60 hz VSync -> 100 hz FreeSync- what to expect?

[Vexr]

Tomorrow should be a historic day in my personal PC gaming history when I finally see more than 60 hz. I'll also have adaptive sync for the first time.

I downloaded the G-Sync pendulum demo to test on my current monitor, and to me 60 hz VSync looks silky and unbeatable. Turn off Vsync and/or drop the fps below 60, and it turns into a cringey mess, far more exaggerated than I've seen in real games.

I'm upgrading from a 34" 60 hz IPS ultrawide to a 34" 100 hz VA ultrawide.

 

[Kelt]

Tomorrow should be a historic day in my personal PC gaming history when I finally see more than 60 hz. I'll also have adaptive sync for the first time.

I downloaded the G-Sync pendulum demo to test on my current monitor, and to me 60 hz VSync looks silky and unbeatable. Turn off Vsync and/or drop the fps below 60, and it turns into a cringey mess, far more exaggerated than I've seen in real games.

I'm upgrading from a 34" 60 hz IPS ultrawide to a 34" 100 hz VA ultrawide.

I went from a 16:9 non-VRR 60Hz to a 21:9 Gsync 100Hz and the biggest pluses for me are Ultrawide gaming and Gsync.

These two were every penny of the upgrade.

Without seeing 60 and 100 side by side I'm struggling to see the difference (which I'm sure there is).

 

[Vexr]

I went from a 16:9 non-VRR 60Hz to a 21:9 Gsync 100Hz and the biggest pluses for me are Ultrawide gaming and Gsync.

These two were every penny of the upgrade.

Without seeing 60 and 100 side by side I'm struggling to see the difference (which I'm sure there is).

My big day was a brief one - the monitor has been RMA'd. VRR was a bust, so I'm pretty sure I never got to see what that looked like despite it being activated (monitor refresh rate was all over the place and nowhere near in game fps).

I believe 100 hz was a 'subtle but significant' improvement that I now miss in driving games like GTA V and Forza 4. I thought shooters would benefit more than they did, especially when going wild throwing the mouse around, but that still caused the screen to become quite an unreadable blur that wasn't much different from 60 hz. And no, I didn't have motion blur on

Ultrawide I already had, so wasn't going to see a difference there. Though I have to admit I was impressed with a 1500 curve over my old 1900 curve for gaming, and the QLED VA panel I honestly prefer over my old IPS. Everything just looked that much richer in games. In desktop use the VA panel was subtly inferior, though I think I got used to it rather quickly and could forgive it.

As for another claim that 'even the mouse pointer and moving windows around on a desktop is soo much smoother at high hz' - I noticed nothing.

Fingers crossed the replacement delivers.

 

[Cooper]

Well as someone who is experiencing 144hz and Gysnc for the first time as well over the last couple of days....I'm distinctly underwhelmed by both things, TBH.

Scrolling web pages look smoother, I suppose, but...so what?

Playing Project Cars 2 at 100-120fps felt no smoother to me than 60fps and playing the most stressful game I own, Deus Ex Mankind Divided at 1440p, Ultra settings, drops in frame rates down to the 50's & 40's still felt like 50fps and 40fps on my old monitor...certainly not the revelatory experience many made adaptive sync out to be.

All things considered, these two features were not worth the £600 entry price...but I'm stuck with it now, so best make the most of it.

 

[Vexr]

Since RMAing my defective monitor for one that seems to pull off GSync-compatibility acceptably, I'm slowly but surely warming to GSync/100 hz. Maybe it's just my eyes/brain adjusting to it, but the differences seem to be becoming larger over time compared with the 60 hz/VSync I was used to. The most dramatic game for it has to be the Witcher 3; at 65-85 fps with no VRR it seems to be a tad choppy, albeit in a fast way (if that makes sense). With VRR on, it's just smoothed right out. 75 fps+ also now feels like the new sweet spot for me, where previously I thought 60 fps was the gold standard that guaranteed smoothness.

Playing Project Cars 2 at 100-120fps felt no smoother to me than 60fps and playing the most stressful game I own, Deus Ex Mankind Divided at 1440p, Ultra settings, drops in frame rates down to the 50's & 40's still felt like 50fps and 40fps on my old monitor...certainly not the revelatory experience many made adaptive sync out to be.

Yeah I can't say I'm blown away by synced low FPS in the 40s and 50s. It's an improvement, but it's certainly noticeable the frame rate has dropped that far. I know some have said 30-40 fps became a joy to game on with GSync, but I can't say I share that sentiment. My monitor's FreeSync range means it also changes to LFC mode at 48 fps, and that transition brings flickering. It's not a huge deal if it cross over that threshold once in a blue moon, but if the game is consistently hovering around 45-52 fps, it's bad news indeed.

One thing I really like is just having a decent range for frame rate. At 60 hz VSynced the target was always 60 fps while trying to make sure it never went below that. Drops to 55 fps I usually found acceptable, but once it got to 50 fps it started getting a bit unpleasant on the eyes. Turning down settings to reduce these drops means losing image quality, and that was a tad annoying in games where 80%+ of the time the GPU was capable of running at 60 fps at higher settings. With a 100 hz monitor, those same settings mean I'm getting 75 fps+ on the same games 80%+ of the time, so GPU power isn't being wasted anymore

Borderless Windowed is certainly problematic in at least half the games I've tested with GSync on unfortunately, meaning having to switch over to exclusive full screen. I find it's been worth the trade off though. In the end it's early days still of course while getting to grips with this new technology, but things look hopeful.