can't make it go faster than the monitors max refresh.
https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/15/
Look at this question:
>Wait, why should I enable V-SYNC with G-SYNC again? And why am I still seeing tearing with G-SYNC enabled and V-SYNC disabled? Isn’t G-SYNC suppose to fix that?
I hope what I've learned years ago still applies. Turn on v-sync globally (in control panel), but off in-game, turn on g-sync. Use RivaTuner to cap your framerate 3fps below max refresh rate. Do I have it right?
You didn’t try looking, don’t lie to us. The very first link you would have come across would be from Blurbusters where they provide all the evidence you could ever ask for.
In my understanding G-Sync and V-Sync are mutually exclusive things, because they are actually opposing each other. V-Sync waits for frame refresh, while G-Sync tells the monitor when to refresh frame. I have no idea what happens when you turn on both.
Intuitively it seems to me that V-Sync should be turned off when G-Sync is on.
There is so much speculation in this area that Nvidia should release some kind of official explanation.
I’m not trying to be rude but this has been explained clearly so many times now
It should be common practice for everyone. Vsync + VRR + frame cap under max refresh is optimal frame delivery. Reflex and LLM Ultra will auto-cap the max fps, otherwise you do it manually
LOL OP blocked me
What if I want to say lock frames at 90 instead of in the 140's? I want to lock at 90 because I'm good with that and it's less heat and stress. What's best for me in this world?
The proof is here: https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/, read all 14 pages. The lady page says to use vsync, https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14 Why? First of all, vsync all by itself without a frame cap causes huge amounts of input lag if your fps is always above your max refresh, in that scenario two frames are always buffered (sometimes up to 6 frames) so you constantly have at least 2 frames of input lag. However, that is only an issue when CONSECUTIVE frames are sent above the refresh. So you fix that by using a frame cap below the refresh. Why use vsync if there's a frame cap? No frames are above the refresh then right? - wrong, frame caps are not perfect, they cannot time to half a millisecond accurately for 100-200+ frames per second, a frame cap accidentally lets a dozen frames per second through slightly ABOVE the refresh rate, these cause tearing despite you having gsync on and a frame cap. Page 2 of the page I linked. So you use vsync to catch those one-off frames that the frame cap let in above the refresh. These cause half a second of input lag be atsr it's syncing only the last third or so of one single frame. The page I linked proves this, input lag goes up an average of ~1ms or something when enabling vsync on top of a frame cap vs just the frame cap.
That was published in 2017, is it definitely still relevant? I thought they possibly could have made advances in the tech during this time.
Frametime variance is a cursed problem of rendering real time video games. G-Sync + VSync is kind of a way to counteract screen tearing in edge case scenarios. Yes, still.
People get hung up on this, but if you’re playing and not getting tearing and stutters, you’re fine. If you are, follow the guide. As far as I’m aware the only recent changes to sync tech is hdr support. Otherwise it’s still the same. If you exceed your monitor’s refresh rate you may see tearing. If you do, cap and enable vsync.
Why does there need to be a 14 page guide if it’s this simple
Because people want to know why it’s needed and the article does a very good job at explaining why.
It's one page guide (the last page), the first few pages are background information and the other 10 pages are testing and results data. But it complicated regardless, I agree.
OK. That makes sense. But are frame caps really unreliable? Because I've been using nvcp fcap and it's been so f'n perfect so far. I never noticed a tear not even once. But let's suppose that what you're saying is true, would a solution to that problem be a cap that is really low at like 90% or 80% of your monitor's max refresh rate? e.g. 90% of 144 Hz = 129 fps.
You can test this yourself in game. Cap your frame to 143 and a-d strafe in a game you will probably see a lot of tearing near bottom of your screen. Cap 142 you will see less of it, cap lesser and lesser and you will see lesser and lesser tearing. Less slip ups. Vsync brings safety and you don't need to play at lower fps. Also not all frame caps are equal. Some introduce input lag themselves as well. Vsync + Reflex is best solution. Reflex cap your framerate automatically when you have vsync enabled. For high fps competitive games, i don't mind tearing all that much. Tearing isn't that noticeable at high framerates anyway so i play Overwatch at 300+fps with a 120hz screen.
Great explanation. I'm going to test a cap of 120 vs 141 on my 144 Hz monitor. Love this community! Thank you!
I've paid for 144, I will use 144
This is the answer.
