W/Freesync Enabled: Exiting to Desktop from Certain Games Reduces Refresh Rate

As title suggests are you experiencing times were you exit from a game back to desktop and find that your monitor's refresh rate is 60, 71, etc. lower then your native refresh rate: 120/144/240, etc?

Another observation is that your mouse cursor stutters as you move it on the screen.

You can reset the refresh rate or can turn the monitor off/on and the refresh rate will return to normal.

I've been reading reports on this here and there and wanted to know if anyone here experienced that?

 

I personally haven't experienced this, keeping 144hz all the time.

Are there any games in particular where this happens? I've only been playing Doom Eternal & Civ 6 lately so maybe I'm just not playing any of the games that cause this

 

On same rare occasion, one of my games reduced refresh rate to 60Hz moment it started and left it that way after exit. Weird thing is that it does not even support exclusive-fullscreen, so it had no reason to do it.
When it happens, I have to mess with in-game settings few times, restart game and try again till game stops doing it again. It did happen to me 3 times since I started to play it in March 2020.
(But I am on insider builds, so unexpected things can happen.)

 

Trackmania Canyon is one. Modern Warfare is another. Still looking to update this list.
But again, for clarity, it's when you exit the game back to desktop. If I alt-tab to desktop and right click on the game icon to close it the refresh rate never changes. I've tried this on MW 10 times and 10 times the refresh rate never changed. The other game is what I found by another user. So I have no experience with that.

 

Trackmania Canyon from another post I read
Modern Warfare

 

Turn off vsr and gpu scaling thats what causes it

 

Good advice, thanks. However, those were/are disabled.
Scaling Mode is on default: Preserve Aspect Ratio

 

Had the same problem where exiting games that were running on a different refresh rate than desktop would put u at a random value, even alt tabing would mess things up.
If i remember correctly it started with 20.5.1 drivers but was fixed since 20.8.1 version, it's even mentioned in fixed issues i thnk.

 

do you have VRR set to on in windows graphics settings?

try that off too

 

That too is off. I read one report that changing the dp port on the video card helped someone. But they are both suppose to be the same.

 

Thanks, this explains it. They think it's fixed but it's not. And it doesnt happen in every game I'm only having issues with mw2019.
Using 20.8.3

 

I had this issue but it was fixed in the driver they mentioned it was fixed. Haven't had mouse stutter since. Maybe try a clean install?

 

good idea. Are a you also on 20.8.3?

 

Yup, also 20.8.3. I usually do factory resets in new installs, as long as I don't change anything in Wattman or something.

 

hmm, forgot about that.

 

If your monitor's OSD shows the real refresh rate, check if it changes on the desktop when moving the cursor, windows etc. If that's the case, FreeSync got "stuck" from the game on desktop. Seems to be an ancient problem that AMD is not able to overcome.

 

Yes, it does fluctuate when I move the mouse around at desktop.
Wouldn't that mean updating MW2019 profile to fix it?

 

Afair that didn't to the trick for me, for whatever reason. I had to disable FreeSync globally to get rid of the issue (which was also annoying flickering due to the VA panel type), but it returned once I had re-enabled it. I had to toggle GPU scaling to make it stay gone also without FreeSync disabled (until it broke again).
Like I said, this issue is ancient. Don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I wouldn't expect them to be able to fix it.

I btw. reported this to AMD for Mirror's Edge DX9, which reliably triggered it every time. I'm certain we will never see it in the driver changelogs as fixed or known problem.

 

Wow, you get a like for this post. It's a driver problem, end of story!! And explains why when I use to enable a few months back it I felt like I was lagging. So I turned it off. Which is before I decided to turn on OSD from the monitor. What's happened now is that they finally fixed it to work properly but when you exit certain games back to desktop it "sticks" like you said. This resorting to 61Hz or something like that. But fluctuates when you move your mouse around.

But it's only on certain games. Games like ACC, Detroit Become Human, Division 2 don't exhibit this behavior.

Although it sound like I'm nitpicking, look at the number of separate threads I created and reported to AMD about issues with the drivers. And some call me a die hard AMD fanboy!!
I've done my part to document and report issues from the drivers that have never seen a fix.
-Missing Custom IQ settings for Video Profile
-Broken Freesync when exiting a game back to desktop
-Broken, depreciated Advance IQ features within Adrenalin
-Features that's been promoted then remove from Adrenalin (FTRC, Global Cache, fluid motion, missin custom options for Video Profile, etc)

These problems, as they've accumulated and ignored by RTG, have taken it's toll with me.

I will say this, my next GPU purchase will be "more" hassle free. That's for certain.

 

I'm also annoyed by other similar issues, such as occasional black window content when minimizing Vulkan games or it not disabling DWM anymore after alt + tabbing into the game again. Too many nasty and sloppy papercuts...