Lucid Virtu MVP - Quick question regarding Virtual VSync

So these last couple of months I've been thinking about getting a new motherboard (ASRock Z77 Extreme4 I'm looking at you), especially Z77 based motherboards, and I've noticed that most of them come with support for Lucid Virtu MVP, which I think, in theory, is a pretty awesome idea.

The thing is, in my research, I've been seeing lots of threads complaining about compatibility, performance, stuttering issues, etc, etc, but most of them seem related to the HyperPerformance part of the Virtu MVP software, so this brings me to my question: does running the Virtual VSync feature alone causes any problems?, any performance related issues? (frame skipping, stuttering, etc), does it work with every game?

 

Forget Lucid Virtu MVP - totally useless

 

Virtual V-Sync does work....for some games. The software itself is more gimmick than anything else. In a lot of games it introduces issues, in a few games it can improve performance or the gameplay experience, but don't expect it to work with every game. Truth is, it doesn't work with many. It's not "totally useless" as DJ_Casper claims.....but it's not worth buying a motherboard for....nor is it anything to rely on. 3DMark will flag it if you use it for benchmarking....which is where it provides the most benefit.

 

I've tested at least 10 different MVP versions so far, during this past year. The first ones were really buggy (pre v.115), but the latest ones work very well (v.221). For the record, I'm using MVP in i-mode (monitor connected to mbo), i7-2700K (HD3000) and GTX 560Ti.

Virtual V-sync works the same as a proper triple buffer for DirectX. It works very well, it's really worth it -- once you try it, you can't go back! Please understand carefully that proper triple buffering is not the same as a render ahead queue. More info here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2794

Hyperformance is more hit and miss, really depends on the game, and like I said above, is much better on the latest MVP versions than it was before. When it works (~80% on my experience), it's also pretty good as the purpose of it is making the discrete GPU render only frames that can be seen, making the GPU only work as much as needed. Most games where it had glitches are working 100% on latest MVP versions.

My only complain at the moment is that R310 driver branch breaks Virtual V-sync, so I'm using atm 307.45 (306.97 also work great, or anything below). I'm hoping Lucid fixes that soon, since they want to start selling to the general public:
http://www.pcper.com/news/General-T...ming-Soon-and-Will-Be-Sold-Directly-Consumers

 

How exactly did you get I-Mode to work? I've tried it with WoW, Diablo3, Dragon Age, Dragon Age II, MoH (2010), 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark11....none of which worked at all.

How many games do you own? ~80% success rate is rather high considering even LucidLogix claims less than 80% of games....

 

Thanks for the replies fellas.

The reason I'm asking this is because I've yet to find a reasonable/rock solid solution for VSync'ing BF3.

Yes I know it's beyond silly to consider getting a new motherboard just to fiddle around with a feature that may or may not improve my experience in BF3, but the thing is, the in game VSync option causes a weird, very random, frame skipping that annoys the hell outta me, same thing with the NVCP VSync one (both regular and Adaptive), and I'm running out of ideas, so I came across this and I immediately wanted to try it to see if this would cure all this frame skipping I'm currently experiencing in BF3 (for the moment I'm running it with VSync OFF, which I'm hating every second of it FWIW).

But that's not the only reason I'm thinking about changing motherboards, my current one is a B2 stepping P8P67, which still suffers from the SATA2 problems that made Intel recall all P67 motherboards early in 2011. Not only that, ASUS latest UEFI updates no longer support B2 stepping motherboards, so I'm stuck with 2303 UEFI version IIRC when they're already up to 3xxx branch builds.

Wow I didn't know they were considering releasing a brand new version of their MVP software, it looks promising, although If they're thinking about charging ~$30 for it, they better ramp up their update frequency, and increase their support, maybe release an updated version of MVP every new game/driver release.

I'll consider getting it that's for sure (after trying the old version 1st of course).

 

Have you tried using their latest MVP version? http://www.lucidlogix.com/driverdownloads-mvp.shtml

I've been using i-Mode for I guess a year now. During that time, I've played alot of stuff, from Dragon Age, BF3, Batman AA+AC, Guild Wars 2, CS:GO, Alan Wake, Far Cry 3... I remember that, for example, Hyperformance wasn't working correctly with The Witcher and Batman AC (there would be some bad effects like frame skipping or objects dissapearing), but on the more recent MVP releases those work 100%. Far Cry 3 isn't working correctly now with Hyperformance also.

Virtual V-sync, on the other hand, always worked in everything. The cake is really the vsync feature, Hyperformance is just an added bonus.

 

Without any sort of technical documentation, I will have to agree. It is not possible to display more FPS than refresh rate. If the game is rendering faster than refresh rate with vsync enabled then frames are dropped.

 

Yes, rendered frames are dropped when using a proper triple buffering implementation, when the render speed is greater than screen refresh rate. That's why proper triple buffering has minimal input lag, because the next shown frame is always the last completed one. This doesn't happen when using a rendering queue.

Hyperformance tries to mitigate this, by analysing the time it takes to draw each frame and try to don't render frames that won't be shown anyway.

 

This is what the "maximum pre-rendered frames" option in the NVIDIA driver is for, and it doesn't just apply to D3D.

With vsync enabled there is still 1/x Hz amount of latency no matter how many frames they claim to be rendering above refresh rate.

 

I've tried every version of MVP released since my motherboard was...so far, none have had functional I-mode

 

No, that option is for the CPU frame rendering queue, before passing it to the GPU.

With proper triple buffering you always have a constant <=1/x Hz, while with other options you start getting 2/x, 3/x, etc. However, if you time the rendering pipeline right, you can try to minimize the <=1/x Hz delay, so that you try to make the frame be completely rendered just before the next refresh -- that's supposedly what Hyperformance is all about.

