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How to approach frame gen + monitor refresh caps?

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

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Hey there - I think everybody already knows that using AI frame gen (FG) has potential artefact and latency trade-offs, which isn’t the point of the thread but summarising that quickly to get it out of the way:

- FG works best when the starting fps (with FG off) is above 100fps. Most reviewers suggest FPS should be at least 60-80 before turning FG on to avoid it being a horrid experience.

- FG isn’t a solution to solving the various issues associated low (sub-60) FPS. If starting FPS without FG is low, it’ll still feel sluggish with FG turned on (possibly even slightly more sluggish).

- FG may introduce artefacts in games that are very fast or that resolve a lot of very fine detail. Multi frame gen (MFG) at x3 / x4 may introduce more artefacts than basic FG x2. It’ll be down to personal preference / sensitivity as to whether the increase in FPS is worth these artefacts. If you find yourself ‘deliberately looking for issues’ you will probably find them, but that’s a bit different than ‘noticing them when playing games’.

- FG uses DLSS, so your starting point for raw frames ought to factor than in. There will also be a minor additional FPS hit so x2 FG will be a little lower then your ‘non FG but DLSS on’ frame-rate.

Phew!

Now, the purpose of the thread. I’m uncertain: what’s the best way of trying to ensure that your MFG rate is sitting underneath your monitor’s refresh rate? Or is this not ‘a thing’?

For example, if I had a 240hz monitor, I’d be curious to experience games at 230fps with MFG on. If my starting FPS with DLSS already on is, say, 90fps, then this seems a little annoying… either I can go to 170-180fps with FG x2 which leaves a lot of headroom or I’d overshoot the monitor cap with x3.

In which case, I’d want my starting DLSS FPS to be around 80. Obviously, I won’t be able to sort this via Nvidia control panel… or would I?

I can’t figure out if the solution is as simple as setting a 236ish fps cap in NVCP, enabling g-sync (plus V-sync always on in NVCP but disabled in game, in the usual recommended way) and letting the MFG figure it out.

A related point: I’ve heard people mentioning Nvidia reflex, how does this tie in with these issues?

All input / insight appreciated. Thanks :)
 
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From my testing it seems to scale by itself.

I have a 120Hz screen. If I cap it to 30FPS in game, and then use FGx2 to double that to 60 it uses ~55% of my GPU.
If I uncap the FPS limiter in game set it to FGx4 it outputs at 120fps and uses ~55% of my GPU.

So that says to me if it detects 120 is the max it'll render at max/4 and generate the rest.
 
Ascendancy said:
From my testing it seems to scale by itself.

I have a 120Hz screen. If I cap it to 30FPS in game, and then use FGx2 to double that to 60 it uses ~55% of my GPU.
If I uncap the FPS limiter in game set it to FGx4 it outputs at 120fps and uses ~55% of my GPU.

So that says to me if it detects 120 is the max it'll render at max/4 and generate the rest.
Click to expand...

Interesting, thanks.

Sorry to ask but are you also using g-sync / the ‘usual vertical sync always on’ settings?
 
Since I've received my 5080 I'm also wondering what's the best way to manage it. My monitor refresh rate is 120hz and ideally I wouldn't want to go above 116fps to stay within range of Gsync/Freesync.
 
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Chewie said:
Since I've received my 5080 I'm also wondering what's the best way to manage it. My monitor refresh rate is 120hz and ideally I wouldn't want to go above 116fps to stay within range of Gsync/Freesync.
Click to expand...

I'd suggest that MFG is mostly useless to you then really. Using it means base framerate <58, which isn't an ideal start point.. I'd rather just turn a setting down and have 80+ real frames than have to try and gimp the base framerate lower just to utilise frame gen to get a "116-but-not-really"

Though who knows, maybe test and see what feels best - maybe it feels fine for you at sub-60 base frames to use FG and provides a better experience that way (like, some people probably won't really notice/mind).
 
Maybe they meant that if you’re at 85fps base, it’ll multiply up to 235fps or so using x3 MFG.

There is a slight penalty from using MFG so if x3 (or whatever) of your base figure will slightly overshoot your monitor cap, it will end up slightly beneath.

… that’s the only way that I can make sense of the suggestion anyway :p
 
Howling said:
I'd suggest that MFG is mostly useless to you then really. Using it means base framerate <58, which isn't an ideal start point.. I'd rather just turn a setting down and have 80+ real frames than have to try and gimp the base framerate lower just to utilise frame gen to get a "116-but-not-really"

Though who knows, maybe test and see what feels best - maybe it feels fine for you at sub-60 base frames to use FG and provides a better experience that way (like, some people probably won't really notice/mind).
Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing so far. Still running my games maxed out though but when needed I just drop DLSS from "Quality" to either "Balanced" or "Performance" depending on the game.
Thanks to DLSS 4 and the new Transformer model (I have it enforced for all games manually) I'm not really noticing any loss of image quality and I can easily get a big boost in performances.

Was still wondering if there was a way to manage things with frame gen but in my experiments so far it's not worth it. As you mentioned, and I've tried it, limiting in-game fps to like 56-58fps and then applying frame gen definitely gives a worse experience then just running the game without frame gen at 80-90fps.

The only case I've found so far where running frame gen feels so good, even with letting it producing way more fps than my monitor 120Hz refresh rate, is Cyberpunk. When using just the "normal" frame gen (what they call MFG x2 now in the world of DLSS 4) the implementation works extremely well.
The added smoothness by displaying 140-160fps feels incredible, there are no obvious/horrible visual artefacts and the added latency is very minimal. I also can't see any obvious tearing, even though I should as I'm clearly and consistently above my monitor refresh rate. No idea how it is all working so well but it just does :cool:
 
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really they need to have a feature that allows you to set a base FPS that's greater than half the max refresh rate and frame generation makes up the difference up to your max refresh rate. it would mean you had the lower latency of a higher base FPS and able to take full advantage of your monitor's max refresh rate
 
That would be ideal yes, but probably not something easy to implement. Maybe for DLSS 5 or DLSS 6 :D
 
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