NVidia Inspector 1.9.7.6 + FPS limit 59.7 = microstutter

So I broke out my old 680 SLI this weekend and made interesting finding re: V-Sync behavior in SLI. Game tested was Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor downsampled from 4K to 1080p.

With driver V-Sync set to 'On', dropping below 60 FPS @ 60Hz behaves like modern TB (not classic TB i.e. Fast Sync/DWM): no tearing and no perf drop/stutter. So it seems frame buffering in SLI is different than single GPU.

With driver V-Sync set to 'On (Smooth)', it behave like DB V-Sync: drops to 30 FPS if game cannot maintain 60 FPS.

More importantly, V-Sync greatly smoothed out microstutter/erratic frame pacing typical to AFR in 30-60 FPS range. With motion blur enabled, I could not even tell smoothness difference from single GPU, which is huge since microstutter at low FPS was #1 reason that I quit SLI. So for controller-based games like SoM where low latency controls is not as important (since V-Sync still adds input lag, SLI or not), V-Sync on is very viable in SLI.

 

Interesting results. Not sure what it means for my single card, but I'm about to do a clean Win 10 AU install to help troubleshoot some stuff and continue testing. Did you by chance try the in game V-sync and compare it to the 2 you already mentioned?

 

afair you always have automatically TB with AFR (and so TB vsync when vsync is turned on).

 

The in-game V-Sync is non-functional, only driver V-Sync works and even then it's a bit buggy as I have to toggle windowed and fullscreen each time to apply it.

 

Can someone answer this ?

 

what i can tell u based on my experience is turn off vertical sync inside the game setting, NVCP & NVIDIA profile inspector then capped 60 fps v2

for less demanding games or i can achieve a lot fps then enable fast sync, v-sync off & locked 60 fps v2

global settings NVCP; *the rest left it as default*

anisotropic filtering AF set 16x
antialiasing - gamma correction Off
antialiasing - transparency set Off
texture filtering - anisotropic sample optimization set Off
texture filtering - quality set High Quality
texture filtering - trilinear optimization set Off *NVIDIA Profile Inspector set it Off*

i'll turn off the anisotropic filtering AF for certain games that don't support & the negative LOD bias will be automatically set for Allow so just leave it. FYI,default global settings come with Clamp & i will also turn on MFAA for the games that supported e.g. SC2, CS:GO, FIFA etc.

furthermore, the lowest latency for gaming TV is SONY. literally, if the gaming is not smooth then turn on v-sync + frame limit 60 fps v2 or play around with the maximum pre-rendered frames set 1 or 2

 

so NVCP is better than RTSS ? why to disable Gamma Correction ? only for some old opengl games ?

 

MFAA is not supported for DX9 games like SC2 or CS:GO, turning off gamma correction is nonsense (makes MSAA/TrSSAA/SGSSAA/OGSSAA less effective) and setting fps-limiter v2 to 60fps is the same as using adaptive vsync when using a 60hz display...

 

What happens if I need to use 59 Hz ? what should I choose to cap it ?

 

Windows reports 59Hz for some displays, but often they are running closer to 60Hz than 59Hz regardless.
But fully apart from this question, my opinion is: Either turn on just any vsync that works well for you, use any fps-limiter that works well for you, but don't do both things at the same time. Or just run everything unlocked/unsynced.

I really put some time into trying out weird suggestions that came up in this thread, and all have failed for me (ofc I'm not surprised about that).
Putting it directly: All that "vsync + fps-limiter" talk is just utter BS. :cops:

Edit: Only exception seems to be devider fps:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=5336554&postcount=245

 

yes for some reason Windows 8 and 10 don't round up for 59.94Hz to 60Hz. It's not actually 59.00Hz as some people assume.

So if your fps limiting to 59fps and using V-sync that would introduce stuttering as it's doesn't match the refresh rate.

 

If you mean it goes to 60FPS when FPS is locked to a lower value, this is a bug which is fixed in an upcoming driver.

 

I can understand what you are saying and why it makes sense, logically I thought the same thing. I'm guessing in the vast majority of cases v-sync OR fps limiter works fine, but with my TV unless I use both my frame times bounce out of control. I can use normal v-sync, adaptive, fast, with RTSS or NVINSP fps limiter to achieve nearly perfectly flat frame times. I get the best results with NVINSP fps limit at 63v2 and normal V-sync forced through NVCP. Once this next driver that ManuelG mentioned comes out I am going to try what you recommend once again and see what happens.

Good to hear! I'm guessing you can't share the date since you didn't mention it...?

 

I tried the V2 limiter a while ago. It was trash. Way too much input lag.
Just tried it again, the input is still slow. You don't really notice until you turn it off. I tried it with GSYNC and 130,135,140,144,150,155,159,160 fps limits at 160 Hz with vsync off. Played several hours of Black Ops III. My K/D dropped significantly. After turning it off, it's like my sensitivity has gone up and it's really snappy. I don't recommend using driver-level frame limiters, too much input lag.

 

NVCP is Nvidia Control Panel itself. there's no which one better between Nvidia Profile Inspector vs RTSS. unfortunately on my side RTSS is completely unable to lock any frames.

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_5.html (credit Koroush Ghazi) some may said is old but seriously i can't feel any different with gamma on/off. by default is on but i prefer to turned it off & so far never had an issue.

previously i always turned on for MFAA but since the bug appeared & even is fixed i choose to turn on manually for the games that supported.

i heard someone said the allow/clamp not only for opengl games anymore but i'm not really sure bout it. literally, i always set clamp for my global settings & set allow for the games that don't support AF x16 like torchlight 2 & Fifa 15

 

based on GFE optimal setting, SC2 & CS:GO suggest to turn on MFAA

no offense, i can't see any different with gamma on/off so it depend each user (subjective)

starting with 37x.xx, i stop using adaptive cos is not smooth like previous driver so i ended up turn off v-sync & limit 60 fps. FYI, i can notice some different between adaptive & frame limit 60

 

Windows reports 59hz because it can't report decimal numbers like 59.94hz and rounding up to 60hz is innaccurate as both are unique refresh rates as stated in other threads about how windows detects and reports compatible refresh rates. If you have 59hz and 60hz as options, 59.94hz will be sent to the display regardless of which is applied.

 

YEP! Most Monitor/TV in windows 10 will give 59.94 and display it as 59.
The only fixes for this is to use CRU or to use DVI instead of HDMI connection.

In my experience is better to tweak and have 59,99 fps (60fps), mainly cause in a lot of games 59,94 could give more stutters!

 

As long as there is no fps-limit, it shouldn't make any difference for perception if display is running with 59.94 instead of 60Hz.
And some displays may also show this refreshrate via DVI.

 

'When it's done' ... He usually says that.

Btw, I use rtss to limit the fps to 59 with vsync forced On in nvcp on my 60Hz tv. It's smooth most of the time, though I still use 361.91 driver.