 

Ouch! Bad luck there.

 

I really wouldn't bother if i were you.

I upgraded from a z68 to a z77 partly to have a look at this Lucid MVP and partly for TRIM in Raid 0 support.
The latter is nice but the Lucid MVP has always been a pretty woeful experience everytime i've tried it its failed me somehow - usually by crashing.

Its abit of a problem too that everytime a new nVidia driver comes out it breaks support for Lucid MVP.

Plus the fact that it only really works properly if your FPS is above your monitors refresh rate, kinda makes it redundant.
Add to this increased power and heat, as it always works your card 100%, well its abit pointless.

Just use vsync/adaptive vsync and set renderahead to 1 or 0.

If your having issues with BF3 in your user.cfg try setting renderahead to 0, triplebuffering ON (also try with OFF if you like) and Adaptive vsync ON
I find having triplebuffering on makes my mouse nice and smooth, although it does introduce a touch of input lag - but the 0 renderahead counters it abit.
But BF3 is butter smooth for me with above settings.

 

Thanks for the reply mate, I guess I won't make any rash decisions based on just the urge of trying the Lucid MVP software, in fact, just yesterday I solved all my VSync issues in BF3, I stopped using the framelimiter inside BF3 (via the gamevariables CVAR) and started using MSI Afterburner's built in framelimiter, and I gotta say, it's the smoothest I've ever seen BF3 perform lol, it dwarfs everything I've tried so far, I'm gonna start using for all my games, MSI did a brilliant job there, so I'm in a significantly less hurry to change motherboards now, although If I see a deal for the ASRock Z77 Extreme4, I'm gonna be all over it, thanks again mate.

 

Good to hear your happy now.

I have used fps limiter before for BF3, and whilst it does make for smooth gameplay I still get abit of screen tearing. I found its less tearing at 59fps than 60fps on my monitor aswell.

For your info the framerate limiter in nVidiaInspector works just as well, and obviously no need to have any 3rd party tools running, just set if for your BF3 profile (and every other game profile you have)

 

1) Lucid MVP also works on the Z68 chipset (as does trim in raid-0) .

2) The only time a new nVidia driver broke MVP was now, on the latest 310.x drivers. It hadn't happen before in my experience.

3) Of course it also works when your FPS is below the screen refresh rate. That's what triple buffering vs double buffering is all about, and that's the main benefit of triple buffering.

4) The point of Hyperformance is reducing power and heat, by not rendering frames that will never be seen, when your FPS is above screen refresh rate, working as an "enhanced" frame limiter.

5) Render ahead in the nV CP is related to the CPU frame rendering queue, not GPU frame rendering queue. The value of "0" was removed, because the CPU always needs to prepare at least 1 frame before the GPU can render it, so 0 was pointless anyway.

6) The "triplebuffering" option on BF3 is just an increased GPU render queue, thats why it causes input lag. Proper triple buffering doesn't increase input lag, while keeping the same smoothness benefit and doing the same GPU work -- the "normal" triple buffering is a FIFO queue, while "proper" triple buffering is a LIFO queue. While there is support for proper triple buffering in OpenGL, there isn't in DirectX.

 

1) Only worked in Trial mode on mine.
Yes TRIM works on z68 now, after 3rd party modded OROM months later. Too late for me !!

2) In my experience it happens often

3) Thats not what the general consensus is infact from the Anandtech review
of the tech here

Reiterated here

So in my case, If I have 60fps anyway, Adaptive Vsync it is for me everytime.
I wish it did work below 60fps aswell, but the one time i did get it MVP working in BF3 it felt very sluggish when fps dropped below 60, adaptive Vsync doesn't so therefor is better for me.

4) I'd love to test it again, But sadly i cant LOL as its currently broken, but i'm sure when I did use Virtual Vsync it made my GPU run 100%

5) Who mentioned about render ahead in nVidia Control panel ? Not me.
I was talking specifically about user.cfg commands for BF3 "RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 0"

6) I'll take your word for it, but from my testing
"Renderdevice.TripleBufferingEnable 0" in BF3 user.cfg feels the same as forcing Triplebuffering in D3Doverrider and also through RadeonPro (when i had my 7970)
I probably misworded my initial comment, it doesn't introduce Lag, but more like has a smoothing effect.

On that note i have also found that forced triplebuffering reduces screen tearing slightly when just using an FPS limiter and not vsync.

 

That AnandTech review is from Aug 4 2012, which at that time MVP was at version 115a. Since then, I've tested MVP 115b, 118, 119, 220 and now 221.

Also, their explanation is incorrect (maybe it worked like that in 115a? I can't remember), since it currently enables v-sync above and below refresh rate (unlike nVidias adaptive v-sync, which disables it below refresh rate), effectively being a proper triple buffering implementation for DirectX.

BF3's "RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit" is the same setting as in the nV CP, just forced through the user.cfg

Have you tried the latest MVP version? What glitches does it has on your pc?
http://www.lucidlogix.com/driverdownloads-mvp.shtml

 

Ok cool.

Just tried the 2.1.221 this morning after reading this thread and it seems that the Virtual Vsync isn't working, it makes BF3 in game feel very choppy - im assuming its meant to have the opposite effect.
But on the brightside at least the game started with MVP enabled, which when I last tried a few months ago it crashed.
Using 310.70 drivers now btw

I may try those Quadro's you are using later if i get time.

Also I was wondering if and what settings one should use in regards RenderAhead and Triplebuffering in BF3 if using Virtual Vsync aswell ? Wonder if any conflicts occur.