questions on high refresh rate PC monitors

[Fudoh]

Got a Hades Canyon NUC and might possibly want to a add a new monitor to it. So far I haven't ventured into high-refresh territory on the PC, especially since I'm actually a bit afraid to move away from locked 60Hz when it comes to retro or emu gaming (or current 2D stuff).

What I'm wondering is this:

- are you supposed to run your desktop at the highest refresh rate the monitor offers at all times ?
- do these monitors still actually sync to all common refresh rates without any framerate conversion ? Or do they sync to ANY refresh rate up to their max one ? Or are there are certain commong ones (like 60/75/100/120 which work, while others wont) ?
- I assume all games from big studios support higher refresh rates without locking their speed to the actual refresh rate ?
- what about new indie titles on steam (stuff like Monolith) ?
- Is there any advantage to go higher than 60Hz expect for utitlizing your GPU's full potentical to run 3D titles at a higher framerate

Any hands one experiences are highly welcome! Thanks!

[DejahThoris]

Got a Hades Canyon NUC and might possibly want to a add a new monitor to it. So far I haven't ventured into high-refresh territory on the PC, especially since I'm actually a bit afraid to move away from locked 60Hz when it comes to retro or emu gaming (or current 2D stuff).

- are you supposed to run your desktop at the highest refresh rate the monitor offers at all times ?
- do these monitors still actually sync to all common refresh rates without any framerate conversion ? Or do they sync to ANY refresh rate up to their max one ? Or are there are certain commong ones (like 60/75/100/120 which work, while others wont) ?

I'm not going to pretend I know all of the answers for this, but at least with mine (I have a 244hz Alienware 25", and a 34" UWS 144hz monitor, and a launch GTX1080), there are settings in the nVidia control panel that will allow you to swap between modes on the desktop (60/75/100/120/144/200/240) at any given time. In-game settings will auto-adjust the monitor to the setting you choose in the game.

- I assume all games from big studios support higher refresh rates without locking their speed to the actual refresh rate ?
- what about new indie titles on steam (stuff like Monolith) ?

Not always. Some companies are still silly enough to lock the game's code to a specific refresh rate. Dariusburst would run at double speed on 120hz monitors when it initially launched. Dark Souls 2 weapons would lose durability at double speed when set to 60hz. For the vast majority of games you'll be fine, but now and again you'll find an outlier.

- Is there any advantage to go higher than 60Hz expect for utitlizing your GPU's full potentical to run 3D titles at a higher framerate

Fluidity. You'll notice as soon as you go back to a 60hz display/game/whatever after playing games on 120+. Especially in FPS/3rdPS. Mouse cursor movement on the desktop alone is pretty noticeable. At least as much so as going from 60hz to 30hz where it feels like the cursor just isn't updating as often as it should.

It's night and day, and that's coming from a guy who saw zero value in high refresh rate monitors over the past few years. I guess I just didn't fully understand the point of it.

This video starting at around 20 seconds really sums up what advantage you're going to have at higher refresh rates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cmhZs1P54

At 40 seconds on you'll see how it affects games.

[Fudoh]

Thanks for this!

A follow-up question on the available standard refresh rates in the GPU control panel (although my Hades Canyon uses an AMD chip instead of a Nvidia one): what about 72 and 96 and 120Hz and their "movie" counterparts (71.928, 95.904 and 119,88Hz) ? Is something like this available and do media players like MPC take advantage of them by using an x:x cadence to to display movie material any smoother than on a 60H output ?

At 40 seconds on you'll see how it affects games.

thanks. For 3D titles that's of course true. On 99% of the 2D titles, the animation frames have to be locked to the game's fps of course, so they cannot simply interpolate the animation steps per (time-) frame. And it would extremely difficult to get fluid animation at non-integer multiplies of the intended framerate. I'm thinking of games like Shovel Knight or the new Bloodstain: Curse of the Moon at refresh rates other than 60 or 120Hz. Do you have any 2D titles like these and ever tried them at high GPU refresh rates ?

[orange808]

I have an older 2420g, but I can confirm that it does sync to common refresh rates and it doesn't use frame rate conversion.

It has gsync, but I don't care for it. I prefer to use ULMB and manually set a frame limiter. Motion looks really great.

You might wait and see if the new Samsung tvs really add freesync. They already do 120Hz and that machine would be very convenient on your main big gaming display.