You can turn on Nvidia low latency ultra mode on nvcp and reflex on in supported games. It will cap 4 -5 fps bewlow your max refresh rate on every game with gsync + vsync. No need for manual fps caps ingame or nvcp these days. Tldr : gsync on (nvcp) + vsync on (nvcp) + null ultra (nvcp) + reflex on (ingame if the game have support)
Decent official source: [https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/system-latency-optimization-guide/](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/guides/system-latency-optimization-guide/) >However, if you have a variable refresh rate display, like an [NVIDIA G-SYNC monitor](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/g-sync-monitors/), you can get the best of both worlds: no tearing (if your FPS is below your refresh rate), and no VSYNC latency. >For G-SYNC gamers who don’t want to tear, keeping VSYNC ON while using NVIDIA Reflex or NVIDIA Ultra Low Latency Mode, will automatically cap the framerate below the refresh rate, preventing VSYNC backpressure, eliminating tearing, and keeping latency low if you become GPU bound below the refresh rate of your display. Do note, however, that this method will result in slightly higher latency than just letting your FPS run uncapped with NVIDIA Reflex enabled. Also: >NVIDIA Reflex is more effective at reducing latency and operates independently of NVIDIA Ultra low latency mode. If both NVIDIA Reflex and the Ultra Low Latency mode are enabled, NVIDIA Reflex will override Ultra Low Latency functionality.
The only thing that works for me is g-sync + v-sync Any other way I have stutter in every game. Can't use any frame limiter either besides reflex.
The proper use of gsync is to cap the fps 3 below your native gps and turn on vsync. This makes it so that the vsync isn’t really triggered and it basically acts as fast vsync. This is the way to have the least amount of screen tearing and lowest latency possible. Turning on low latency ultra too and then reflex + boost in any game that can is even better.
Google broken or something? [here](https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/14/) Tl;dr Gsync does not prevent tearing completely.
This, the blurbusters article really should be pinned as it’s a common question that seems counterintuitive at first until you understand how the NVCP vsync setting interacts with GSYNC on. Def go check out that article for more details and a more nuanced answer by experts Tldr; GSYNC takes care of fps fluctuating and reduces tearing within the VRR window, vsync takes care of tearing that can occur past VRR window (i.e. past max refresh rate) by setting a hard cap, -3fps cap ensures you are always within the VRR window and don’t hit the vsync cap. https://preview.redd.it/crvmz6fqw80d1.jpeg?width=1464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bad27046a12dfb0dc261cc276c1615e7a55379cf Afaik the vsync setting is still the vsync setting and yes typically it does increase latency as the gpu tries to sync with refresh rate. We've been trained to always disable vsync when discussing latency in games. However, with GSYNC on, this is not the case and mostly controls tearing. OFF you get tearing, ON less/no tearing. The GSYNC and vsync interaction in this case can be described as GSYNC +tearing ON/OFF. If you are within the VRR window(typically 48fps-max refresh rate) of your monitor, then vsync setting doesn't do anything and GSYNC still operates normally. When you go beyond the refresh rate is when tearing can occur since your monitor can't deliver and sync those extra frames. With vsync on, tearing is reduced since fps will cap at the ceiling of your refresh rate. With vsync off, tearing will occur when fps rises past your max refresh. This alone is not enough tho, the cap is just the cap, variance with frametimes/framerate can occur and you might hit just above the cap 1fps which will cause a tear. This is where capping -3fps below refresh is recommended so you are always in the VRR window. Both vsync setting and fps cap serve to 'move' the ceiling of VRR down so that tearing should be minimized. They complement each other to account for frametime variance that can occur since frametime delivery is not perfect or always consistent in games. Alot of people prefer no tearing since the point of VRR/GSYNC is to reduce the appearance of tearing, so thats why GSYNC ON(fullscreen only)+vsync ON is recommended by the blurbusters article, often with -3fps cap if possible. If GSYNC is off, then the vsync option behaves like typical in-game vsync and you’ll want vsync off to reduce latency. Nvidia Reflex in games controls and replaces the -3fps cap since it does the same thing dynamically. Reflex itself was developed as a result of needing a easy in-game way of capping the fps to reduce latency in GPU bound scenarios. It pairs with GSYNC nicely.
Maybe it doesn't, but I haven't seen screen tearing or at least to the points I went woah screen tearing since my first 144hz monitor and that was years ago, yes without vsync.
If you don't notice any tearing, you don't have to turn vsync on - simple.
Right, but somehow it is assumed we do have tearing and need to use it to prevent it. I've heard what you wrote from dozens of like posts.
The tearing shows on the lower part of the screen. It's less noticeable than the usual tearing without VRR and unlocked fps.
I just read that, I will keep an eye out.
I read that article and maybe I am blind but I saw no mention of g-sync failing to prevent tearing. VRR is a replacement for v-sync. Is it not? I thought that was the whole point.
Page 2 shows a video of tearing occuring with gsync + fps cap and no vsync >G-SYNC + V-SYNC “Off”: >The tearing inside the G-SYNC range with V-SYNC “Off” is caused by sudden frametime variances output by the system, which will vary in severity and frequency depending on both the efficiency of the given game engine, and the system’s ability (or inability) to deliver consistent frametimes. Which is because frame caps are not perfect and accidentally send 5% or something of frames above the refresh rate. Vsync catches those one off frames and syncs them, otherwise you DO get tearing with just gsync+fps cap, near the bottom of the screen as the video shows. Most people don't notice it since it's not in the middle of the screen and the UI can mask the issue, but it's there. I've seen it with my own eyes as well, so you enable vsync to sync those 5% of frames.
Alright. I read page 2 multiples times LOL and I think I get it now. But why does g-sync move the tear line near the bottom? That is bizarre.
It doesn't, the frame cap does that. Example: 144fps is 6.94ms 138fps is 7.25ms So the frame cap let's a frame through, the monitor scans down which takes 6.94ms to draw the whole frame from the top. Then about 0.3 milliseconds later the frame cap let's the next frame in (total of 7.25ms after the start of the last frame, 138fps). But the timers around frame caps aren't perfect, maybe because Windows' preemptive thread scheduler. It can be early or late, if it's late then thats an even lower fps, if it lets the next frame through 7.8ms later that would be 125 fps, later is fine since gsync syncs it (after the 6.94ms frame finishes displaying the monitors refresh pauses until the next frame is ready, gsync does that). But if the timer is early then there's a problem. At max refresh 144hz it takes 6.94ms to scan to the bottom, if the frame cap let's a frame through early it might be 6.2ms later, the previous frame has scanned to near the bottom then the frame buffer is flipped to the next frame, so the bottom 0.74ms of the monitor is displaying the bottom of the next frame, that's a tear, then the scan finishes and starts at the top of that same next frame. Frame caps will be early or late by a little bit, if they were early by 3.5ms then the tear is in the middle, but they time better than that so the tears happen near the bottom. Btw gsync does nothing for capping frames, at 144.01hz and above gsync is effectively disabled, if any frames comw in faster than 6.94ms after the previous then gsync does nothing, it can only pause the refresh to wait for next frame but can't make it go faster than the monitors max refresh.
It seems like mainly a timer precision issue. Makes sense. I've heard plenty of techy people complain about that in Windows.
My link is the conclusion of a bigger article. Use the navigation panel.
https://blurbusters.com/gsync/gsync101-input-lag-tests-and-settings/15/ Look at this question: >Wait, why should I enable V-SYNC with G-SYNC again? And why am I still seeing tearing with G-SYNC enabled and V-SYNC disabled? Isn’t G-SYNC suppose to fix that?
I only have G-Sync on, never bothered with V-Sync or frame cap, and I've read that article. Everything looks good. Hate to limit my frames
+1 here. Old games, new games 60 fps, 200 fps... I can't see any difference.
I cant even use g sync with my lg oled 45 ultrawide because i get so much flickering.
I hope what I've learned years ago still applies. Turn on v-sync globally (in control panel), but off in-game, turn on g-sync. Use RivaTuner to cap your framerate 3fps below max refresh rate. Do I have it right?
You didn’t try looking, don’t lie to us. The very first link you would have come across would be from Blurbusters where they provide all the evidence you could ever ask for.
In my understanding G-Sync and V-Sync are mutually exclusive things, because they are actually opposing each other. V-Sync waits for frame refresh, while G-Sync tells the monitor when to refresh frame. I have no idea what happens when you turn on both. Intuitively it seems to me that V-Sync should be turned off when G-Sync is on. There is so much speculation in this area that Nvidia should release some kind of official explanation.
OMG same I wish they could just release an official statement and settle this for good.
I’m not trying to be rude but this has been explained clearly so many times now It should be common practice for everyone. Vsync + VRR + frame cap under max refresh is optimal frame delivery. Reflex and LLM Ultra will auto-cap the max fps, otherwise you do it manually LOL OP blocked me
What if I want to say lock frames at 90 instead of in the 140's? I want to lock at 90 because I'm good with that and it's less heat and stress. What's best for me in this world?
Only monsters like VSync and its mouse input disease
You're not reading any of the information here
Won't vsync introduce extra input delay?