[Fudoh]

I was (or am) extremely tempted by the 49" 32:9 Samsung display. Some (web-) reviews mention that it has a bug where 60Hz disables some low-lag setting and causes the lag to jump from 1 to 3 frames. Any other refresh rates seems fine though. This sounds so incredibly dumb that I could really scream (or cry) about it. Of course NONE of the Youtube mentions this. In regard to my questions on 2D gaming this would be a killer deal breaker of course.

[orange808]

I was (or am) extremely tempted by the 49" 32:9 Samsung display. Some (web-) reviews mention that it has a bug where 60Hz disables some low-lag setting and causes the lag to jump from 1 to 3 frames. Any other refresh rates seems fine though. This sounds so incredibly dumb that I could really scream (or cry) about it. Of course NONE of the Youtube mentions this. In regard to my questions on 2D gaming this would be a killer deal breaker of course.

I've been looking at 2018 Samsung NU8000. The 49" panel only does 60Hz, so I have to get at least the 55" for 120Hz and (maybe) Freesync. I didn't know the 49" Samsungs had a lag bug, do the bigger screens have that, too?

I've also been very tempted by the Hades Canyon NUC to replace my Alienware Alpha as my big screen console PC. So, I hope you'll share some notes on your experience.

[Fudoh]

I didn't know the 49" Samsungs had a lag bug, do the bigger screens have that, too?

that's an exclusive bug to the 49" ultra-ultra-wide monitor (49CHG90 and the smaller not so wide CHG70). I can't imagine that any of this applies to their TVs.

I've also been very tempted by the Hades Canyon NUC to replace my Alienware Alpha as my big screen console PC. So, I hope you'll share some notes on your experience.

I hope to. I have to swap some ram of and move around some NVMe SSDs and can't be bothered with it right now - but hopefully soon.

[Fudoh]

on a completely unrelated side note but regarding ultra-wide displays: our local Amazon site just had great deal on a completely configured Shuttle unit with a Pentium G4560 (complete with SSD and RAM) for little above 200 EUR instead of 450 EUR. Grabbed one to run MAME on my NEC 12:3 monitor (exactly 3x 4:3 to run Darius 1/2 or Ninja Warriors). Way too many projects for way to little time.....

[DejahThoris]

Thanks for this!

A follow-up question on the available standard refresh rates in the GPU control panel (although my Hades Canyon uses an AMD chip instead of a Nvidia one): what about 72 and 96 and 120Hz and their "movie" counterparts (71.928, 95.904 and 119,88Hz) ? Is something like this available and do media players like MPC take advantage of them by using an x:x cadence to to display movie material any smoother than on a 60H output ?

At 40 seconds on you'll see how it affects games.

thanks. For 3D titles that's of course true. On 99% of the 2D titles, the animation frames have to be locked to the game's fps of course, so they cannot simply interpolate the animation steps per (time-) frame. And it would extremely difficult to get fluid animation at non-integer multiplies of the intended framerate. I'm thinking of games like Shovel Knight or the new Bloodstain: Curse of the Moon at refresh rates other than 60 or 120Hz. Do you have any 2D titles like these and ever tried them at high GPU refresh rates ?

I absolutely don't know the answer to the first question.

As for 2D titles, I've played both Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight recently, and they've run the same as they did on my old displays, no difference .

[Fudoh]

As for 2D titles, I've played both Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight recently, and they've run the same as they did on my old displays, no difference .

and do you remember at which frame rate your monitor was running when you played these ?

[bobrocks95]

Kind of haphazardly responding to different things people have brought up in the thread so far, sorry for rambling.

On my Samsung 144Hz Freesync monitor you can (assuming you're not using Freesync) manually set the refresh rate to 60/100/120/144Hz.

With Freesync on, 60 FPS games have the monitor updating at 120Hz with AMD's low-framerate-compensation on just because of the monitor's Freesync range, though it looks fine to me and I've never seen any artifacts related to it. With Freesync off you can switch it back to 60Hz for games that are locked to that- I'd assume most high-Hz monitors would allow you to do that.

I don't really watch movies on my PC monitor, so I haven't messed with any sort of media player cadence stuff to smooth out movie motion.

I will second though that just mouse movement on the desktop feels so much nicer at 144Hz, 60Hz feels weird and slow now (which I guess could be a bad thing depending on how often you have to switch back to a 60Hz display).

And as a final note, a good number of games in my Steam library don't support above 60fps, and plenty that do require .ini tweaking or third-party programs, if that's a factor in your decision. It's yet another PC gaming thing to configure that makes it even less "plug and play".

[DejahThoris]

As for 2D titles, I've played both Shovel Knight and Hollow Knight recently, and they've run the same as they did on my old displays, no difference .

and do you remember at which frame rate your monitor was running when you played these ?

It was set to 144. I don't change my settings unless a game has issues with it.

I've actually been using the Super Nt on my 25" monitor as well, though I have no idea what the monitor refresh rate is using at that point, I assume it just takes the 60 the Nt puts out and uses that.

[ZellSF]

- do these monitors still actually sync to all common refresh rates without any framerate conversion ? Or do they sync to ANY refresh rate up to their max one ? Or are there are certain commong ones (like 60/75/100/120 which work, while others wont) ?

60hz is pretty much universally supported. Unless you really want ULMB or similar then FreeSync/G-Sync should cover most use cases for other refresh rates (though it should be noted I have no personal experience with FreeSync). FreeSync/G-Sync support is IMO essential for high-refresh rate monitors.

My monitor seems to refuse to support other refresh rates than the ones it supports (60/75/100/120/144), but I've only tried the Nvidia control panel custom resolution setting and it's very very buggy. I wouldn't be shocked if I had better results using CRU, I just have no reason to try as G-Sync handles everything for me.

- are you supposed to run your desktop at the highest refresh rate the monitor offers at all times ?

I'm going with no. Video players don't necessarily deal well with FreeSync/G-Sync windowed so I usually stick with something that's a multiple of 24/30/60. For my 144hz monitor, that's 120hz.

A follow-up question on the available standard refresh rates in the GPU control panel (although my Hades Canyon uses an AMD chip instead of a Nvidia one): what about 72 and 96 and 120Hz and their "movie" counterparts (71.928, 95.904 and 119,88Hz) ? Is something like this available and do media players like MPC take advantage of them by using an x:x cadence to to display movie material any smoother than on a 60H output ?

None of the three high refresh rate displays I've had supported 72hz or 96hz, they all supported 120hz though (one was 120hz native, the two other 144hz native). As for whether or not they supported 119,88hz, I don't remember at the moment.

madVR detects that I have my refresh rate set to 120hz, so I'm assuming it's rendering accordingly. Not that I could tell, 24/30hz is a slideshow to me regardless.

I'm thinking of games like Shovel Knight or the new Bloodstain: Curse of the Moon at refresh rates other than 60 or 120Hz. Do you have any 2D titles like these and ever tried them at high GPU refresh rates ?

Personally I haven't noticed any difference playing 2D games. High refresh rate makes the biggest difference for 3D games. Though I suppose someone sensitive to motion problems could see advantages in 2D games, I can't.

- I assume all games from big studios support higher refresh rates without locking their speed to the actual refresh rate ?
- what about new indie titles on steam (stuff like Monolith) ?

I wouldn't really make any assumptions here. High framerate support is very common in AAA titles, but everything else? It's pretty random what titles support it (and how well they support it).

[gray117]

...Tbh I just stick at 60 and figure the refresh/other features help prevent issues... Should probably experiment with 120 more!.... Had some issues at 144 and just avoided it since.

For any app or game I like lock to either 30 or 60 should there be an option... I prefer to keep the extra horsepower available for a more consistent framerate during potential choke points and it might be a valid point to help keep a nuc at a local slightly lower temp over extended periods.... (as opposed to more easily vented desktop).... But that may also just be ocd/imagined/wishful thinking - never really bothered to monitor on desktops.... But I believe that is some of the conventional secondary reasons behind capping framerates....

[bobrocks95]

For any app or game I like lock to either 30 or 60 should there be an option... I prefer to keep the extra horsepower available for a more consistent framerate during potential choke points

Freesync/G-Sync eliminates this concern, you're just getting the smoothest possible framerate at all times, so you don't need to lock to anything lower. If you don't have either, it's a valid point to cap framerates on more demanding titles if you want to keep the game as smooth as possible.

I'm kind of confused why you got a 144Hz monitor if you're just keeping it locked to 60Hz at all times though...

[BazookaBen]

What I'm wondering is this:

- are you supposed to run your desktop at the highest refresh rate the monitor offers at all times ?
- do these monitors still actually sync to all common refresh rates without any framerate conversion ? Or do they sync to ANY refresh rate up to their max one ? Or are there are certain commong ones (like 60/75/100/120 which work, while others wont) ?
- I assume all games from big studios support higher refresh rates without locking their speed to the actual refresh rate ?
- what about new indie titles on steam (stuff like Monolith) ?
- Is there any advantage to go higher than 60Hz expect for utitlizing your GPU's full potentical to run 3D titles at a higher framerate

Interesting questions. I still use Trinitron and Diamontron monitors with my PC, so I can't answer all of these, but I have a ton of experience with Custom Resolution Utility, which is something you will need to get some of the refresh rates you're talking about.

I think the best bet is to find people on reddit or elsewhere who have used a monitor that you're interested in, then ask them if it accepts custom refresh rates made in CRU.

Also, since that NUC you mentioned includes a Radeon GPU, it probably supports Freesync, so any monitor you use that supports Freesync should work really well with odd refresh rates coming out of emulators. I think that you would just need to turn vsync off in the emulator, then Freesync on in Radeon settings. I'm sure there are plenty of people here with experience in this area.

A follow-up question on the available standard refresh rates in the GPU control panel (although my Hades Canyon uses an AMD chip instead of a Nvidia one): what about 72 and 96 and 120Hz and their "movie" counterparts (71.928, 95.904 and 119,88Hz) ? Is something like this available and do media players like MPC take advantage of them by using an x:x cadence to to display movie material any smoother than on a 60H output ?

I've created those precise resolutions in CRU, and 24fps material was pretty smooth, whether from youtube, amazon, or a file running in MPC or VLC. But I'm not sure if the players are actively detecting the refresh rate and making sure everything is synced up. I think the refresh rates are right on the money so any stutters that might occur would be hard to detect, and probably the result of the player.

thanks. For 3D titles that's of course true. On 99% of the 2D titles, the animation frames have to be locked to the game's fps of course, so they cannot simply interpolate the animation steps per (time-) frame. And it would extremely difficult to get fluid animation at non-integer multiplies of the intended framerate. I'm thinking of games like Shovel Knight or the new Bloodstain: Curse of the Moon at refresh rates other than 60 or 120Hz. Do you have any 2D titles like these and ever tried them at high GPU refresh rates ?

I have some anecdotes about two recent 2D titles: Cuphead and Hollow Knight (not to be confused with Shovel Knight). They both perform in simlar ways in regards to sprites and the overall game world. Basically, the sprites are only updated on screen at set intervals. For Cuphead it's 60hz, for Hollow Knight it's 50hz (probably because it's an AU game). BUT the background layer in both these games will update at wichever refresh rate you choose. Wither it's 120, 144, whatever.

So the best thing to do in both these games is to at least make sure you pick a refresh rate that is multiple of the base refresh rate for the sprites. So for Hollow Knight that would be 50, 100, or 150. For Cuphead that would be 60, 120, or 180. Then you have a slight double-image on the sprites, but at least it's smoothly paced (like when you play a 30fps game a 60hz TV).

But an even better thing to do is to use a special kind of vsync that renders out more frames internally but throws most of them away to output at a lower refresh rate. For AMD, this is Enhanced Sync, for Nvidia, it's called Fast Sync. Like for Cuphead, I set the frame rate limit for 120, turn on Enhanced Sync, but then set the refresh rate to 60hz. What ends up happening is the game is rendered at 120fps internally, giving me low input lag, but shown at 60hz on my screen. This gets rid of the "double image" effect of 60fps sprites at 120hz, but still the low input lag of 120fps.

Hope that made sense. And that's what I do on a CRT, the double image effect won't be as pronounced on an LCD unless you have it in a strobing mode to eliminate sample-and-hold blur.

[gray117]

For any app or game I like lock to either 30 or 60 should there be an option... I prefer to keep the extra horsepower available for a more consistent framerate during potential choke points

Freesync/G-Sync eliminates this concern, you're just getting the smoothest possible framerate at all times, so you don't need to lock to anything lower. If you don't have either, it's a valid point to cap framerates on more demanding titles if you want to keep the game as smooth as possible.

I'm kind of confused why you got a 144Hz monitor if you're just keeping it locked to 60Hz at all times though...

I didn't, but also your implied criticism is correct; it's a mess.

Freesync is buggy, g-sync less so, neither last I tried worked great with multiple monitors, and neither are getting into the tv market atm. Also the dumb thing that my kvm won't work with high hz. All dumb messy reasons and tbh I think I'm holding out for a large, affordable, low lag, 4k, 12bpc (/10bpc ok) screen before changing my ways... preferably tear free (however that happens)... but could care less if it goes above 60hz, although I'm sure it will.

Despite being fairly sensitive to the motion difference, there's still some puritanical side to me that sees the rendering of content over 60hz as a waste (be it realtime/pre-rendered)... I'll probably get over it as soon as it's a bit more practical in my personal case

[orange808]

Freesync just landed on mid and high range 120Hz 2018 Samsung tv's.

[BazookaBen]

Freesync just landed on mid and high range 120Hz 2018 Samsung tv's.

Yeah, they can do Fressync with 1440p at 120hz and 4k at 60hz. Hope it leads to more people using HTPC setups

[Xyga]

Did they really? because with the first unit Rtings tested FreeSync simply wasn't there. Maybe they delivered without the proper firmware...
That's the only thing that bugs me as well with FreeSync, it's not as well crafted and properly minded as G-Sync, AMD themselves don't pay much attention after they've authorized use of their branded tech.
Guess the considerable pricing differences explains that, but heh.

[orange808]

Did they really? because with the first unit Rtings tested FreeSync simply wasn't there. Maybe they delivered without the proper firmware...
That's the only thing that bugs me as well with FreeSync, it's not as well crafted and properly minded as G-Sync, AMD themselves don't pay much attention after they've authorized use of their branded tech.
Guess the considerable pricing differences explains that, but heh.

Yes. The first Freesync firmware just landed. There are reports of intermittent brightness variations. I assume that's related to the active dimming zones or a motion resolution technique (scanning or strobing). Samsung will probably get that ironed out.

[Xyga]

Ok I see.

The Q9FN is really a step above the others thanks to it 480Hz PWM in place of the usual 120~240.
Still way behind the Sonys in that area, but the whole package makes it an excellent gaming TV.

Price though...ugh

[bobrocks95]

Ok I see.

The Q9FN is really a step above the others thanks to it 480Hz PWM in place of the usual 120~240.
Still way behind the Sonys in that area, but the whole package makes it an excellent gaming TV.

Price though...ugh

The Q7FN got Freesync as well, so that helps with the cost... But you could still just buy an OLED for the same price.

[Keade]

And as a final note, a good number of games in my Steam library don't support above 60fps, and plenty that do require .ini tweaking or third-party programs, (...).

This cannot be stressed enough, indeed, many games have framerate caps.
3D games always allow you to trade framerate for rendering quality (supersampling/VSR/DSR), but 2D games generally don't, which feels even more like a waste.
Hopefully a few 2D games have uncapped framerate so that scrolling is both extremely smooth and free from motion blur. People always mention 3D games - I think they understate the benefit of high framerates for 2D scrolling on LCD monitors. It really looks great in motion.

thanks. For 3D titles that's of course true. On 99% of the 2D titles, the animation frames have to be locked to the game's fps of course, so they cannot simply interpolate the animation steps per (time-) frame. And it would extremely difficult to get fluid animation at non-integer multiplies of the intended framerate. I'm thinking of games like Shovel Knight or the new Bloodstain: Curse of the Moon at refresh rates other than 60 or 120Hz. Do you have any 2D titles like these and ever tried them at high GPU refresh rates ?

Tried Shovel Knight for you (Freesync disabled, vsync set to "on unless game specifies" in AMD Radeon Settings) : 60Hz is the smoothest. 144Hz is a bit jerky but that is far from not noticeable. 120Hz is near perfect (and have much less than motion blur that 60Hz). 50Hz is smooth but slower than 60Hz (same as PAL games on old consoles). 120Hz is the better choice for this game.

The nice thing with Freesync / G-Sync is that you can set your monitor on the highest refresh rate available, enable vsync and it "just works", whatever the framerate the game wants to run at.

Thanks for this!
A follow-up question on the available standard refresh rates in the GPU control panel (although my Hades Canyon uses an AMD chip instead of a Nvidia one): what about 72 and 96 and 120Hz and their "movie" counterparts (71.928, 95.904 and 119,88Hz) ? Is something like this available and do media players like MPC take advantage of them by using an x:x cadence to to display movie material any smoother than on a 60H output ?

No idea, but most 24fps content is slow and has got some amount of motion blur that makes it harder to distinguish frames one from another, so I never really noticed the benefit that 144Hz is supposed to offer (144 is dividible by 24, which eliminates need for any kind of framerate conversion: just repeat frames).